So, judging from his review of Dublin Carol, it looks like Ben Brantley gets it. He didn’t have the horrified or pissed-off response of the woman I spoke with in the bathroom after the show, who saw no redemption, and no humor in a man with a perpetual hangover. It’s a lovely review, and pitch-perfect.
Some beautiful observations (which deepened my own understanding of what I had seen … always the job of a good reviewer):
— Mr. McPherson doesn’t regard a hangover as a temporary physical affliction to be banished with aspirin, Coca-Cola and a day in bed. Make no mistake, the state of coming off a bender is as much existential as physical in “Dublin Carol.”
— … this is a play that, like much of Mr. McPherson’s work, capitalizes on that long, lovely and painful tradition in Irish literature of tales told by drinkers, squinting through the murk of the morning after. Whether dealing with restless young fathers on a rampage (“Rum and Vodka”) or those nasty old vampires known as drama critics (“St. Nicholas”), Mr. McPherson knows how to exact every ounce of angst and rueful humor from that garden-variety ailment called a hangover. Still in his early 30’s, he has already established himself as a sentimentality-free descendant of the likes of Joyce Cary, Brendan Behan and J. P. Donleavy, specialists in the bleared perspectives of men crawling out of their cups.
Congratulations Kerry and to the rest of the cast, for such a sensitive and heartfelt review. You all deserve it. The play has stayed with me since I saw it. I have thought of each one of the characters, wondering how life turned out for each one of them.
