'Weir' spins rich tapestry from details

By Joseph T. Rozmiarek
Advertiser Drama Critic

From left, Walter Eccles, Dion Donahue and Kristen Van Bodegraven play Irish characters with supernatural tales to tell in "The Weir." Yellow Brick Studio 'The Weir' 4 p.m. Sundays, 7:30 p.m. Thursdays-Saturdays The Actors Group's Yellow Brick Studio $10 722-6941

The play won several awards five years ago on Broadway, despite its unconventional format. For two hours and a single act, it trades a traditional plot for a string of monologues and story telling that blend blarney with Chekhovian melancholy.

It takes place in a remote rural village, sparsely populated by those with low ambition and failed plans. Except for the summer's German tourists, the talk here centers primarily on machinery and beer.

Brendan the bartender (Dion Donahue) is withdrawn but dutiful. Jack (Jim Tharp) is the aging curmudgeon owner of a small garage, where Jim (Richard MacPherson) works on engines when he's not looking after his aging mum. This night promises to be unique, however, because Finbar (Walter Eccles) has promised to bring in the town's newest resident, Valerie (Kristin Van Bodegraven), a young woman who seems to be hiding out from a troubled past.

This is slightly scandalous on Finbar's part, he being the only married man in a pub full of bachelors, and the early conversation is mildly sexually charged as the men good-naturedly spar — more from obligation than testosterone. But after several pints of stout and shots of good Irish whiskey, the conversation turns to ghost stories and the play settles into its monologue format.

Each of the patrons takes a turn with a supernatural tale where graveyards and haunted houses figure prominently. Each has a somber tone, because its teller is recounting a personal experience that resurrects its original fear and introspection.

When it's Valerie's turn, she shares the still-fresh memory of her daughter's death and a pleading telephone call from beyond the grave that leaves her powerless to help.

But the capstone of the evening is Jack's personal — and comparatively pedestrian — revelation of his having mistreated his young sweetheart.

After repeated catharses, the action ends as it began, with the mundane details of ordinary life.

Directed by Dave Donnelly, the cast turns in excellent performances, with Van Bodegraven and Tharp's scenes being especially memorable.

Like a good story, the play draws us in slowly and changes as it develops. We're first attracted by the colorful accents, then by the men's awkward jockeying around the woman. Then ghost stories kick in and work their individual spells.

Valerie's monologue takes the play to a richer plane with its immediacy and helpless longing. But Jack's final story is the clincher, aching with personal insight and the irretrievable loss of a life badly spent. It is a powerful tour-de-force, made richer by the play's context and the speeches that preceded it.

The result is an evening that takes hold and tightens its grip on the audience, leaving us moved and spiritually touched.