Irish Classical Theatre Company’s newest show finds earnest light inside the rifts artists leave behind

By AJ Govenettio
(Photos by Jorge Luna Photography, courtesy ICTC)

Irish playwright Ronán Noone set out on the lofty mission of creating a companion piece to Eugene O’Neill’s landmark play, “Long Day’s Journey Into Night,” (LDJN) focusing exclusively in “Thirst” on the briefly mentioned servant girls and chauffeur of the Tyrone family.

The entire show is set during the events of LDJN, but confined to the downstairs kitchen adjacent to the action.

LDJN is a heartbreaking piece to write alongside, due to how much of his family’s gripping disfunction it reveals. It was one of O’Neill’s final works, debuting after he had died. Noone allows the immortalized text of O’Neill to be heard, but keeps the audience from ever seeing its main characters, the Tyrones.

The Tyrones feel less like living characters in the plot than all-encompassing ghosts. Much like Eugene O’Neill himself, we may listen to their words as much as we like, but an ultimate barrier stops us from ever being able to talk back. In due time we may find our own sweeping homes to live in, but for now we only have our kitchen.

Thanks to the set design of David Dwyer, we find the other side of this barrier to be full of life in its own ways.

As quaint as it looks, the kitchen proves to be incredibly malleable for the action of the play. Director Kate LoConti Alcocer clearly enjoyed the playground she was given, as the characters seamlessly utilize every counter and drawer, as well as the working faucet and hot plates.

The focus O’Neill put into the Tyrones’ grand property isn’t lost on this production. Where many plays are content with forcing their blocking to exist for the sake of existing, I was surprised to have never found that awkwardness during my two hours inside this century old room.

Aleks Malejs plays the role of Bridget Conroy, a woman who has been the house cook since she emigrated from Ireland 16 years ago. Her struggle with dreams and purpose originally seem to cover the ground already tread by LDJN’s Mary; Bridget yearns for the dreams lost in her transition to adulthood. She washes it down with alcohol.

Her complexity is revealed as we see nobody is as responsible for Bridget’s failings as herself. Malejs packs a deep yearning for dreams abandoned under her palpable exhaustion. It paints every stern line she delivers with a coat of tragic self loathing.

Kai Crumley makes her ICTC debut with a thrilling performance as Cathleen Mullen, a young girl fresh off of a crashed ship from Ireland to America, sent to be under Bridget’s care. Her world view is unpolluted by years of labor, for better or worse.

Crumley brings in a momentum that’s hard to look away from whenever she’s on stage. Her energy seems to multiply every line directed at her with unrelenting passion and an admirable naivete compared to the adults. The confidence with which she and Malejs play off of each other is captivating.

Peter Johnson is Jack Smyth, the chauffeur attempting to leave his job and start working for himself, hopefully with Bridget by his side. His promises to give Bridget what she’s dreaming of are scary thoughts after the cautionary tale of Mary and James Tyrone, but his downright foolish devotion is hard to ignore.

I came into this play wondering why anyone had chosen to make art supplementing one of the longest and most complex plays of the 20th century. I sat down with the mistaken notion that this play was created to patch over things Noone believed O’Neill had missed.

I found myself confused at the brevity with which Noone’s characters mentioned the iconic motifs and symbols of LDJN. I thought, “Why are we deliberately glossing over the most treasured concepts of the show?”

My narrow-minded beliefs opened up when I asked myself why the Tyrones never make an appearance. I realized that this show isn’t holding itself up in front of O’Neill’s magnum opus, it’s just trying to talk with him.

“Thirst” is a much bolder piece than most. Some plays try to do an impression of a much greater mind, and waste your time in the end. “Thirst’s” humanity is on full display out of love and respect to the art.

“Thirst” is aware it’s literally taking place in the shadow of a much bigger work, so why would it try to act like it’s the same show? Isn’t every artist in much the same situation?

Why should any actor try to play Hamlet as if he were Olivier? What truth can be found in pretending to have the answers we could not have possibly gleaned yet? Why make any art at all if you lack the courage to admit that you’re always a student of the craft?

I began to love the show more and more as these thoughts came to me. “Thirst” is Noone having a one-sided conversation with a dead mentor. He looks at the frozen, immovable words searching for answers to his questions on love, purpose and whatever else he can wring out of the text.

He knows he doesn’t have the full ornate mansion of knowledge O’Neill accumulated by the end of his life, but perhaps appreciating an earnestly detailed kitchen is all we need to start making art.

I happened to be carrying a memento of my late Irish grandfather when I saw “Thirst,” a signed notepad with his self-portrait on the cover. Looking at my papa’s art, I found that there was an artist I also tried to reach out to that night.

The director’s note had dedicated this show to the late Vincent O’Neill, co-founder of ICTC, and a man with 40 years of Buffalo acting to his name. Perhaps everyone had dedicated their art to something much bigger than themselves.

None of our art will ever be perfect. It’s tempting to stare at the expanse of another’s body of work and back down in fear of not being good enough to offer anything to it.

“Thirst” is a letter to an address that stopped returning mail decades ago. It sees the impassable gap left in any artist’s absence, and offers itself anyways.

“Thirst” continues through Nov. 23 at Irish Classical Theatre Company, 625 Main St., in Buffalo.

Tickets can be purchased at https://irishclassical.com/thirst/ from $18-$68

AJ Govenettio is a junior acting major at SUNY Fredonia as well as an intern with The Buffalo Hive.