Dreaming of a dark Christmas
Carmel O'Reilly, who has been busy directing for other troupes since the Sugan Theatre Company went on indefinite hiatus in 2006, launches "The Seafarer" by Conor McPherson with SpeakEasy Stage Company today.
In this Irish tale of alcoholism and redemption, James "Sharkey" Harkin, who has recently returned to live with his blind, aging brother, tries to stay off the bottle during the holidays as he hosts a group of hard-drinking friends in their rundown North Dublin basement on Christmas. Sharkey must confront his own haunted conscience - and one particularly sinister visitor.
Despite its grim outlook, the play, says O'Reilly, is actually quite funny, and all the references to Dublin pubs, hotels, and streets are real.
"It's a Dublin gift," she says with a brogue and a laugh. "Wit and humor. You are at two places at once. You are in this dark place and you are in this humorous place. It's the Irish psyche."
As for the Sugan, it's still on hiatus. "We are still on a kind of hold," she says, adding that the break "left me with a breathing space to work with other theater companies. It was a tremendous blast of fresh air, and it's good for the company should we come back again."
Exactly when that will happen, well, O'Reilly's keeping mum.
"The Seafarer" runs through Dec. 13 at the Boston Center for the Arts' Roberts Studio Theatre. 617-933-8600, www.SpeakEasyStage.com
War and remembrance
Just how did Meg Taintor of
Well, she did it four years ago - and hated it at first glance.
"It's actually a play I worked on," Taintor explains. A friend at the Theater Alliance in Washington asked her to be assistant director, and after reading it twice, she said no. But reading it one more time, she realized "I could like this really optimistic play," she says. "I think this sort of is what we need right now - a gentle play about loss and loving and growing up."
Told in a nonlinear style, the play centers on a dream Mary has the night before her marriage, in which her first love, a young farmer, goes off to fight in World War I. The year is 1914, the world is about to fall under the clouds of war, and the play loops forward and back in time between their first meeting, his duty in the trenches, and life thereafter.
"For me it's about innocence, and how losing innocence does not have to be tragedy," says Taintor.
"Mary's Wedding" runs today through Nov. 30 in Rehearsal Hall A at the Boston Center for the Arts. 617-933-8600, www.whistlerinthedark.com
Setting the bar
Lucky's Lounge, dubbed a "Den of Cocktail Cool" by InStyle magazine, has been transformed into the set for William Saroyan's 1930s play "The Time of Your Life." Running this weekend and next at the Congress Street hotspot, the play features 21 actors and is centered in a honky-tonk waterfront bar at a time when the nation is mired in the Great Depression, facing war and global upheaval.
Sound familiar?
"It's a play I saw 40 years ago and thought, 'This play should be put on in a bar.' Lucky's was the perfect place," says Marc Miller, artistic director of Fort Point Theatre Channel. " 'The Time of Your Life,' although written in 1939, is very much in today's spirit of 'Yes We Can.' It is the nation's plain people, in all their glorious diversity, who will come forward to save this country in its time of crisis."
Information: 866-811-4111, www.fortpointtheatrechannel .org
Megan Tench can be reached at mtench@globe.com. 