Theater review by Raven Snook
Death is rarely easy or pleasant, and neither is Marina Carr's chamber play about the process of dying and what that might reveal about how we should live. In the Irish Rep's appropriately tomblike W. Scott McLucas Studio, the only thing separating the terminally ill Woman (Stephanie Roth Haberle) from the Grim Reaper literally rattling around her wardrobe is her alter ego, Scarecrow (Pamela J. Gray), who serves as critic and confessor. Much of the first act is a poetically garrulous argument between these two, in which we learn about the Woman's gloomy life—eight children, one cheating husband and an addiction to unhappiness—and the moments of redemption she rejected. The second half is more earthbound, as the Woman's philandering spouse (Aidan Redmond) and the strict aunt who raised her (Orange Is the New Black's wry Dale Soules) alternate between consolation and recrimination.
The performances are committed, and the design is wonderfully eerie; Ryan Rumery's chilling music and sound are particularly potent. But even if most of the action is a morphine-fueled deathbed dream, Haberle seems too robust to be on the verge of shuffling off this mortal coil, and her desperate griping grows repetitive in director Ciarán O'Reilly's static staging. Amid its many well-delivered lyrical passages and erudite cultural references, Woman and Scarecrow takes a long time to deliver a familiar bumper-sticker moral: YOLO.
Irish Repertory Theatre (Off Broadway). By Marina Carr. Directed by Ciarán O'Reilly. With ensemble cast. Running time: 2hrs 15mins. One intermission.
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