'Sea Marks' delights with simplicity of characters, humor

By Joseph T. Rozmiarek
Advertiser Drama Critic

•	'Sea Marks' Hawai'i Pacific University Theatre, Hawai'i Loa Campus 8 p.m. Fridays and Saturdays, 4 p.m. Sundays, through Feb. 16 $14; 375-1282

The play is lovingly brought to life by director Joyce Maltby and a pair of inspired performances from Peter Clark and Annie MacLachlan. It is perfectly believable that these two people fell in love through their letters and that, despite being profoundly in love, they are unable to live together.

As the action plays out, it is the genuine and disarming simplicity of their natures that attracts the audience. Simultaneously, the wonderful strength and imagery in McKay's writing sustains us through two acts and toward an inevitable conclusion.

Colm Primrose (Clark) is a middle-aged bachelor fisherman on a remote Irish island where life is an unchanging struggle against an unforgiving sea. Houses are made from the rocks the sea has torn from the cliffs, heat comes from burning peat, and the only light bulb in the village hangs in its pub.

This brings an underlying gloom to Colm's life view, but also an unadorned directness that brings natural humor to his speech. He has never loved a woman (except, perhaps, his school teacher, but then he was too young to know) and never gone courting. But he does notice a mainland relative of an islander during her brief visit. Almost two years later, he works up the courage to write her a letter.

Timothea Stiles (MacLachlan) is not much younger than Colm, but has a bit more of a past. She left her family farm in Wales for city life in Liverpool, where her marriage failed, but she found work she likes with a publishing company. Uncharacteristically, she replies to Colm's letter with one of her own.

Months later, she visits the island for a day. Then Colm returns with her to the city.

What follows is a hilariously understated bedroom scene. Colm haltingly explains his lack of experience, as a "spinster man." They become intimate during the course of a long night of trial, error and patience that culminates in Timothea's touching story of losing her virginity to an unlettered farm boy.

After a difficult struggle to birth a calf, she let the boy take her in a hayloft, covered in blood from the cow mixed with that of her own. Colm's reaction typifies their developing relationship: "How'd the cow make out?"

Timothea secretly publishes a book of poetry edited from Colm's letters, and the resulting promise of success triggers Colm's instinct to return home. His soul "has been too long off the water" and he fears he "can't use himself like a man" in the city.

But Timothea won't return to the rough life where "things taste good only because they're hard to come by."

A decision crisis is provoked by news of the drowning of The MacAfee, Colm's natural father and a man so tough that "the only soft thing about him was his teeth."

Clark and MacLachlan are excellent in bringing out the humanity in the characters and the subtle intimacy in their relationship. As a result, the audience grows to love them and to understand their difficult decisions. It's this quality that makes "Sea Marks" a profoundly rewarding evening.