They creep out of the shadows, snorting and giggling. The sneaky, shimmy-singing pig in “The Butcher Boy,” which opens Monday at the Irish Repertory Theater, is not only silly, it’s half menacing. From the neck down, he’s dressed like Asher Muldoon’s 1960s Irish townspeople in his new musical, written and composed by him. But from the chin up, their nasal masks are eerily cool.
A chorus of pigs looks like a lewd totem, embodying the dark and unknown depths of the show’s narrator, Francie (Nicholas Barash). In his bright brogue, Francie tells the tale of boyhood mischief and alienation with a fervor that betrays what appears to be the threat of promised violence. , Francie might be a little too good at hiding knives.
Based on Patrick McCabe’s 1992 novel, “The Butcher Boy” presents a short-sighted view of a troubled upbringing. Francie claims his adolescence was idyllic, but scenes in musicals clearly prove otherwise. or steal a comic book from a nerdy classmate (Daniel Marconi). That her mother (Michele Ragusa) fatefully mocks Francie and his parents based on social class, calling them pigs.
“It was a sweet and simple time,” Francie sings as her father (Scott Stanland) belts her butt. “We were happy. Francie of Motormouth turns to audiences with her sidelines and misdirections as misleading as they reveal.”
In the novel, McCabe’s prose is propulsive and unpredictable, bordering on stream of consciousness and bubbling with proto-punk sensibility, unlike Irvine Welsh’s Trainspotting, published in Scotland a year later. .
But getting a less reliable narrator than Francie at the helm of a stage musical is a difficult task. Should the audience believe what they hear or see? It depends on which is more convincing, and the results here are hard to decipher. , or are you trying to deceive others? Often the answer seems to be both. It’s a tough deception to pull off, especially while the performer is in on her two-and-a-half-hour long action.
“The Butcher Boy” might have been a sharper, stronger black comedy had Muldoon’s score, not yet in his junior year of college, developed a more idiosyncratic perspective. A Broadway faithful tour of his style of pop, vaudeville and Irish influences is largely based on references.
Directed by Ciaran O’Reilly, the production uses graphic shorthand to suggest the tension between Francie’s isolated mind and the outside world. The wooden slatted walls of the set by Charlie Corcoran resemble a treehouse, while the oversized rendering of Turn Her Dial her TV serves as the backdrop for Dan Her Scully’s projection. The screen looms large over a compact stage, an easy nod to Francie’s penchant for 1960s chaos and the “Twilight Zone,” but the mass media’s importance to Francie’s tortured descent is either exaggerated or understated. Rated.
“The Butcher Boy” centers Francie’s point of view on fault, allowing the other characters’ beliefs to be mediated by his own. It’s a powerful concept, but it requires subtle physics that can make it difficult to stage a story in his 3D. Whose heartstrings can you claim they’re pulling when characters without an emotional subject express themselves in song?Francie proves he has nothing of his own seems determined to try.
There’s a promising emotionally-affecting moment at the end of Muldoon’s score, before Francie pulls it off with a still-indeterminate rage. But by the time Francie’s own mask finally drops, her revelation feels strangely bloodless.
butcher boy
Until September 11th at the Irish Repertory Theater in Manhattan. irishrep.orgPerformance time: 2 hours 30 minutes.
