“The Mountains Look Different,”
But a Great Play Remains Timeless
By Tony Vellela
“Bless us and save us” was the familiar warm-up that kicked off every junior high school history class, second period, conducted by the redoubtable Miss Haggerty. What made her familiar greeting so comforting each time she said it, five days a week, was its undeniable authenticity, the slight echo of her Irish brogue creeping in between phrase one and phrase two. And it was that same familiar plea to heaven that marks the authenticity of “The Mountains Look Different,” Micheal mac Lianmoir’s minor classic, penned seventy-two years ago. At the start of the Mint Theatre’s new season; it first welcomed audiences to share in their unique mission of reviving mostly forgotten work from the last nine decades. This play takes place on the modest farm of the middle-aged Martin Graelish, in rural Ireland, a fact that, on its surface, also appears to be decidedly unremarkable.
That the story line now lays itself out in predictable fashion may cause some theatre-goers to wonder why the Mint selected it to kick off another successful season of reviving mostly overlooked semi-classics from the mid-century point of the 1900’s. “The Mountains Look Different” fits that criterion perfectly.
Key to enjoying its special features at the start of this, our new century, will be to remember what that world, and in particular any small Catholic Irish farm village, considered sacrosanct, unquestionable, moral. Revisit the place and the era – think of it as a vacation into a past you never knew. So when well-to-do London miller Matthew Conroy, [the memorably understated Con Horgan] seems to wander into this poorly-kept front yard at the rear of a thatched-roof cottage, sustaining just the appropriately seedy-enough side of shabby by the talented set designer Vicki R. Davis. When he utters “bless us and save us,” his speech pattern, and his surprise at the state of the place, provide all the openings needed to join the events about to unfold on this St. John’s Eve and the morning that follows.
Conroy is there to locate and exchange seemingly modest current events conversation with his distant relative Tom, who has been overseeing the crops-growing and sheep-tending for the bygone decades. What the nattily-attired Conroy [played with the learned reserve picked up from a life in the metropolis] did not anticipate upon his unexpected arrival, was the discovery that young-ish Tom [mid thirties] has only recently taken as his comely wife, the agreeably attractive Bairbre, also native born, and only now seeking to settle down in the place of her family’s roots. When she left thirteen years ago, her understandable reason was to explore the world beyond the farmland and livestock grazing, to see what the rest of the world had to offer to a young girl blessed with enough courage to explore, and enough savings to keep her alive for a year or maybe two, until her wild oats had been stripped clean, if not in grand style, at least in the manner she envisioned in her modest fantasies.
When Bairbre discovers that the decent young chap, Tom Graelish, who happens to wander in on a regular-enough café, is also a native son of their mutual homestead on the Irish west coast, they bond in sweet storybook fashion, vowing celibacy until the union can be blessed. And it is strong enough to give each other reason enough to consider coupling and returning home. It is a feat that gives them both a solid, purposeful excuse for their decision to return, carrying with them the wedding vows plans, to begin a life together anew, him having had his taste of the London high life, and her having more than enough time to lose her distaste for the rural life she ran away from.
St. John’s Eve is a locally-celebrated holy day marked by the town’s grand annual bonfire, welcoming in the new season of crops-planting and sheep-herding. That Tom’s spare income from what the farm yields offers little in the way of prosperous living is not much in the way of luxury. However it does give Bairbre the hope for a God-fearing, home-loving future with family and friends, neighbors who lend and borrow at will, and an open sharing of what they have with whomever clearly has need of it.
It is more than a pastoral visit that Conroy has in mind. He discovers that Tom has been sharing his digs with a father who carries both an agreeable public persona and a dark inner secret that keeps him at bay from most of those around him. Conroy has decided to leave all claims he has to the place and its surrounding land, meaning what value there is in the farm and its holdings, to his nephew Tom, and it is the revelation of the elder Groelish’s secret that erupts all the surface cordiality and turns it into the most complex set of issues that defy simplistic definition.
Yes, the woman who left more than a dozen years ago was more than a waitress. Yes, the hard-drinking paternal ‘head’ of this meager household cannot keep his prejudices from sinking the lives of those he professes to love. A death that looks like an accident, then maybe a suicide is revealed to be a murder, possibly at the hands of the feeble-minded helper Bartley, who is presented as the least likely assailant. And yes, every one of these characters, so easily pigeon-holed due to a long-ago transgression from their past, faces a future far more shattering than they ever expected – a future built on the vision of a fresh start joined together with a surprise legacy.
How does all this add it? It adds up to one of the most popular dramas of its day, a distinction it still holds today. “The Mountains Look Different” brings back to Broadway the solid, heart-wrenching story-telling that is so often overshadowed by juke box musicals and weak adaptations of motion pictures with household-familiar titles and neat-as-a-pin altered endings.
This time, give yourself the kind of theatrical experience you always hoped would unfold when that curtain goes up for the first time. Give yourself an escape from what’s going down on the street outside, courtesy of the steady, un-showy sure instincts and skills of director Aidan Redmond. Give yourself not a single reason to criticize any performance from this sharp ensemble of steady, un-sentimentalized actors. Give yourself a great play.
AfterPlay
Chicago is on fire again, but this time, the source is the Steppenwolf theatre, where the Pulitzer Prize finalist “Minutes” recently completed a new Tracy Letts offering. Fresh off his starring role on Broadway, in ‘All My Sons,’ Letts is now tending to whatever modifications may be needed to “Minutes” before Broadway gets another opportunity to witness the genius of Letts, author [”August: Osage County”] and actor [“Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?”]. This newest piece will encompass an eleven-person company, set for its New York premiere next February. Set inside the workings of an average town’s City Council, the story line does not mean to suggest answers to today’s political questions. In the words of the playwright “it is about this contentious moment we’re having in American politics.” . . . inspired by novelist E.M.Forester’s play of the same title, “The Inheritance” copped this season’s Olivier Award as Best Play. No casting choices have been publicly announced. It will be helmed by director Stephen Daldry, and scheduled to open its Sept. 27 preview period at the Ethel Barrymore Theatre, followed by its American legit premiere on November 17. The ambitious, much-lauded work is performed during more than six hours, over a two-day period. . . . Quick! Find a friend to join you, to see “The Prom,” which will end its Broadway run at the Longacre Theatre on August 11. A national tour may give you your chance to attend the prom after all . . . partnerships, like love affairs, are almost always the product of some random, unplanned encounter. Take “Hamilton,” if you can get in. The downtown theatre group Freestyle Love Supreme, founded in 2003, can lay claim to being a matchmaker linking Lin-Manuel Miranda [playwright & composer, “Hamilton,”] and Anthony Veneziale, co-founder of Freestyle, which specializes in improv skills development and other theatre topics. Alumnus Thomas Kail, eventual director of the musical bonanza, also passed through its portals. Its school, the Freestyle Love Supreme Academy, accepts a modest number of new students each season to work with, including the above-mentioned, Ars Nova founders Jenny and Jon Steingart, and “Hamilton” co-producer Jill Furman. It’s one of the best places to go if you ‘…wanna be in the room where it happens.’ . . . And at last, Bob Dylan will have a presence on the GWW, when “Girl from the North Country,” built using Dylan music and fashioned around a Depression-era tale of struggle and survival. The work of fiction will perform in two parts, starting on February 7 at the Belasco. The times, they are a changin’.
On Book / AfterPlay
If the news that Marisa Tomei will head a revival cast of Tennessee Williams’ classic “The Rose Tattoo” this fall prompts you to explore a little more deeply the play and its cousins, you can pick up the playscript copy from Dramatists Play Service, or increase your Williams enjoyment with various collections that include that play, collections such as “Three by Tennessee,” a Signet Classic paperback that also offers “Sweet Bird of Youth” and “The Night of the Iguana.” Real-life true tales of what went into the original casting process for “Rose” unfold in two autobiographies from original cast members: Maureen Stapleton’s autobiography [very chatty, very pleasurable reading] “A Hell of a Life,” written with assistance from Jane Scovell, as well as “The Good, the Bad and Me,” Eli Wallach’s extensive, behind-the-scenes autobiography from Eli Wallach, from Harvest Books. . . .
Eli’s frustration at being called back for several more auditions shines through as a [sadly] typical audition process, while his book, like Maureen’s delves into so many anecdotes and historical origins that you may want to set aside a generous block of time to sweep through their pages . . .given the masterful methods playwright Micheal mac Liammoir employs to inter-weave the big issues inside the small lives in “Mountains,” it might open a whole new world of theatre to you, to become familiar with some other great Irish plays, old and new, famous and obscure. Here listed with their authors are eight from among scores of titles to dive into – please note: most are found in collections instead of single copies, which will give you even greater insight into this vibrant land of outstanding, moving dramaturgy, giving light to the most relevant yet timeless topics they include, such as father/son relationships/ country/city living/ prostitution/ redemption, forgiveness, and how we all have personal views on what something [or a relationship with someone] is truly worth.
“Beauty Queen of Leanne” = Martin McDonagh
“Howie the Rookie” = Mark O’Rowe
“Dancing at Lughnessa” = Brian Friel
“Playboy of the Western World” = John Millington Synge
“Once” = Enda Walsh
“Trade” = Mark O’Halloran
“The Plough and the Stars” = Sean O’Casey
“The Importance of Being Earnest” = Oscar Wilde
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TONY VELLELA is a playwright, performing arts journalist, theatre critic, and theatre arts teacher. His working sessions are limited to eight students. His work includes “Admissions,” winner of the Best Play category in 2001 at the New York International Theatre Festival, performed three times in New York under the direction of Austin Pendleton, and published by Playscripts; other theatre work includes “Maisie and Grover Go to the Theatre,” published by ArtAge Publishing, plus several other plays and musicals. They include “Mister,” the musical written for Anthony Rapp; “Aunts in Bed,” and others; he has written three books, as well as performing arts feature articles and reviews, which have been featured in Parade, Rolling Stone, the Robb Report,” Dramatics magazine, the Girl Scouts magazine, Pageant, The Christian Science Monitor, among many others, and included in The Whole Earth Catalog. His small-class learning sessions, limited to no more than eight students at one time, are conducted from his home in Manhattan. He is a member of the Writers Guild [East], the Mystery Writers of America and the Dramatists Play Service. He has also taught at Columbia University’s Education Department and at HB Studios in New York.
CARMEL CAR & LIMOUSINE SERVICE, in business since 1978, has been selected as Intermission Talk’s official transportation company. Its wide variety of services, including special theatre packages, and reservations, are available at www.carmellimo.com, the Carmel App, or at 212 – 666 – 6666.
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BOOKS recommended or referenced in Intermission Talk are available through the Drama Book Shop, the Tony Award-winning choice to secure any publication about theatre. Currently undergoing renovation at its 250 west 40th street site, the staff can be reached via 212 – 944 – 0595, or at www.dramabookshop.com. When renovation or relocation plans have been completed, details can be found on its website, along with the taking of orders to be fulfilled when the new space is up and functioning.