QUIETLY


At first all starts out “Quietly,” as the title of the play by Owen McCafferty says. Robert (Robert Zawadzki) is tending bar at a typical pub in Belfast, Ireland, where the play is set. Jimmy (Patrick O’Kane) enters and is served a pint as he awaits an arrival for an intended meeting. But don’t be fooled. By the end of this intermission-less 75 minute drama, an Abbey Theatre production presented by the Irish Repertory Theatre in association with The Public Theater, emotions will have exploded against a back story of Irish history, deftly revealed under the intense direction by Jimmy Fay.

O’Kane as Jimmy, through actions and angry comments, is clearly a human time-bomb of emotions ready to explode at any moment. His barely suppressed fury is evident. We wonder for whom he is awaiting and why. There is conversation between him and Robert about the soccer game they are watching on the television screen that we do not see, and there is talk about a past match. Robert is of Polish origin and is rooting for the Polish team against the British players.

The suspense builds as stoic Declan Conlon playing the mysterious Ian arrives and we see the palpable tension between him and Jimmy. There is a quick initial burst of violence as Jimmy head-butts Ian, who does not attempt to retaliate. The play settles into verbal confrontations between the two men, while the bartender quietly looks on without interjecting himself.

What is the story between Jimmy and Ian? Why the hostility? What happened to fuel the gulf between them?

It would be a spoiler to say more, as step by step we get the information going back to troubled Protestant-Catholic battles of 1974 and come to understand what is motivating these two men, Jimmy driven by anger, Ian standing in mostly in poised control of himself for the mission he is on in this planned meeting.

The skill of the writing, the acting and the direction combine to mesmerize the audience in the relatively brief time span. By the end, one is ready to applaud what has emerged as a riveting theater experience and food for thought about past events that may remind one of unrelated happenings going on now elsewhere in the world. At the Irish Repertory Theatre, 132 West 22nd Street. Phone: 212-727-2737. Reviewed July 29, 2016.




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