![]() But the play itself creaks-with only a few merry jolts.Subjects Irish Republican struggle, often autobiographicalīrendan Francis Behan was an Irish poet, short story writer, novelist and playwright who wrote in both Irish and English. David Ogden Stiers made a smoothly nutty Anglo‐Irish man, Norman Snow was a defiantly chirpy hostage, and Mary Joan Negro proved suit ably bewildered and charm ing ad the colleen who loves him. I liked, for example, Dakin Matthews as the rapscallion landlord, and Mary Lou Rosato as his blowsy but spirited wife. Some of the acting had more pace and authority than the rest. Schmidt's intelligent setting it is all to only sporadic avail. Nixon, as well as a couple of barbs aimed at the dead playwright himself -and worked his cast up into a fair impersonation of a Dublin pub just before closing time. Lesser has added a few portentously significant back projections, taken the right topical approach to the songs-he even introduces a comment on Mr. And in any event these young actors, good as they are, are not up to trans muting a plodding play into an evanescent, but at times grimly significant, musical evening. The joke-yes, even the irony-is less funny than it was. Today perhaps, even more than when Behan and Miss Littlewood composed their play, we must take a more serious view of the violence in Northern Ireland, or the taking and killing of innocent hostages. The director here, Gene Les ser, certainly has the right approach, but apparently in sufficient means. In the original production Miss Littlewood used the script for a dazzling and funny extravaganza. The tragedy has a never less than ironic tone.īehan plays rather clum sily with his themes of old lreland and new justice, stating them but never argu ing them, facing them but never developing them. The actors are apt to address the audience, while music‐hall songs, Irish patriotic ballads and the rest break up the evening. It may sound a little like O'Casey, but it plays rather more like Brecht with a strong dose of English music hall added. The Irish Republican Army captures an English soldier in Londonderry and hides him in a Dublin board ing house, threatening to shoot him as reparation if the rebel is hanged in Belfast. ![]() The written script was only the basis of a rollicking thea trical experiment.Ī young Irish rebel is un der sentence of death in Belfast for killing a police man. The staging took the script, made a paper dart of it, and let it fly in the face of the Establishment. When it was first pro duced 14 years ago by Joan Littlewood's Theater Work shop in London-the produc tion later went to Broadway -it was almost as much a play by Littlewood as a play by Behan. ![]() But the play is a sore test of an ensemble's skill and a director's contrivance and imagination. Of course, with Belfast still in our newspapers and Munich still in our memory, the theme is as timely as ever in its ever untimely fash ion. Here the courage savored of the foolhardy. This company has cer tainly been courageous in its choice of repertory. Last night it joined the repertory of the City Center Acting Company, which is now in the happy throes of its first season at the Good Shepherd Faith Church at Lincoln Cen ter. Brendan Behan's “The Hos tage” is a theatrical curiosity -nowadays perhaps more cu rious than theatrical.
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