Final show of the season most compelling

In the Irish tradition of compelling storytelling, Martin McDonagh’s The Cripple of Inishmaan is a funny, sad, exhilarating and wrenchingly emotional play.

Throughout the current Studio Theatre production running at the University of Alberta Timms Centre until Saturday, May 28, master of fine arts director Mitchell Cushman spins McDonagh’s yarn with a combination of sublime subtlety and barely contained energy into one of the most eloquent pieces of Irish theatre I’ve seen in a long time.

He brings out the playwright’s keen eye and ear for creating suspense from everyday events, and captures the poignancy and humour of people trapped in a life without money and culture. Theirs is a bleak, hardscrabble existence that treats casual cruelty as the norm.

The play is set around 1934 on a tiny barren stretch of rock known as the Island of Inishmaan off the western coast of Ireland. Dressed in tattered, patched up clothing the Inishmaaners are locked on an island, suspended in time and leading slow, inert lives. Starved for excitement, they are jolted out of common routines when the local gossipmonger Johnnypateenmike delivers a real scoop — a Hollywood film director is coming to the area to make a film.

The island’s youth — Helen and her brother Bartley — are determined to cross the treacherous sea to audition for a role. When Cripple Billy hears the news, it becomes his one chance to escape the island’s confines and cruelty.

He is invited to America and it is his leaving that sparks a few surprises and unveils deeply hidden secrets. But what drives Cripple are the surprising contradictions of human behaviour that lead to unexpected twists and McDonagh slathers these eccentricities with a blend of Gaelic charm and doom.

Jason Chinn as Cripple Billy is an orphan, a gentle soul who passes the time reading, gazing at cows and reflecting on life. With a twisted body and a wheezing cough, Chinn transforms himself into a tortured yet utterly charming young man as we follow his desperate odyssey to discover himself.

Billy is the centre of Kate and Eileen’s lives, the two women who raised him. They run a rather cramped country store and cannot deal with his leaving. Former St. Albert resident Betty Moulton delicately plays Kate, the emotionally fragile aunt that starts talking to stones after Billy leaves. She is perfectly balanced with Natascha Girgis’ Eileen, a tart, matter-of-fact woman who spits out what she thinks and dips into the store’s candy supply when stressed.

Glen Nelson is the blustery, spiteful Johnnypateenmike, a nosy parker that ultimately reveals a few heroic qualities. And Kevin Sutley deftly harmonizes Babbybobby’s (the man who takes Billy to the film site) gentleness and streak of violence.

Perhaps the most shocking character is the bullying Helen, a feisty young woman the sensitive Billy dreams of spending time with. Former St. Albert actor Sarah Sharkey acutely reveals the young woman’s hard-as-nails exterior alongside her deepest insecurities and dreams. Pegging eggs at her brother and a lecherous priest and “fecking” everyone in sight, she is amusing, horrifying and ultimately sympathetic.

Kudos to master of fine arts theatre design student Nicole Bach for capturing the claustrophobic, dead-end existence of Inishmaan with a set of towering rock walls surrounding a tiny, well-worn store.

Throughout The Cripple of Inishmaan there’s a sense of anxiety and we root for the characters at every turn. Their vitality and dark, funny humour might leave you wondering whether to laugh or cry. But through the petty bickering and stubbornness, I was deeply touched by their heartfelt lives and McDonagh’s magical storytelling.