D’Arcy McGee’s rebel history comes alive onstage
In the waning months of Canada’s sesquicentennial, just when you thought all the fireworks had been shot into the air, Hamilton’s venerable community playhouse, The Players’ Guild, has unleashed that explosive rebel D’Arcy McGee.
He, of course, is the shock wave at the centre of Dermot Nolan’s challenging new play “It’s Morning Now.”
A complex, rangy work with a large cast of colourful characters, this Guild production is a brave, if imperfect effort.
The play, which might well make an interesting film, is partly hobbled by many short scenes that demand skilled direction and stronger performances than it mostly gets here.
In Nolan’s play we follow the irrepressible activist and smart-talking McGee from Ireland to Canada to help forge a strong nation.
Sometimes, as in the spun-out courtroom scenes, there is just too much talk to sustain the play through its two and a half-hour run time.
It is however, an admiral achievement for a community theatre to field the large cast of players we have here, all under the direction of professional actor and teacher Brad Rudy.
Rudy marshals his cast across an uncredited, mostly serviceable set that seldom evokes any real time or place. Nothing much is helped by Greg Kott’s dull lighting that mechanically interrupts the shuffling of furniture carrying actors as they progress off and on the large stage.
There is a slow, methodical pace here to the pretty much straightforward staging that hobbles the action. The production needs an infusion of energy, tension and physical momentum to lift Nolan’s intriguing play off the page.
Too often lights are slowly dimming on one scene as we wait for another to start. Too often actors are perched on chairs when we long for them to be in motion.
Thankfully Rudy tugs detailed performances from some, if not all of his cast. But as you might expect, given the scope of the play and the size of the cast required, there are rough edges that need to be smoothed away.
“It’s Morning Now” brims with historical f acts as Nolan suggests McGee’s stunning powers of oration and his fearless challenge to those who would oppose his idea of a nation where English and French, Catholic and Protestant might walk side by side.
“(McGee’s) is a profound human story about a charismatic tragic hero, an Irish rebel on the run, a thrill- ing escape, a shocking murder, a complex conspiracy, mystery men and aliases, a country on a precipice, a dramatic trial, perhaps the wrong man hanged; all infused with healthy doses of humour and song,” says Nolan.
That’s a tall order for one play. Still, if you think Canadian history is dull and remember sweating over memorizing facts and dates to regurgitate on examination pages, you’ll be surprised how involved you’ll become with McGee’s story.
Happily too, there are some strong performances that help carry the Guild’s production.
Michael Hannigan is a compelling McGee. Whenever he’s onstage the play crackles with electricity. When he’s sidelined, things aren’t so felicitous.
Paula Grove is a believable Mary McGee, D’Arcy’s low-keyed wife; Maureen Dwyer is a strong Eileen O’Donnell, an Irish boarding house biddy; and Ariel Rogers is a sly Mary Ann Trotter, proprietor of an Ottawa rooming house where McGee often slept. There’s also a robust turn from Brian Morton as Knocker Kehoe, a loud, proud Fenian.
Add to these a solid performance from D’Arcy Wilson as James Whelan, McGee’s accused killer. Wilson makes Whelan so touching and sincere you long for him to escape the
hangman’s noose.
Professional actor Roger Shank has good moments as Thomas Blake, McGee’s enemy and Steve O’Brien is a perfect Mundy Hayes, his loyal, avenging friend.
Ariel Rogers’ costumes, in a palette of mostly black, grey and brown hues are evocative of time and place giving the production verisimilitude.
In an interview about his play, Nolan said he “hopes an audience will walk away with gratitude.” Not necessarily for his play but, “for the courage and vision of D’Arcy McGee, for the country he helped create and for the values he invested in it. And (with) just enough embarrassment, “For not knowing this story, to compel them to spread it far and wide.”
It would be interesting to see “It’s Morning Now” in its next staging. And I certainly hope there will be one because this play has an important story to tell.