Juno Boyle is a woman of intensity. Her considerable strength as a wife and mother is the only force holding together her self-destructing family during the Irish Civil War in the early 1920s. Her words, and every expression on actor Mary-Pat Green's weathered face, betray emotion that reveals the responsibility she has shouldered since the day she said "I do" to Capt. Jack Boyle, a so-called strutting "paycock" of a man whose resistance to work is equaled only by his devotion to drink.
Sean O'Casey's Juno and the Paycock is a tale of decaying familial strife that's universally understandable. Playwright Lorraine Hansberry, for instance, acknowledged it as an inspiration to her own career, and its themes were clearly transferred to her own play of struggle amidst squalor, A Raisin in the Sun. What isn't universal in the B Street Theatre's production is the fever pitch of passion and frustration projected by the truly superb Green, who, like her character, is the emotional center of this unbalanced staging.
As Capt. Jack, Paul Vincent O'Connor is smaller than life, showing little of the overblown pomposity that both attracts and repels his drinking partner, Joxer Daly (Greg Alexander). Joxer, a masterful weasel, can be counted on for a smile and companionable nod of the head to your antigovernment rants and umpteen tales of your glory days. Count on him also to steal your last pint and insert a knife in your back when you're in your cups. Alexander's well-done turn as the twisted opportunist suffers only from having a lesser foil in Capt. Jack.
Elisabeth Nunziato, as daughter-in-trouble Mary, also keeps her portrayal low-key. Such reserved interpretations sabotage the efforts of Green, Alexander, and John Lamb, whose appropriately manic take on highly disturbed brother Johnny Boyle jars as a result. With all that's going on in this crumbling family and country, you'd expect bigger, bolder characters to shake the dust off the Boyle homestead, but Buck Busfield's direction steers an inconsistent course. It's as if some of the actors -- like Stephanie McVay's fair-weather neighbor Mrs. Madigan -- are aware they're performing onstage, while others are playing to an unseen camera capable of magnifying subtle nuances. With one of B Street's largest casts, the production scatters the audience's focus.
The Disneyesque squalor of the Boyle's tenement does little to remedy the lack of desperation in this grit-free outing. Ron Madonia's set is more shabby-chic than grimly deteriorating. Michael Coleman's costumes also have a sense that all is not lost -- that Mary's preoccupation with her hair ribbons has less to do with dressing up a faded and threadbare wardrobe than with pure vanity.
But the family, despite their attempts to deny it, is lost, with Juno finally realizing that any hope remaining exists in letting go, not holding on.
Juno and the Paycock runs April 2-May 21 at the B Street Theatre, 2711 B St., Sacramento, Calif. Tickets: (916) 443-5300. Website: www.bstreettheatre.org.