A group of men gather, make coffee, and set up chairs in the meeting hall of a Brooklyn Heights, N.Y., Catholic church in Martin Casella's "The Irish Curse," but the catalyst for their weekly self-help session is not alcohol or sex addiction; it's the wee size of their willies. "It's really small," the first participant admits to the new guy, "like from the children's menu."
These guys meet weekly to discuss and commiserate about how their anatomical shortcomings have affected their very different lives. There's the successful lawyer (Scott Conte), whose wife left him with a note featuring a drawing of his replacement's appendage; a streetwise hottie (Austin Hébert), who tells fabricated tales of the plethora of girls he's hooked up with on the subway; and a butch gay New York cop (Shaun O'Hagan), whose sexual expression is limited to giving blowjobs so he won't have to reveal his "schlong the size of baby corn." Along with the newbie (Patrick Quinlan), a tortured young Irish immigrant who has kept his size a secret from the girl he is about to marry, and an understanding priest (Joe Pacheco), who runs the group when he isn't auditioning for "Law & Order," each in turn tells of feeling inadequate.
Quinlan's tortured bridegroom ready to take a leap off the Brooklyn Bridge is heartbreaking, as are Hébert's portrait of a brash cocksman without the proper, er, tool of the trade and Conte's world-weary single dad "tired of being invisible." Yet O'Hagan's cop, who radiates loneliness and shame from beneath his well-tended gruff exterior, and Pacheco's priest, who admits to donning the collar after being laughed at by his first high school girlfriend, are the most subtly challenging characters, and these two performers succeed splendidly in bringing them to life.
Casella's script has some funny lines and creates poignant if predictable character portraits, but it wears thin, as there's only so far he can go with a continuous barrage of jokes and anecdotes on the same subject. Luckily, director Andrew Barnicle and the exemplary cast pull off something of a minor miracle. Five people seated on folding chairs talking nonstop for 90 minutes as they liken their private parts to bottle caps and cocktail wieners could be a static nightmare, but these exceptional actors and Barnicle's kinetic staging keep things moving on Thomas A. Walsh's remarkably detailed set. Together, the precision team succeeds in pumping blood into what could be a flaccid encounter, providing the audience with what the playwright alone could not: the satisfaction of a happy ending.
Presented by and at the Odyssey Theatre Ensemble, 2055 S. Sepulveda Blvd., L.A. July 7–Sept. 16. Schedule varies. (310) 477-2055 or www.odysseytheatre.com.
