Teresa Deevy was an Irish playwright who had six consecutive plays performed at the Abbey Theatre in Dublin. Wife to James Whelan, written in 1937, was rejected by the theatre and left unperformed until 2010.
Mint Theater‘s Jonathan Bank returns to direct this new production at Jermyn Street Theatre following his success with that New York City run 16 years ago. The setting is Killbeggan, and James Whelan has won a prime job in Dublin.
An ambitious man, he looks beyond his little town and its pedestrian ways, but his long-time sweetheart Nan has other ideas of settling down with another man who is a stranger come for work.
The first act is largely introductory, giving a sense of who James and Nan are, as well as those around them – Kate, Bill, Tom, and Jack. This is a rural town, where men are labourers, joshing each other about their strength and potency.
An eight-strong cast carry this observational drama to the end – as years pass and Whelan returns a successful businessman with a sheen of arrogance and superiority. Everyone’s fortunes change – and it seems everyone will need to ‘make do’.
Fiach Kunz treads a fine line between making Whelan likeable and insufferable. His scenes with the women in his life (ClÃona Flynn as Nan, Eavan Gaffney as Kate, and Molly Hanly as the higher-class Molly) are strong and realistic.
His friends in Killbeggan, Darragh Feehely’s Bill, Patrick McBrearty’s Tom, and David Rawle’s ‘Apollo’, become men he can easily dominate or push around once he has money. Even Nan, who he still loves for her ‘softness’ discovers his harsh side.
This is a play about staying still and learning to fly; about settling and seeking. For Nan, a life with Jack (Benjamin Reilly) feels right, but is it a life that will make her happy?
Neil Irish creates a set that is rapidly changed from the rural outdoors to a corporate office during the early interval between acts 1 and 2. The costumes, by Anett Black, offer comment on class and circumstance.
Wife to James Whelan was perhaps too political and too ‘immoral’ for its 1930s audience to accept, but its depiction of resilient female characters and complex arguments is one we can easily accept now.
Perhaps it lacks a bit of ‘fire in the belly’, but generally, this is an absorbing and nuanced play – think Hindle Wakes or Rutherford and Son.
Deevy’s surviving plays would seem ripe for exploration, with only Katie Roche in regular performance rotation.
This one gets 4 stars.
Wife to James Whelan continues at Jermyn Street Theatre until 25 July with tickets here.
Photo credit: Alex Brenner