Interludes

THE HANGOVER REPORT – Abbie Spallen’s emotionally unfiltered PUMPGIRL finds poetry in small town tragedy and desperation

• By drediman
• December 17, 2019
• No Comments

Hamish Allan-Headley and Labhaoise Magee in Abbie Spallen’s “Pumpgirl” at the Irish Repertory Theatre. Photo by Carol Rosegg.

Off-Broadway’s Irish Repertory Theatre is currently playing host to the extended run of Abbie Spallen’s 2006 play Pumpgirl. Set in a dead end community in rural Northern Ireland, Ms. Sprallen’s play tells the tale of two women and the men they share. The piece is one of a long line of Irish plays that uses interlocking monologues as the means to tell its story. Indeed, Brian Friel’s Faith Healer and Molly Sweeney, Elaine Murphy’s Little Gem (a production of which played Irish Rep earlier this season), Conor McPherson’s Port Authority, and Mark O’Rowe’s Terminus are a few works that utilize this device that quickly come to mind.

Ms. Spallen’s play may not be the most well-known or eye-catching of the lot; that distinction probably goes to Mr. Friel’s elegant and haunting 1979 play Faith Healer, which probably served as an inspiration and template for most of the plays I listed above. But what makes Pumpgirl notable is the emotionally authentic way — no matter how unfiltered — with which the playwright portrays small town desperation and tragedy. In effect, Ms. Spallen has taken a melodramatic plot and turned it into an utterly human story. Although the two women at the story’s center are very clearly victims of toxic masculinity, they’re given such spunk and resiliency that, no matter how flawed, they make for more interesting company than you’d think characters in similar predicaments would make.

The current Irish Rep production has been directed by Nicola Murphy, who has provided the play a tough, realistic swagger on the surface. But dig just below and you’ll see a well of poetry in these lost character’s pained, frustrated lives. The play’s trio of performances are superb. As the titular pumpgirl, Labhaoise Magee is heartbreakingly naive in a role that could have easily come off as irritatingly gullible. As the all-but-abandoned wife, the compelling Clare O’Malley is both fiery and resigned. And as the flailing man between these two women, Hamish Allan-Headley exudes oodles of rugged sex appeal, as well as flustered cluelessness.

RECOMMENDED

PUMPGIRL
Off-Broadway, Play
Irish Repertory Theatre
2 hours (with one intermission)
Through January 12