The Seafarer is a dark comedy about a Christmas Eve in Dublin where Sharky cares for his blind brother in their rundown house and are visited by a few friends for an impromptu card game. One of the visitors turns out to be the Devil, or Sharky’s inner vision of the devil - haunting him with memories of his past failings and sins.
The Seafarer really is a wonderful, gritty, Irish version of “It’s a Wonderful life” and “A Christmas Carol” combined, in that the central character comes to terms with his life and gets a chance to reevaluate his contribution to his family and decides his life is worth living after all.
I love the way the author, Conor McPherson, portrays the dysfunctional, liquor charged atmosphere of the Irish family dynamic. There is something very familiar to the Jewish family dynamic that I recognized instantly where fast flying, good humor and heavy guilt treatments are bandied about in equal measure - on the holidays in particular.
There were beautiful, subtle details of lighting onstage wherein a portrait of The Sacred Heart of Jesus light dims or brightens when the Devil leaves the room and does not respond to Sharky’s touch when he is in turmoil.
The perfectly cast ensemble members Francis Guinan, Tom Irwin, John Mahoney, Alan Wilder and also Randall Newsome did a stunning job of playing off each other. Each character in this ensemble springs forth fully formed and with a wonderful, essential contribution to the entire piece. The tightly crafted script was well directed by Randall Arney and moves along quickly and with such precision that you find yourself quickly scanning the actors onstage, not knowing who to watch because they are all so funny, quick and different.
John Mahoney manages to steal the show - even in this super tight ensemble - with his delightfully physical interpretation of the recently blind Richard, disabled brother to Sharky. Mahoney dominates center stage like a whirling dervish of tightly wound, childlike energy and moves the play along with his considerable stage presence with the force and excitement of a rickety wooden roller coaster about to fly off the tracks.
The Seafarer really is a wonderful piece to see at Holiday time because there is no other time of year that inspires such universal loneliness and self-examination and, unfortunately for some - self-loathing. Sometimes at the holidays you long to see something a little dirtier, a little meaner than “It’s a Wonderful Life”, a story that more closely reflects the tragedy and isolation of modern life so that you can dig back out from under the shadows and fog into the light of your own life and appreciate that your sins are forgivable too.
The Seafarer succeeds marvelously on many levels in taking the audience along on this difficult journey of redemption and with a cast of this caliber there is no better place to see it than at Steppenwolf right now.
The Seafarer runs through February 9th and tickets are reasonably priced at $20-$70. Steppenwolf Theatre is located at 1650 N. Halsted in Chicago. For more information or to purchase tickets visit www.Steppenwolf.org.
