Reviewed by F. Kathleen Foley
Rogue Machine
Thru May 25
RECOMMENDED
John Fazakerley’s fact-based Corktown ’39 — a sequel to his earlier play Corktown ’57, staged at the Odyssey a few years back — is part family drama, part political thriller, and a wholly engrossing, well-researched window into a little-known event in recent Irish history: the Irish Republican Army’s 1939 plot to assassinate England’s king, George VI, during a visit to America.
The title refers to America’s “Corktowns,” the urban hubs where Irish immigrants, frequently from County Cork, congregated after fleeing famine and oppression.
It’s now 1939, and while the Great Famine has abated, the oppression, which commenced some 700 years previously when Henry II proclaimed sovereignty over Ireland, continues. But Irish resistance to British rule is not all indigenous. American chapters of the IRA and its subset organization, the Clan na Gael, are furiously committed to the cause — a free and independent Ireland.
But the movement is fracturing over tactics. A violent bombing campaign in England has alienated many moderates. Now, the IRA has enlisted an Irish sniper, whose skills were sharpened in the Spanish Civil War, to kill the king.
Many of the play’s characters are historically based. There’s Tim Flynn (Thomas Vincent Kelly), a former fighter in the Irish civil war and a recent émigré to America; Joe McGarrity (Peter Van Norden), revered head of the Clan na Gael, who emigrated to America in 1892 while still in his teens; and Seán Russell (JD Cullum), the IRA’s Chief of Staff, an unregenerate and power-hungry leader who has been cozying up to the Nazis.
Then there’s Mike Keating (Ron Bottitta), Russell’s aide-de-camp, a Philadelphia fixer whose political career, judging from Mark Mendelson’s sumptuous set design, appears to have been highly lucrative. Mike, whose loyalties to Ireland have long since degenerated into self-interest, shamelessly truckles to his boss, even to the extent of encouraging his unwanted attentions to his daughter Kate (the ever-stellar Ann Noble).
Martin Connor (Jeff Lorch), the sniper who has been imported for the job, has no problem with assassinating a king. But when he discovers that Russell is pushing for a pact with Germany, an agreement that would give the Nazis a toehold on Irish soil, he reneges on the deal — a decision with dangerous consequences. Meanwhile, Kate and Martin begin a passionate affair that further complicates the fraught family dynamic.
All, with the exception of Mike’s young son Frank (Tommy McCabe), whom Mike has deliberately shielded from the family business, and Martin, who is simply doing a paid job, are fanatical ideologues — soldiers in the war for Irish freedom. Casual violence is their norm. Even Kate has a few killings to her credit. An Irish “Mata Hari,” she would seduce, then execute, English soldiers, without pause or compunction. Yet despite her brutal deeds, she retains an unshakeable sense of principled morality — as does, most unexpectedly and disastrously, Martin,
Steven Robman’s workmanlike direction has a few notable slipups, as when Cullum’s character, seen at a fundraiser addressing a large cheering crowd (courtesy of Christopher Moscatiello’s excellent sound design), steps away from the microphone to wander the stage, un-amplified. Why would any public speaker do such a thing?
Speaking of which, that particular scene, a weirdly extraneous one-off and the only scene not set in the Keating drawing room, does nothing to further the plot and could have been entirely eliminated. For the most part, however, Fazakerley’s beautifully realized play, which mingles the complexities of the historical record with a deftly realized family saga, resonantly echoes Irish predecessors such as Synge and O’Casey, with a nod to novelist William Kennedy’s Albany cycle.
Despite a few errant Irish accents, the cast is superlative in every particular. Cullum is particularly splendid as a charming but deadly schemer who will stop at nothing to consolidate his power. (The real Russell, ironically and appropriately, took ill and died in a U-boat enroute back to Ireland after meeting with the Germans).
However, it is Noble, a fixture in local theaters, and the imprimatur of quality in every show she is associated with, who is the emotional core of the play. Noble was recently awarded the Los Angeles Drama Critics’ award for her portrayal of Leni Riefenstahl in Tom Jacobson’s celebrated world premiere, Crevasse — just one of several roles she undertook last season. The play concludes with an emotionally shattering scene that reaffirms her standing as one of the most gifted actors to grace Los Angeles stages in years.
Rogue Machine, 7657 Melrose Ave., L.A. Fri.-Sat. and Mon., 8 p.m.; Sun., 2 p.m., thru May 25. No performance May 12. (855) 585-5185. https://www.roguemachinetheatre.org/corktown39 Running time: one hour and 40 minutes with no intermission.
