published on in blog

The Weir

Theater has deep roots in storytelling, so it's inspiring to find that the simple magic of spinning tales is alive and thriving in the work of the talented young Irish writer Conor McPherson. But it doesn't necessarily follow that his Olivier award-winning London hit "The Weir" will thrive on Broadway.

Theater has deep roots in storytelling, so it’s inspiring to find that the simple magic of spinning tales is alive and thriving in the work of the talented young Irish writer Conor McPherson. But it doesn’t necessarily follow that his Olivier award-winning London hit “The Weir” will thrive on Broadway. There was some mystified grumbling among exiting patrons following a preview of McPherson’s haunting, insinuatingly spellbinding play, indicating that this exquisite production from the Royal Court Theater may have an uphill battle before it in trying to woo 950 patrons a night with its quiet graces. It may prove hard to keep today’s sensation-fed audiences attuned to the subtle pleasures of “The Weir.”

Related Stories

Illustration of a TV set with a desert scene with a tumbleweed blowing across the screen VIP+

Fall Season’s Scripted Reduction Bodes Badly for Broadcast TV

Margo Martindale. Photo Credit: Michael Becker

JonBenét Ramsey Series at Paramount+ Casts Margo Martindale

The play’s setting is a dingy local pub in an Irish backwater town, a room realized with sad and comic verisimilitude by designer Rae Smith. An underused dart board can be glimpsed in a gloomy corner; dusty old photos of local historical interest hang limply on the walls. The only objects that glint with life are the taps dispensing the local waters: Harp and Guinness.

Popular on Variety

Well, Harp anyway. As the play opens, constant patron Jack (Jim Norton) is disgusted to learn that the Guinness tap is out of order — a bottle will have to do, or rather several bottles. Also inspiring Jack’s eloquent Irish scorn is the imminent arrival of a less frequent customer of the bar, Finbar (Dermot Crowley), a local man who abandoned the sleepy rural environs to make his fortune in the nearest town. A sometime real estate broker, he’s squiring around a young woman who’s purchased a house in the neighborhood, and is expected to drop in for a wee drink to show her off.

Just as curious about this rare female creature are Jim (Kieran Ahern), the bar’s only other regular, and Brendan (Brendan Coyle), its proprietor. Everything in this trio’s casual banter about the mildly despised Finbar bespeaks lonely lives limited by circumstance (Jim’s ailing mother, Brendan’s attachment to his family land), hopes and ambitions dulled by the solace of drink and the familiar pleasures of each other’s company. They resent Finbar for his (minor) success in town as much as for his having found himself a wife, although they wouldn’t care to admit it.

McPherson has a flawless ear for naturally poetic language that brings out the quiet truth of characters without recourse to revelatory speechifying. Indeed the silences in “The Weir” are as telling as the dialogue. Under Ian Rickson’s impeccable direction, marked by a rare humility and grace, the marvelous cast gives a master class in the art of the pensive stare and the bemused silence, although they’re just as adept (the spry Norton in particular) at rolling out McPherson’s nuggets of sly Irish wit. This is unadorned, naturalistic acting of the highest order.

The centerpiece of the play is a series of monologues in which the men recount tales of supernatural experience that are juicy reminders of the enduring pleasures of the grand old ghost story. Jack tells of the fairies that once haunted the house that Finbar’s client Valerie (Michelle Fairley) has bought; Finbar recalls a family who moved away after a strange incident in which the spirit of a newly dead woman appeared before a young girl; Jim remembers a still more disturbing encounter with what may have been the ghost of a child molester.

Although one could perhaps do without the spooky whistling wind that rises as Jack begins the first story, Paule Constable’s gently shifting, crepuscular lighting adds a shiver of atmosphere to the stories, and the actors, by their very naturalness, bring an unsettling truth to them. More haunting than the tales themselves is an unspoken irony: the contrast between the ghosts, who ceaselessly cleave to life, and the denizens of the bar, who have not found the courage — or simply the occasion — to fully embrace it.

But they get a chance when Finbar’s guest shares her story — an account of her own, devastatingly sad experience of a communication from beyond the grave. The tale awakens in the men a dormant empathy that brings from each a hesitantly expressed desire to comfort a woman whose tragedy dwarfs their own muted unhappinesses. It also brings out the best in this astonishing group of actors, who turn the play’s emotional climax into a tremendously moving picture of the intimacy that shared grief can bring about.

Indeed “The Weir’s” subject is intimacy, the unspoken, sacred feeling that binds old friends and can flow suddenly between new ones. Despite the immeasurable talents of the fine actors onstage, that intimacy is hard to put across in a Broadway house, even a relatively small one like the Walter Kerr. And if the audience doesn’t feel connected to these characters, the gentle ebb and flow of “The Weir,” which unfolds in one two-hour act in real time, may well come across as static and untheatrical (and attenuated).

The characters onstage listen to each other with acute attention that is beautifully rewarded when their tamped-down, unprepossessing hearts find release and succor in a moment of deep sympathy with a stranger. The question is, will Broadway theatergoers have the heart to do the same?

Jump to Comments

The Weir

Walter Kerr Theate, N.Y.; 947 seats; $60 top

  • Production: A Thomas Viertel, Richard Frankel, Steven Baruch, Marc Routh, Jujamcyn Theaters, Manhattan Theater Club and Turnstyle/Ambassador Theater Group presentation of the Royal Court Theater production of a play in one act by Conor McPherson. Directed by Ian Rickson.
  • Crew: Sets and costumes, Rae Smith. Lighting, Paule Constable; sound, Paul Arditti; production stage manager, Brian Meister. Opened April 1, 1999. Reviewed March 30. Running time: 1 HOUR, 55 MIN.
  • Cast: Jack - Jim Norton Brendan - Brendan Coyle Jim - Kieran Ahern Finbar - Dermot Crowley Valerie - Michelle Fairley

More from Variety

Most Popular

Must Read

Sign Up for Variety Newsletters

By providing your information, you agree to our Terms of Use and our Privacy Policy.We use vendors that may also process your information to help provide our services. // This site is protected by reCAPTCHA Enterprise and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.

Variety Confidential

A Variety and iHeartRadio Podcast

ncG1vNJzZmiukae2psDYZ5qopV9mhnqFjqWcoKGkZL%2BmwsierqxnpJ2ybsPEoqlma11mf3F8k25ubHFjZA%3D%3D