On what turns out to be a dark and windy night, five people huddle together in a pub in an out of the way and small Irish town. Ghost stories unfold, surely making this a time and place to send chills up and down the spine. You see, just outside, some things have been happening. Strange things. Things which seem, you know, all too real. The telling of it all, the weaving, the warp, the woof become the essence of Conor McPherson’s much-praised and much-performed 1997 play The Weir.
Oh sure, the Irish love to talk and, too, they love to listen to each other talk. And why not? They speak with inborn eloquence, their words, their phrases some sort of lyrical poetry of the soul that’s in their sound. So what, if during this time, they spin out as much about themselves, their sorrows, their joys, as they do about the spirits maybe hovering close to their doors? They warm their insides and each other by sharing the effects of bottled spirits, loosening the boundaries, creating bonds. This “bittersweet and melancholy” work has “visceral power,” New York Times’ Ken Jaworowski wrote in May 2013.
McPherson has quite a fine bunch of redits: Dublin Carol, Shining City, The Seafarer, The Night Alive, among them, plus films such as The Eclipse and I Went Down.
What kind of ghosts, do you think, will appear?
The Weir is part of Brigit Saint Brigit Theatre Company’s 2nd Irish Festival, March 13-29 at The Mastercraft Building, Suite 106, 1111 N. 13th Street. Fri. & Sat: 7:30 pm. Thurs.(19): 7:30 p.m. Sun. (22,29): 2:0op.m. Tickets $20-$25. http://www.bsbtheatre.com/