What would we do without our Irish playwrights? Conor McPherson alone has filled out the season for more than one local theater this year. And the year before that. And probably next year too. You can see his The Night Alive—about which all the critics and my wife are raving—for just a little while longer at Steppenwolf Theatre. AstonRep, meanwhile, has brought back one by Martin McDonagh, who filled the McPherson function with considerably greater nastiness about a decade back. They’re presenting The Lieutenant of Inishmore, McDonagh’s bloody 2001 farce on the subjects of love, cats, and patriotic psychopathy.
Strandline brings us back to Spallen’s borderlands, where the first thing that happens is a drowning. A clutch of wedding guests watch from shore, unable to intervene as the father of the bride, a well-known local man named Tom, slowly—very slowly—disappears beneath the waves. Besides his lucklessly married daughter, Triona, Tom leaves behind his latest wife, Mairin, who’s something of an outsider among the tight-knit townsfolk, though she’s as much a native as anybody. The trouble with Mairin is airs. She puts them on. She had Tom build her a big house in the manner of Le Corbusier. Motifs from Smetana run through her head. She pops in to Dublin on a regular basis, knows her Celtic arcana, and does fiber art on ecological themes. Uneasy over the fact that Tom’s body was never recovered, leaving her with nothing to bury, she’s preparing a catafalque for him. (Look it up.)
Through 12/7: Thu-Sat 8 PM, Sun 3 PM A Red Orchid Theatre 1531 N. Wells 312-943-8722 aredorchidtheatre.org $30-$35
