Stephen Rea stars in David Ireland's original and eerie drama; also reviewed: Idina Menzel in Joshua Harmon's new play "Skintight"
David Ireland’s new play “Cyprus Avenue,” starring the great Irish actor Stephen Rea (“The Crying Game”), asks a set of timely questions: Why do violent nationalist ideologies persist in a globalist age? And what happens to the most dogged ideologues when the rest of the culture decides, as has happened in Ireland and Northern Ireland in recent decades, that peace is vastly preferable to war?
These are heady and potentially pretentious themes but the marvel of “Cyprus Avenue” — which originated at Dublin’s Abbey Theatre and London’s Royal Court Theatre, and is now having its U.S. premiere at the Public Theater in New York — is that it folds these Big Questions into a wonderfully macabre, gruesomely funny thriller that’s one part Stephen King, two parts Kafka. Rea’s Eric Miller, a Belfast Unionist still boiling over with contempt for his Catholic neighbors, becomes convinced that his infant granddaughter is actually an incarnation of Sinn Fein leader Gerry Adams. And nothing — least of all the pleadings of his wife (Andrea Irvine) and daughter (Amy Molloy) — seems to dissuade Eric that this little baby must pay for the sins of the Irish Troubles.
Everything about this taut, transfixing production — directed by Vicky Featherstone — works to create an atmosphere of eerie claustrophobia and escalating anxiety. (Lizzie Clachan’s spare set design, white until it starts bleeding red, is particularly impressive.) Is it a dream we’re watching? Are we trapped inside Eric head — as the appearance of a Tyler Durden-esque figure played splendidly by Chris Corrigan would imply?
Onstage for the entire 105-minute running time, Rea hints at these tantalizing possibilities, and many others, as he anatomizes a man so eaten up by misplaced rage that he’s now altogether hollowed out. It’s a world-class performance in one of the most original and unexpected plays I’ve seen this decade.
Cyprus Avenue. The Public Theater, 425 Lafayette St, New York.
Tickets from $ 80, available at www.publictheater.org. Through July 29.
Also playing off-Broadway:
Skintight
Considerably less ambitious, but worthwhile in its own modest ways, Joshua Harmon’s “Skintight” (directed by Daniel Aukin) takes its inspiration from, of all things, the tabloid fodder of Calvin Klein’s romance with model and porn performer Nick Gruber. In Harmon’s version, the 70-year-old fashion magnate Elliot Isaac (Jack Wetherall) has fallen for 20-year-old Trey (Will Brittain) and moved him into his West Village townhouse, much to the bewilderment of Elliot’s recently divorced daughter Jodi (Idina Menzel) and 20-year-old grandson Benjamin (Eli Gelb). Who is also gay. And who is equally as transfixed as his grandfather by the himbo splendors of Trey (especially when Trey struts around the townhouse in an Elliot Isaac designer jockstrap).
Eli Gelb and Will Brittain star in Joshua Harmon’s “Skintight,” now playing off-Broadway (Photo by Joan Marcus) Harmon, who previously wrote “Bad Jews” and “Significant Other,” specializes in a certain brand of prickly comedy-drama that asks us to sympathize with the petty insecurities of people who are billboards for the concept of “First World Problems.” Yet even if you sometimes want to slap his characters — and even if “Skintight” doesn’t dig nearly so deep as the wonderful “Significant Other” — Harmon manages to make them human and relatable. Powered by a terrific ensemble (Brittain, new to the New York stage, is a real find), the show ends up being a surprisingly thoughtful consideration of matters of love versus lust, and brains versus beauty.
Skintight. Roundabout Theatre Company, 111 West 46th Street, New York.
Tickets: $ 199; available at www.roundabouttheatre.org. Through August 26.
Christopher Kelly may be reached at ckelly@njadvancemedia.com. Follow him on Twitter @chriskelly74. Find NJ.com/Entertainment on Facebook.