October 24 – Day 48: Why Are These Irish Plays Always So Damn Long?

Another day of not a helluva lot, even though I did things.

Before Pidge arrived, I bought a ticket for The Ferryman. I wasn’t sure if she was planning on doing anything on the 17^th, so I avoided buying a seat for that day and opted for the 24^th. As it turns out, she had a ticket for the 17^th, so we could have gone on the same day, even if we weren’t seated together.

The play is one of those prestige imports from London that won a lot of awards over there, so it must be good, right? I’ve been burned with that play before (the most immediate example was the horrid The History Boys, which managed to combine treacly nostalgia with self-congratulatory smugness is a most unpleasant way—not to mention inflicting James Corden on us …), but the advance word was good, so I figured I’d give it a try.

To be honest, feeling the way I did, about the last thing I wanted to do was sit through a three-hour epic, but I’d already pulled the trigger, so I didn’t have much choice if I didn’t want to eat the price of the ticket.

I got off to a slightly-late start, which actually concerned me because the matinee curtain was 1:00, rather than the usual 2:00 or 3:00, so my time to get to the theatre was limited. I have a feeling that the early curtain is due to the length of the play and some kind of union regulation about making sure the actors have a proper break between shows. (Although, now that I think about it, other long plays that I’ve seen recently—like Oslo—started at the usual time, so it could just be a quirk of this company.) I had also gotten an email that stated (in so many words) that “this play starts on time and latecomers will not be seated.” With all of that in mind, I hastened to the R and was met with a train that came to a stop twice on its journey. I seemed to have plenty of time, but you never know. The directions in my travel app told me to get off on 49^th, but since the theatre is on 45^th, it seemed to make more sense to me to get off at 42^nd.

 Thanks, "Walter McBride." I forgot to take a photo of the marquee myself.

I got off the train at about 12:50, made my way to 44^th, and cut through Shubert Alley (walking by the Shubert Theatre, which is plastered with posters for their upcoming production of To Kill a Mockingbird, adapted by Aaron Sorkin and starring Jeff Daniels—a grislier proposition is hard to imagine) and saw a huge line in front of me. I nurtured hopes that it might be for American Son at the Booth, but it was too early for that. I got in the line, which did not move—by which I mean, it wasn’t just moving slowly, it wasn’t moving at all—which made no sense, seeing how close we were to curtain. After a few moments of stasis, I decided to see if it was indeed the line for The Ferryman (it was) and if there was an alternative line I could use for will-call.

I got to the lobby entrance and there was, indeed, a much-shorter line that no one was using (despite the usher calling out “There are two lines!”). Since I didn’t have a bag to be inspected, I got right through, headed to the box office, picked up my ticket, and went in.

My seat was next to the sound booth, so I had a good view of the stage, in spite of how surprisingly dark the house was. Whether that’s intentional, given the mood of the show, I have no idea. What was most arresting was the two actors on stage the entire time, standing in front of a “brick wall.” One was “reading a newspaper,” the other was smoking and nursing a beer. I admire their ability to do that eight times a week. I know the prospect of standing there for a half-hour, not reacting to anything in the house, would be a challenge for me.

The show (unsurprisingly) started a little late, despite the advance warning (and latecomers were indeed seated), and once I got past the hurdle of the Irish accents, proceeded apace. I don’t know if it’s a three-act play or two acts with the second act having two long scenes, but each scene runs about an hour, which makes the intermission scheme puzzling. There’s a 15-minute break between Act One and Act Two, but only a three-minute pause between Acts Two and Three, which makes for a long second half—nearly two hours.

While I enjoyed it overall, it did seem too long, ultimately, although some of what seemed like filler may just have been necessary to cement the plot and (dare I say it?) mise en scene into place. I think Pidge described it best as a kind of amalgam of Brian Friel, Martin McDonagh, and Conor McPherson. As good as it was—and it was—I don’t think it’s the greatest thing since sliced bread the way Ben Brantley raved about it in the Times (but, then, I rarely agree with Ben, and certainly don’t share his Anglophilia when I comes to theatre). Actually, probably the most exciting thing about the day for me was the big-ass live goose in the show and getting up at intermission and seeing Gabriel Byrne two rows in back of me in the standing-room section.

Once the show was over (about 4:20), I had about an hour to kill before I needed to get to my own theatre, so I’d planned on hitting the Drama Book Shop (which I later found out may be moving; at the very least, it won’t be at its current location after the first of the year) and buying the script to The Ferryman (so I could read what I missed with the dialects), followed by climbing the steep stairs at Midtown Comics to see what had come in.

While I could have walked up to the theatre, I still wasn’t feeling up to it. (I was much better, though; almost no coughing and very little congestion.) So even though it was really only about 19 blocks to the theatre, I took the W to 59^th and 5^th, then walked the remainder of the way, stopping for a tea at Starbucks and an apple at Duane Reade. Even with that, I was still at the theatre at about 5:15. I sat in the lobby a little while, then finally went down to the dressing room, which was open, if dark.

I was alone for about 40 minutes or so, which was actually fine, since I didn’t feel much like talking. Trish eventually came in, followed by Dared and GG, and everyone chatted a bit. My voice felt okay, but I didn’t want to take any chances.

As always happens, showtime came sooner than expected, so upstairs I went and, also as always, couldn’t believe we were already into the show. The performance itself went pretty well. I felt good, and we had a good pace to things. It was an interesting audience, in that they weren’t as reactive as some, but not as quiet as others; there were a lot of chuckles and what I’ll call grunts of recognition, so they were with us, just not in a really loud way. I had a friend in the house, so I was aware of her, but what I didn’t know until well after the performance was that we had not just an old friend of Vonnegut’s, but his daughter, as well. While I don’t think any of the cast met them, they were very complimentary, which outweighs all the (frankly) poor reviews we’ve gotten from patrons online. If the right people are getting it in the right way, that’s really all that matters.

After the show, in spite of the World Series game (or maybe because of the way it was going), I had a drink in the bar with my friend, then we both hopped on the 6 to go home; she to Brooklyn, me to 7^th Street. I stopped at Sunny and Annie’s for another roast beef sandwich (which was much better than the time, given that I hadn’t had a zinc lozenge beforehand) and watched the remainder of the game.

I wanted to turn in early because of my plans to see Diane Wiest do Beckett in the middle of Madison Square Park on Thursday morning.