Evaluation: Rosebud Theatre’s comedy concerning the Hollywood invasion of small-town Eire is restrained, charming and pleasant

Article content material

With Marie Jones’ 1996 wistful comedy Stones in His Pockets, much less is extra.

Article content material

It’s the story of what occurs when a significant Hollywood studio takes over a quaint Irish village in County Kerry to movie a big-budget film.

Article content material

The locals, lots of whom are impoverished, are employed as extras and are requested to be caricatures of themselves as a result of that is yet one more romanticized Hollywood model of Eire. Close to the top of the shoot, a younger man’s loss of life additional impacts the already-strained relationship between the locals and the guests, making everybody, at the very least momentarily, face the realities which might be lacking within the movie.

This easy story a couple of conflict of cultures is seen by means of the eyes of Charlie Conlon and Jake Quinn, a pair of extras who solely met on the shoot. Charlie owned just a little video retailer in one other city however misplaced it when a sequence retailer moved in boasting dozens of copies of latest releases and a a lot wider choice.

Article content material

Charlie (Griffin Cork) is on the run from his collectors and is tenting out in a tent, one of many few possessions he managed to flee with. He additionally has a screenplay he has written and hopes to get the film’s director or one among its stars to learn. Charlie fancies himself an Irish Quentin Tarantino who additionally wrote screenplays based mostly on all of the movies he watched whereas working in a video retailer. Charlie is the play’s wide-eyed optimist and blissful dreamer.

Jake (Nathan Schmidt) has lately returned to this village the place he was born. He tried to flee by going to America, however it didn’t take him lengthy to really feel defeated and homesick. He’s the play’s hardened pessimist and bitter realist.

The opposite 13 characters are a mixture of locals and Hollywood invaders, and the gimmick that provides the play its allure for a spritely 120 minutes, together with an intermission, is that also they are all performed by Cork and Schmidt. This was at all times Jones’ intention and it’s this built-in theatricality that makes Stones in His Pockets so pleasant. It’s enjoyable watching Cork and Schmidt slide out and in of character.

Article content material

One minute Cork is a bullying safety guard and the subsequent the preening and extremely manipulative main woman, Caroline Giovanni. To his immense credit score, Cork doesn’t try some garish feminine impersonation, bodily or vocally. What he does is refined and way more efficient.

The identical is true when Schmidt performs Mickey, a 70-year-old who prides himself with being the oldest remaining further from John Ford’s 1952 drama, The Quiet Man, which was additionally filmed in Kerry County. Through the wake for the doomed younger man, additionally performed by Schmidt, Mickey returns fortunately drunk when everybody was cautioned to not drink on the funeral. This second might have been performed for main slapstick laughs however Schmidt goes for some credible and much-needed pathos.

Article content material

Morris Ertman’s course is equally restrained. He doesn’t have Cork and Schmidt speeding about to seek out costume items or props, as a substitute permitting them only a change in accent and angle to inhabit every new character typically utilizing only a single line of dialogue to finish the transition.

There are even flashbacks in Stones in His Pockets and it’s not simply so Jones can flesh out her story however to permit Cork and Schmidt to play youngsters in a scene that contrasts desires and actuality when one boy says if Hollywood desires him he gained’t hesitate,  whereas the butcher’s son says he must keep to assist out in his father’s store.

It is a play about desires versus actuality and hope versus desperation which Jones, Ertman, Cork and Schmidt handle to tie up with a reasonably rousing, upbeat ending.

Stones in His Pockets is at Rosebud Theatre till Oct. 22.