As the audience settles in before the start of The Seafarer at Mosaic Theater in South Florida, a ghost-gray light marks the set's window near where a Christmas tree later will glow subtly with multicolored bulbs. But for now, that ghostly light doesn't seem to enter the small home near Dublin as much as it just hovers there, outside, as if waiting to make an entrance.
It's Christmas Eve in Ireland and, as in other Conor McPherson plays, death past and, perhaps, the near future hovers at the edges of a moving, disturbing, funny human drama built around hard-drinking men. But what about after death? What's in the cards then? The Seafarer takes that question literally.
Richard Jay Simon directs a top-notch cast of five actors and gets pitch-perfect lighting, set, costumes and sound (the early peal of church bells amid Irish music, a more distant foghorn later) from the design team.
Gregg Weiner plays Sharky, a forlorn former seaman whose drinking has cost him too many jobs. Now he's on the wagon and living with older brother Richard (played by Dennis Creaghan), who was blinded in a Halloween accident and has all but given up bathing. Creaghan's anguished cry at the play's start as Sharky tries to help Richard up from where he's fallen speaks eloquently of the despair of frailty in this case, fueled in part by drink. Also in the house is family friend Ivan (John Felix), who thought himself too drunk the night before to face his wife. And showing up soon will be Nicky (Christian Rockwell), who now is attached to Sharky's ex-wife.
Sharky wasn't looking forward to seeing Nicky, but wait until he discovers whom Nicky's brought with him: a well-dressed stranger named Mr. Lockhart (Ken Clement). The others are four of a kind dressed in lived-in clothes of sweaters and baggy pants but .Mr. Lockhart makes his entrance in three-piece black suit and white shirt set off by red tie. The devil, you say and you'd be right. Sharky, who's had his bouts of being blind drunk, takes a bit longer to catch on.
The five characters will play poker for extremely high stakes. The five actors gracefully traverse the high-wire act of Irish accents. The voices of Creaghan and Felix crack and carp as their characters carry on as relative elder statesmen. Rockwell's Nicky is a fast talker and occasionally slow decider. But Clement and Weiner are riveting with almost no movement as Mr. Lockhart describes hell and heaven to Sharky. No fireworks here: Mr. Lockhart has known them both and is sadly matter-of-fact in describing them to someone who seems headed for one sometime soon.
