Rookie with stagecraft
A TABLE is upended, its contents crashing to the floor, drinks, half-empty, half-full, lost in the chaos of the scuffle. The old dear in the corner gasps in horror as a pint pot whizzes past her ear, crashing harmlessly against a wall as its target dashes towards the exit, to the sanctity of the streets and freedom, however brief.
His pursuers give chase, the damage they’ve done, the carnage they’ve left, no longer their concern. And the proprietor of this inner-city Dublin pub, sensing that the coast is clear, comes out from behind the bar, sweeping-brush at the ready, hoping he remembered to fill out his insurance form.
That scene played out in the National Opera House in Wexford. That and many others like it. And yet on stage, stood just one man, his only props a foot-stool and the clothes on his back.
Written by Mark O’Rowe, directed by James Power and starring Fintan Kelly, Howie the Rookie tells the story of two young Dublin men as they navigate their way through a particularly challenging couple of days.
In Act 1, the shy, impressionable Howie Lee argues with his ould wan, feels a familiar hand on his unmentionables, captures an old foe and slow dances his way into the affections of an unlikely paramour.
In Act 2 we follow lothario extraordinaire Rookie Lee as he struggles with an itch that can’t be scratched, a debt that can’t be paid and a bladder with a mind of its own. And by the finale, as both characters unite against the terrors that stalk them, and the whole sordid charade comes to a shattering halt, we can but gape in awe, in shellshocked admiration, as this most unlikely of thrillers doles out one last pound of filthy flesh for us to feast on.
What Howie the Rookie does best, and does better than almost any in its field, is bring pathos to the lives of people who, from the outside, seem innately unlovable.
Depictions of this subsection of Irish society, those who exist beneath the working-class but above the criminalised, drug-addled netherworld are ten-a-penny. Most are tiresome, cliché-ridden melodramas, banal and formulaic, toe-curling dialogue and cardboard cut-outs aplenty, authenticity at an absolute premium. O’Rowe’s work is different, it’s not only the product of someone who has lived that life, but also someone blessed with the writing skills to accurately portray it.
Yet, in the hands of a lesser actor, an inferior director, all those writing skills would be for nought. Assembling this tale is one matter, delivering it is entirely another. But deliver they do, Power and Kelly presenting the prose, at times Shakesperian, at times just downright crude, in jolting, staccato bursts; poetic, gentle and sweet one moment, feral, nasty and lewd the next.
Kelly not only inhabits both titular characters as if they were extensions of his own self, he also manages to introduce and frequent at least a dozen others, jinking and jiving from one side of the stage to the other, one foot to the other, as he works his way through the ski-pant wearing, eructating Avalanche, the tragic, hapless Mouse and a pair of exotic, neurotic fish who want nothing more than to be left alone.
The Enniscorthy man is also our tour guide for the night, taking us by the reluctant hand and guiding us through the dark, clammy parts of our capital, the parts we’d rather not see, his grip never wavering despite the horrors on show.
And he does so with that same little stool, the odd cigarette, a hood and a change of hairstyle; a subtle change of light altering his surroundings, transporting him from Chopper Al’s to Dave McGee’s, Peach’s gaff to a darkly-lit street corner, the murmuring soundtrack depositing him in the back of a lurching, oscillating van before placing him in the vice-like grip of the forlorn Avalanche.
Having previously enjoyed James Power’s work I was fully aware of his credentials beforehand, but Kelly I hadn’t heard of, which, considering he’s only been at this a few years, isn’t wholly surprising.
But what is surprising is how a relative rookie of the stage not only had the confidence to take on O’Rowe’s work, but also the ability to tame it, control it and master it as his own.
For a man of his talents there are many more worlds to conquer, but it’s worth noting that the roles of Howie and Rookie have previously been performed by Tom Vaughan-Lawlor, he of ‘Nidge’ fame, of Love/Hate fame, a show which also launched the career of Barry Keoghan. It might be early days for Fintan Kelly, but on this showing at least, those are circles he can aspire to one day mix in.