Theatre review: Mother of All Behans
Imelda May shines in a crowd-pleasing production that misses the artistic mark.
The cross pollination of Irish musicians into Irish theatre continues unabated in Mother of All Behans, a new production of a one-woman show which first appeared on a stage in Ireland in 1987.
To mention but a few names, in the past year alone Cork theatre goers have seen members of Gilla Band, traditional accordion player Danny O’ Mahony, and Steve Wickham of The Waterboys (twice) bring their music and in some cases, acting skills to the stage with varying degrees of success.
Well now it’s the turn of Imelda May, who under the directorial stewardship of Peter Sheridan, takes on her first acting role in a play which centers around the life and times of Kathleen Behan - ardent republican, folk singer and mother to three celebrated writers.
While the main focus of the play is on the ups and downs of this remarkable woman, in the retelling of her colorful life, the production also manages to give a broad overview of a similarly remarkable time in Irish history.
When the curtain is raised, May is laid up in bed and the audience hangs on every syllable of her initial few utterances. Perhaps not so much to hear what her character Kathleen Behan is even saying, but how Imelda May herself is delivering it and to find out whether, as someone who made her name as a singer, she can in fact act on stage and carry an entire play on her own.
They needn’t have had any worries, because what May has going for her is something which is rare in a lot of trained actors and indeed most ordinary people; she is a very likable person. And this natural affability immediately comes across when she gets to her feet and starts recounting the often eventful daily life in Dublin’s northside at the turn of the last century.
If May is a bit nervous or jittery in the opening sequence, it certainly disappears the moment she breaks into the first song of the evening and you could feel the people in the auditorium release a collective exhalation of relief when they realize that she’s going to do just fine and when she sings, even better again.
The story itself moves along at a nice pace and jumps from one seismic event to the next, sometimes maybe trying to cover a little too much ground. It is interesting however, to hear how topics such as church and state, politics and war, love and sexuality are covered in a play written in the late eighties and contrast that to how they might be treated in the present day.
Perhaps most interesting of all was discovering how Behan’s first husband died from the Spanish Flu in 1918 and she says that every household in Dublin was affected by this and knew of someone who had died. This is in sharp contrast to the most recent “pandemic” and the effect it had on mortality rates in this country.
Lessons in history aside, when you strip back this production and look at it in more detail, a few things stand out. The lighting is a bit heavy handed at times and drew a little too much attention to itself, especially when May would pause for a more sombre moment in the play. The set is very basic indeed and consists of only a bed, a screen to help with a few costume changes and a large wooden panel acting as a window, none of which does all that much to convey a specific time or location.
At the side of the stage was a keyboard player adding a little musical colour here and there, accompanying May when she broke into song and occasionally helping her out if she lost her way. These improvised moments were almost highlights of the show, as they only further served to showcase May’s ability to improvise and endear herself even more to her loyal following in the audience.
If the script is unmemorable, then hearing May singing certainly isn’t and it was a great pleasure anytime she gave a rendition of a song. The crowd loved it, dripping as the show is in nostalgia and civilised humor. It’s inoffensive, harmless and ticks a lot of the right boxes for a modern production, especially in terms of marketing and economics.
As a piece of official culture to be consumed, Mother of All Behans certainly hits the spot. As for art, would it be overly truculent to say it misses the mark entirely?
“Mother of All Behans” runs at The Everyman Theatre until August 10. For tickets and times please visit The Everyman here
