Ireland meets Hollywood in "Stones in His Pockets"

Some plays are like gymnasiums for actors.

They give versatile performers a rigorous workout, while audiences get the chance to ponder acting as an athletic sport.

Consider "Stones in His Pockets," a two-man, many-character riff by leading Belfast, Ireland, author Marie Jones, receiving its Seattle premiere at Capitol Hill Arts Center (CHAC).

Though awarded a coveted 2001 Olivier Award in London, and transferred with some success to Broadway, Jones' play is an exuberant, amusing but fundamentally glib and derivative fable about the betwixt-and-between nature of modern, rural Ireland, in a world fully penetrated by mass entertainment.

Theater review


"Stones in His Pockets" by Marie Jones. Runs through March 11, 2006, at Capitol Hill Arts Center, 1621 12th Ave., Seattle; $12-$15 (206-388-0569 or www.capitolhillarts.com).

But in the intimate confines of CHAC's basement, cabaret-style venue, "Stones in His Pockets" gives the agile Seattle thespians Darragh Kennan and Timothy Hyland a good excuse to flex their skills in a dozen roles, with an array of Irish and British accents.

Physically, the two make a winningly Mutt-and-Jeff team. Kennan is the more compact fella, with flashing eyes and lightning reflexes. Broader, more soulful and a head taller, Hyland is his complement, with stage timing that's just as reliable.

The actors' nimble exertions and transformations do carry the show, which has been neatly staged in cramped confines by Jerry Manning, for an unusually long run (through March 11, 2006).

Primarily, this is a story of two hapless Irish blokes: former video-store manager and novice screenwriter Charlie (Kennan), and discontented Jake (Hyland), who emigrated to the U.S. for a spell but is now back living with his Ma.

Charlie and Jake meet and strike up a flinty comradeship, while toiling as extras for a Hollywood movie being shot in a rustic County Kerry village.

The locals may have brogues thick as porridge. But they are mockingly aware this film is a load of romantic blarney, filled with clichés left over from earlier movie paeans to Ireland.

And they know it is largely a vehicle for a female American star, played with flippant hauteur by Kennan. When this shallowly earnest diva isn't lording it over the Irish underlings on the set, she's trying to pick their brains and rip off their accents.

The digs at Hollywood superficiality and myth-making here are plentiful and often obvious. And the characters are a lot more predictable than in Martin McDonagh's "The Cripple of Inishmaan," a far darker work with a similar theme and setting.

But Jones does take insightful aim at the seductiveness of American pop-culture, and the emptiness of some of its glittering promises.

Hyland's lunkish-looking but keen-witted, sensitive Jake is flattered when the star's seductive attentions beam his way.

And Kennan's cheeky Charlie, ever the optimist, clings to the hope that his movie script will be snapped up by the famous British film director in residence.

Their inevitable disappointments contribute to the mist of melancholy enveloping the piece, as does the tattered pride of an old codger who insists he's "the last surviving extra" from the 1952 John Ford film "The Quiet Man."

A more melodramatic development, in the inferior second act, is the tragic demise of a young local, which threatens to derail the movie shoot entirely.

One should be cautious about interpreting "Stones in His Pockets" as a realistic depiction of rural Ireland today. In the last few years the Irish economy (rural and urban) has been on the upswing.

Better to view the show as a diverting workout for a couple of fine actors. And that's no blarney.

Misha Berson: mberson@seattletimes.com