STAGE REVIEW
'Cripple' tale of hope amid desolation

By Wayne Harada
Advertiser Entertainment Writer

•	'The Cripple of Inishmaan' A drama by Martin McDonagh, produced by Manoa Valley Theatre 7:30 p.m. today and tomorrow, 8 p.m. Friday and Saturday, 4 p.m. Sunday Manoa Valley Theatre $25, 988-6131

Like McDonagh's acclaimed "The Beauty Queen of Leenane," another dark comedy about souls captured in circumstances over which they have little control, "Cripple" focuses on a disabled boy, Billy Claven (Michael Hanuna, in a remarkable portrait of a walking pretzel), who lives with two foster aunts in a tiny fishing village on the barren island of Inishmaan off the west coast of Ireland.

His parents died at sea when he was an infant, though how exactly that happened becomes an issue. It is the mid-1930s, and he has been raised by Kate Osbourne (Jo Pruden) and Eileen Osbourne (Cecilia Fordham), two widowed sisters who operate a general store that stocks an awful lot of canned peas but not enough eggs.

Everyone's daily routine is disrupted when real-life American filmmaker Robert Flaherty (an unseen character) announces plans to do a documentary, "Man of Aran," at Inishmaan. This hot scoop is passed around by the town crier, JohnnyPateenMike (Jerry Tracy, delightfully brash and loud), and Cripple Billy, as the disfigured lad is called, sees this filmic opportunity as his way of becoming a somebody. He concocts a smart ploy to get off the island to pursue his dreams, much to the disdain of his caring aunts, one of whom talks to (and worse, hears from) a stone.

McDonagh, a master spinner of tales, clearly sets Billy at sail in a sea of opportunity. The film device is mostly an excuse to juxtapose truth and fantasy, to sift fact from fiction, to bring back yesterday's tales to modify for tomorrow's telling. It's a chuckling good ride (with some sad moments) for the audience, too.

While Billy may be the obvious cripple, there's additional blarney among his peers, whose actions make them mental cripples.

Vanita Rae Smith directs an able and free-wheeling cast, including Clara Grace Dalzell as the egg-tossing, acid-tongued Helen; Duncan Dalzell as the sweets-searching Bartley; Martha Walstrum as the indefatigable lush of a mother to JohnnyPateenMike; Swain Kaui as BabbyBobby the boat owner; and Chris Higgins as the doctor.

Karen Archibald's set, plus Athena Espania's costumes, Cathie Anderson's lighting design and Jason Taglianetti's sound design, are suitably attuned to the bleak desolation that is Inishmaan.