‘The Craic’ Bursts With Irish Music and Spirit

The cast of ‘The Craic’ performs Irish music. Photo by Michael Brosilow.

It may be freezing in Milwaukee, but imagine you have escaped indoors to the foot-stomping camaraderie of a traditional Irish pub on the outskirts of Dublin.

It is packed with talented musicians reveling in the grand folk songs of our youth – and theirs –along with the lore and lyrics of the Emerald Isle. And all this without the smell of spilled ale and the stink of cigar smoke.

That is the often-realized intention of The Craic (which means escapist fun). It turns the Milwaukee Repertory Theater‘s Stackner Cabaret into a nifty corner of Ireland where Celtic lettering, varied strings and noise-makers (plus bagpipe moans and an echo chamber in the inventive methods of music director Dan Kazemi) dot the corner stage and embrace the crowd clapping in unison with the tunes.

Five personable performers acknowledge our presence at their extended songfest, with occasional jabs at the Americanization of the Irish. The songs are famous, the three and four-beat rhythms irresistible and all the tunes feel strangely related to each other in words and meaning: “Black Velvet Band,” “Whiskey in a Jar,” “Wild Rover,” “Molly Malone,” “Up She Rises” (aka Drunken Sailor), “Rocky Road,” “O Danny Boy”  and some wild additional moments to evoke our probably false memories of hags, faeries, Galway Bay and County Down — phrases they use and explain in the show.

The Stackner dinner theater often concocts a thin motive for good singing in a particular pop vein. But director Mark Clements (artistic leader of the whole Rep shebang) is also co-writer with Rep dramaturge Deanie Vallone of The Craic. They intended a deeper dramatic cover story where family and old lovers reunite and share personal issues.

The script is sometimes intrusive blarney. At moments it feels as heavy-handed and obvious as the Irish brogue the actors paste on, but there is a general uplift in the music and the casting. We may not buy the script, but appreciate the intention of making us feel down home.

Trevor Lindley Craft, pouring out sardonic asides to fans in the audience, relishes his mercurial boyish manners as the cutup who is soon leaving for America. Claire-Frances Sullivan as his take-charge sister is the Irish definition of winsome, using her grin and flashing eyes to make patrons feel welcome and drive the story forward. Both sing strongly – as do Megan Loomis and Luke Darnell as the one-time lovers.  All performers move from instrument to instrument, part of the constant smoothness in handling fiddle, accordion, keyboard, bass, mandolin and banjo.

The Rep has made handling instruments as natural to musical theater acting skills as harmony. In this case the performers are all singing and simultaneously playing instruments — sometimes pretending. The patrons may not know the difference so talented are the performers at concocting this musical veneer.

The master class in all this is provided by another strong singer and actor, assistant musical director Alexander Sovronsky. He opens the second act plucking multiple string instruments wrapped around his body — and then he plays the Bodhrán (a frame drum) while singing at length a cappella. His dramatic purpose may be to play the pub jester, but don’t underestimate his skill.

The script still needs work to fulfill the authors’ concept of a dramatic underpinning for this excursion to Ireland. But reeling in this music is a pleasure.

The Craic will occupy the Stackner Cabaret through March 16. The menu and the drinks have an Irish lilt.

Photos

Dominique Paul Noth served for decades as film and drama critic, later senior editor for features at the Milwaukee Journal. You’ll find his blog here and here.