Through March 29
THE INFORMER Compass Center for the Performing Arts/ART of WNY
The show opens and closes with death, in a dramatic look at one of Ireland’s longest running institutions, the informer.
This is director Matthew LaChiusa’s stage take on Liam O’Flaherty’s 1922 novel “The Informer.”
It’s been the base for many dramatic productions, including a classic film from an O’Flaherty relative, John Ford.
While informers had been a steady feature of the millennium of British imperialism in Ireland, the time of the play is different, in the wake of the Easter Rebellion and the unsuccessful attempt to, yet again, crush Irish violent discontent, post-war..
Britain had agreed to a semi-independent status for Ireland in the wake of World War I.
The Irish turned on each other in a brutal, bloody civil war, centered on the revolutionary Michael Collins, a key figure in the bloody terror which drove out the British and then supported the new government.
Collins died in an ambush in 1922 and the new government used it as a way to create a conservative theocracy.
On the ART stage, a celebrated leader has been killed by the police, clearly given information by an informer.
The local revolutionary organization decided it must find the informer and punish him.
In the atmosphere of the time, that meant execution.
While the script often makes it sound as if this all involves a Communist underground, it’s really the Irish Republican Army, a group often very left wing.
There are some hard men in this tale and hard men in that time, probably many products of the war and what turned into the Irish civil war.
That’s why Dan Gallagher (Anthony J. Grande), a commander in “The Organization,” has his two bodyguards out trying to find who told the police how to find Conrad John McPhillips.
Keeping the show tight and compact, it all takes place in a pub, including Irish revolutionary music, like “The Foggy Dew” and “The Patriot Game.”
In the early moments of the show, we hear the police finding and killing “Con,” making it clear to all the staff and the customers of the pub what’s at stake.
There are central figures, including Gypo Nolan (Trevor Dugan), a former IRA member; Mary McPhillips (Juli Grygier) , sister of the dead man and Gallagher’s lover; and Jack McPhillips (John Kennedy), his father.
The two constants are Gypo and Gallagher and the revolutionary doesn’t trust Gypo and his flexible memory of what he knows.
There are trial aspects to the midnight inquisition, as Gallagher looks for the informer.
It’s Gypo and Gallagher orders his execution.
When he escapes, it turns into a hunt in the dark of night for the informer.
In the end, he’s dead, with his body lying on the pub floor and “The Patriot Game” song becomes a blatant metaphor for the risks of the revolutionary life.
Director LaChiusa has some strong elements to work with, in putting the show together, Grande, Dugan, Grygier, Kennedy, Danette Pawlowski’s Katie Fox, Dan Morris’ Bartly Mulholland and John Della Contrada’s Tommy Connor.
Clearly, LaChiusa’s decision to use one carefully done set in the pub simplifies budget and staging, while also making clear the central role of the local pub in community life.
“The Informer” is a fascinating look Irish life n a very dark time and the decisions people make in life which can carry lethal consequences.
A.W.
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