Don Wycherley: An apology

When I was in New York in February, I was determined to see a play on Broadway. I narrowed it down to 3 plays : David Mamet’s November [which is the one I chose], Ethan Coen’s Almost an Evening or Conor McPherson’s The Seafarer. All three plays were well reviewed but I figured that I’d have a better chance of seeing the Seafarer in Ireland anyway.

I got to see The Seafarer in Galway last week at the Town Hall Theatre, and a mighty fine piece of entertainment it was, too – an intriguing story, fantastic dialogue and delivered by a great cast. I have to confess that, when I opened the programme and looked at the cast, I groaned when I came across Don Wycherley‘s name. He was one of the actors in the acclaimed series Bachelor’s Walk and I really didn’t like his performance in it. At all. So much so, that it coloured my view of everything he has done since – I’d even switch off the radio when the Myhome.ie ads came on (Wycherley does the voice-over for them). God, I hope he doesn’t ruin the play for me, I said to my companion/designated-driver (someone has to have a couple of G&Ts before the play and it might as well be me).

As it turned out, Wycherley stole the show – I didn’t even recognize him (or his voice) for the first few minutes he was on stage – given his appearance in the play, I doubt if his mother would recognize him. I should emphasise that the whole cast is excellent and Wycherley’s character gets some of the best lines [his is the comic role]. But even so, he gives a standout performance as a scruffy and absolutely hapless but well meaning drunk whose journey home to his wife on Christmas Eve gets hopelessly sidetracked due to ‘a few sociable drinks’ and a card game with the highest stakes of all.

Mea culpa.

If you get a chance to see this, don’t pass it up.

And it looks like the Seafarer augers well for the rest of the summer. The programme for the Galway Arts Festival has been released and there looks to be a great selection of theatre this year – a mix of the local and the imported. Excellent!

New York time review of Seafarer, November and Almost an Evening here. John Lahr, who gave a lecture on comedy at the Arts festival a few years ago and managed to drain all of the fun out of it, reviewed [and gives away the twists] both the Seafarer and November [he cuts Mamet waaay too much slack].