OBSERVE THE SONS OF ULSTER MARCHING TOWARDS THE SOMME

By Anthony Chase

Impressively affecting acting is the centerpiece of the Irish Classical Theatre production of Frank McGuinness' Observe the Sons of Ulster Marching Towards the Somme.

The play follows eight men who volunteer to serve in the 36th (Ulster) Division at the beginning of World War I. Dramatic irony is fueled by our awareness that the men are headed toward certain death in the battle of the Somme, which took the lives of 60,000 soldiers of the British Empire in a single day, July 1, 1916. The date was the actual anniversary of the battle of the Boyne in 1690, at which Protestant King William and Catholic King James faced each other at the River Boyne, a confrontation that ended with a decisive victory for William and the preservation of the Protestant settlement in Ireland.

The Somme, like the Boyne, has come to symbolize loyalty to the Protestant counties of Ulster.

McGuinness uses the painful pointlessness and brutality of World War I as counterpoint to the fears and desires of the young men marching into battle, and builds irony on the crippling self-absorption and provincialism that blinds them to larger truths. The specter of mortality forces certain realizations and blurs previously immutable certainties.

The playwright presents his characters in pairs whose personal needs, insecurities and values meld or play off of each other. Brendan Powers, Michael Providence, Jeffrey Coyle, Tim Eimiller, Guy Balotine, Steven Dawson, Christian Brandjes and Joe Wiens navigate the script with great commitment and power. Jim Mohr plays elderly Kenneth Pyper, the lone survivor, setting the story in motion as a flashback.

Given the excellence of the ensemble, I kept wanting to like the production more than I did. Directed by the more typically astute Derek Campbell, the production loses energy, however, in a flatness of presentation. There is little contrast between the pairs of characters, and the performance trudges along at a monotonous pace.

This becomes most frustratingly apparent in scenes of simultaneous staging in Act Two, performed on the uninspired "set design concept" by Meghan Raham. The dynamism of the arena stage at the Andrews Theatre is inexplicably sacrificed to the foreshortened literal staging of a stylized set. The cumulative result is clutter.

The production becomes heavily sentimental rather than bitingly ironic or insightful; maudlin rather than tragic.

Still, there are flashes of fine acting and isolated scene work to enjoy. Ever reliable Brendan Powers, Michael Providence, Guy Balotine and Christian Brandjes are once again very strong. Jeffrey Coyle adds to a list of memorable performances that have been accumulating quite rapidly over the past year. Steven Dawson and Joe Wiens similarly provide real characters with moments of compelling reality. If only the production as a whole added up to the sum of its parts.

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