Family Ties: Acting Highlights 'Red Roses'

A funeral is an odd blend of joy and sadness. Relatives separated by miles and years ecstatically renew their old affection, only to guiltily remember, at intervals, the solemn event that reunites them. This awkward dichotomy is captured, with humor, by Joseph O'Connor's play Red Roses and Petrol and the Sugan Theatre Company.

O'Connor, elder brother of singer Sinead, is a writer of some renown in his native Ireland. His first novel was short-listed for the Whitbread Prize, and a collection of his journalism was an Irish bestseller for three months. His published work encompasses everything from biography to travel writing. Red Roses and Petrol, his first play, centers on the death of Enda (Brian Scally), patriarch of a small clan, which reunites his scattered family for two maudlin days. His widow Moya (Sarah deLima) and his daughter Medbh (Eileen Nugent), coping with his sudden absence from the house, are joined in mourning by eldest daughter Catherine (Irene Daly), who files in from New York toting Tom (Ciaran Crawford), her fiance. Even aloof son Johnny (Aidan Parkinson) deigns to venture in from London to make an appearance.

The family initially delights in its reunion, but sibling revelry quickly degenerates into sibling rivalry. Even remembrances of Enda, fueled by the discovery of his autobiographical video-tapes, assume a nasty edge. His emotional distance from his offspring and his long-ago affair still haunt his family. Catherine secretly informs the guests at Enda's funeral that the family would prefer privacy to the customary stream of visitors and after the funeral the tense family, waiting for mourners who've gone pubbing with Godot, is left alone with its festering resentments.

Potent, visible chemistry connects the three siblings. Glances and nudges and punches in the arm, even amidst quarrels, underscore the childhood bond that still connects Enda's children. Daly gives a credible portrayal of Catherine as a daughter who fled as far as possible from a miserable childhood.

Nugent is even better as the daughter who stayed home; regrettably, her part is a small one. After a promising first scene, she is largely banished to nursing a beer on the side of the stage. O'Connor gives her only enough dialogue about her intriguing romantic troubles to tantalize, and Nugent's prodigious talent is expressed almost entirely by the occasional wisecrack and by baleful glances smoldering with reproach directed toward her brother and sister.

But it is Aidan Parkinson's charismatic, spellbinding Johnny who walks away with the play. True, Johnny is given most of the better bits in the play--the zingy one-liners, the outrageous insults, the outlandish questions--but he serves them up with relish. He embarrasses his sisters, he mocks Tom to his face, he mistakes his father's ashes for cocaine, yet underneath he is surprisingly compassionate and level-headed. The family grudgingly, silently loves him best, and Parkinson's charm makes it easy to understand why.

Parkinson radiates a rare degree of stage presence--during one of Moya's frequent reveries about her late husband, he quite unintentionally steals the scene just by flopping into a snug position in his chair. The durable bond between the siblings owes much to his magnetism.

Unfortunately, DeLima's Moya does not share in the connection binding her children; in fact, she barely seems connected to the play. She wafts in and out of the living room like some brittle hostess from a Victorian drawing-room comedy. Her frantic fussiness and deliberate animation are doubtless intended to conceal her sorrow at the loss of her husband, but instead Moya comes across as a callous coquette concerned only with the progress of her tea.

This is not to say that her performance is never affecting. In the second act, after family conflicts boil over into a splendid conflagration, her Moya is particularly heart-wrenching as she minimizes her husband's peccadilloes and as she finally breaks down under her weight of grief. But even when she jerks tears from the audience, her performance seems incongruous.

Mick Spence's marvelous set is thoroughly grounded in the modern world. A tattered carpet and ratty furniture, well-worn books and food wrapped in aluminum foil surround the actors and evoke a well-kept but obviously lived-in living room. The center of the home and scene of most action, the living room, is like its inhabitants: a little worn, a little sad. The crucial placement of the television sets, necessary for Enda's frequent videotaped posthumous speeches, is well-conceived. The family TV set faces the actors; unobtrusive monitors above either side of the stage broadcast Enda's monologues to the audience.

The costumes fare less well; in the first act, they are distinctly eccentric. Medbh's sweater and jeans and socks visibly dirty on the bottom form a convincing ensemble, but the black jacket, cherry skirt and purple print blouse that Catherine sports when walking in the door from New York decidedly fail to convey a sense of a city sophisticate. The overall effect is as if the actors had raided their closets for unworn apparel. (The actors' brogues are similarly patched together; although vaguely European, most of these accents are not from the Emerald Isle.)

The Sugan Theatre Company earned a Special Citation from the Boston Theater Critics Association this year for "enriching Boston...with provocative productions of contemporary Irish and Celtic works." Their production of Red Roses and Petrol, although not perfect, quietly continues this tradition of excellence. Life goes on for Enda's family members as he watches from his videotapes; their angry, funny, bittersweet reunion will strike a chord of recognition in the heart of anyone who has ever attended a family gathering.