The Irish are among the world's great storytellers, so it's appropriate that "Bailegangaire," the current show at the Irish Rep, written and directed by Tom Murphy, would be about a storyteller. Unfortunately, this storyteller is a senile old lady, given to Gaelic interjections and inarticulate mutterings. It is all but impossible to follow her never-ending tale--easier to give up and focus on her two granddaughters, who are her caretakers. Against the murmuring background, the insistent monologue, the two sisters play out their tortured relationship.
With this tale of family battles and unhealed wounds, resentment runs high between the sisters. Mary has returned home from a failed nursing career, while Dolly is trapped in a miserable marriage. Each envies the other's life, feeling the other has "escaped this house."
But one needs to understand the ramblings of the old lady, Mommo, if the family history is to make sense. And despite the three fine performances of Terry Donnelly, Babo Harrison, and the eminent Pauline Flanagan as Mommo, one would do better simply to read the text. "Bailegangaire," with its rhythmic flow and poetic imagery, would make moving material for armchair perusal. (Moreover, playwright Tom Murphy gives helpful comments in parentheses.) But, alas, viewers in the theatre are on their own.
Yet in many respects it is a well-crafted play, dealing with an all-too-familiar situation. Who has not had to cope at some point with an elderly, senile relative? If Mommo's tale is cyclical, so is the play--as is life itself. Mommo raised the girls (their parents having mysteriously died), while they in turn tend her now. She once brought them sticks of candy, while they now provide her with sweets. And the well-drawn characters come vividly to life on stage in the hands of these three pros.
Yet, despite its strengths, the play is simply not accessible to Americans, as it must be to its Irish audiences.