The Whiteheaded Boy

Teddy Moore and Peter McGann in The Whiteheaded Boy. Image: Patricio Cassinoni.

***

Sometimes it’s better to let the dead rest in peace. Like Lennox Robinson's The Whiteheaded Boy. Director Annie Ryan taking Robinson's historical text and decorating it in the trappings of a nostalgic 70s sitcom. In which the class conscious Geoghegan family’s notions of middle class upperosity are focused around Mummy’s favourite boy child. A perpetual medical student siphoning off the family fortune to the detriment of his long suffering siblings. Originally produced in 1916, some will argue that The Whiteheaded Boy retains relevance for a contemporary audience. Yet even when repositioned to awkwardly highlight gay identity with some modest feminist commentary, you struggle to understand what this revival has to say to today? With what’s to see and say, thematically, having been done smarter and better elsewhere. Even so, The Whiteheaded Boy confirms Clare Barrett as the greatest, Irish, comic stage actress of her generation, and Annie Ryan as a director extraordinaire. Both taking Robinson’s comedically pedestrian, dramatically dull, poisoned chalice of outdatedness and elevating it into a frequently enjoyable camp carousel.

Clare Barrett and Genevieve Hulme-Beaman in The Whiteheaded Boy. Image: Patricio Cassinoni.

Presented as a two act pantomime passing itself off as a play, The Whiteheaded Boy follows an unlovely mother (the impeccable Barrett) and her unloveable children as they deal with Mummy’s darling boy. The first act sketching the return of the unrepentant prodigal from devilish Dublin to Mummy’s rural, adoring devotions. The feckless Denis (Teddy Moore channelling Larry Grayson levels of camp) again having failed his exams. On the instructions of the man of the house, his infuriated brother George (a vein throbbing Peter McGann), Denis is to be dispatched to Canada against his wishes and to the delight of his siblings. The aspirational Baby (newbie Charlotte Cleary) looking to move to Dublin, the frustrated Jane (an invested Fionnuala Gygax) wanting to get married, and comic dope Peter (a terrific Ben Waddell) all looking for a new start. Meanwhile whiskey swilling Kate (a scene stealing Genevieve Hulme-Beamen) remains doomed to a life of servitude, spinsterhood and dancng alone when no one’s looking. Further complications arrive in the guise of strong willed Delia Duffy (an impressive Malua Ní Chléirigh), Denis’s thrown aside betrothed. Her society conscious father, John (a brilliant Andrew Bennett), threatening court action if Denis doesn’t marry her. Efforts to dissuade dominating the second act, which plays like an extended music hall sketch. Some side dishes, including a lusty Aunt Ellen (a terrific Anna Healey) and Jane’s forlorn suitor (a delightful Michael Tient) add much needed distraction. The whole sliding towards an unresolved cop out. Ryan shattering the fourth wall with a musical big finish to disguise the fact that there's not much of an ending there. Indeed, it could have been a whole lot worse were it not for the brilliance of Ryan.

Peter McGann, Anna Healy and Fionnuala Gygax in The Whiteheaded Boy. Image: Patricio Cassinoni.

The servant who sees it all, the token black presence, breaking the fourth wall with direct address; The Whiteheaded Boy screams 70s and 80s even without Denis Clohessy’s time conscious soundtrack. Sarah Jane Shiel’s summer loving lights, Sinéad Cuthbert’s cartoon cut-out costumes and Maree Kearns’ spacious set evoking a garish, nostalgic sugar rush of kitsch. If Ryan’s Commedia infused direction ensures lots of individual physicality, there’s not enough collective physical comedy. Barrett’s recounting of her doctor visit, Hulme-Beamen's stiff dance routines to the audience, or the hilarious seduction scene leaving you wishing for more. Ryan plastering over a host of deficiencies as her cartoon circus of colourful clowns add humour via background action. Human marionettes evoking physical exaggerations that echo Hall’s Pictorial Weekly.

Michael Tient and Andrew Bennett in The Whiteheaded Boy. Image: Patricio Cassinoni.

At times you laugh. You might even rise for the forced, musical big finish. But you can't escape a feeling of pointlessness. Of it being fun, but not that much fun. The Whiteheaded Boy might’ve been a raging success in its time, but so were Showaddywaddy. When the dust settles, The Whiteheaded Boy doesn’t resurrect a forgotten classic so much as reanimate a mummified corpse. Its zombie remains tottering across stage like a stitched up monster with an intermittent pulse. Shifting events from the distant to the near past, it's still the same old merry go round on which the dead bury their dead. Sacrificing a theatrical present to the glorified, shabby relics of a ghosted past. A past unexplored, filtered through a smudged yet sanitised lens distancing us from both present and past. Ryan’s considerable genius could have been put to better use. Absent the irresistible hilarity, dramatic depth and controversial outrageousness of the comedy stylings it nods at, and never approaching the level of relevance it enjoyed one hundred and ten years ago, The Whiteheaded Boy’s intermittent giggles, mostly arising from Ryan’s superb direction, are entertaining enough. But they come at a price.

The Whiteheaded Boy by Lennox Robinson runs at The Abbey Theatre until July 25.

For more information visit The Abbey Theatre