The New Electric Ballroom

At St. Ann's Warehouse

Reviewed by Adam R. Perlman

November 02, 2009


Photo by Pavel Antonov
You would never confuse the central characters in Enda Walsh's "The New Electric Ballroom"—three yearning provincial sisters—with Chekhov's titular trio. The great tragicomedian invoked here is writer-director Walsh's countryman Samuel Beckett. Indeed, between the desolation, the waiting, the game playing, and the hoping for hope, Walsh has steeped the play so deeply in the Beckettian mise en scène that it arrives on these shores riding a wave of critical notices that suggests Walsh is the second coming of the Irish master. I feel obliged to point out, though, that the emperor has no clothes—or at least a shamefully moth-bitten set. What's lacking are those Beckett hallmarks: pathos, purpose, precision, and wit.

Not much happens on stage. Older sisters Breda (Rosaleen Linehan) and Clara (Ruth McCabe) deliver monologues about innocence lost. Their comparatively youthful yet more embittered sister Ada (Catherine Walsh) denies them tea. Occasionally, Patsy (Mikel Murfi), a gregarious fishmonger, pays an unwelcome visit. Plot isn't the point, so let's not judge Walsh too harshly for his lack of it. The monologues, however, are another story. It's a strange talent to write material so grotesque yet so boring.

Thankfully, Walsh the director is a good sight better than Walsh the writer, so there are at least a few engaging stage pictures. A late sequence that converts Patsy into an Elvis for the David Lynch set is the play's unquestionable highlight.

But most of the time we're at sea in the vomit talk, and that's really not a good thing, for if the mind wanders, one is all but forced to contemplate Sabine Dargent's rather astoundingly ugly set and costume design. I believe that the colorblind can live full and productive lives, but theatrical designer is not an appropriate vocation.


Presented by and at St. Ann's Warehouse, 38 Water St., Brooklyn, N.Y. Nov. 1–22. Tue.–Fri., 8 p.m.; Sat., 2 and 8 p.m.; Sun., 4 p.m. (212) 352-3101, (866) 811-4111, (718) 254-8779, or www.stannswarehouse.org. Casting by Maureen Hughes.
 
 
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