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Aristocrats has been Extended to March 29th!

See what The Times has to say about Aristocrats...

An Irish Home Littered With Corpses, Living and Dead
By WILBORN HAMPTON

January 28, 2009
THEATER REVIEW | 'ARISTOCRATS'

The O’Donnell family is on its last legs. In four generations its sons have gone from a High Court justice
to a sausage-factory worker, and in Brian Friel’s elegiac play “Aristocrats,” which is being given
A FIRST-RATE REVIVAL by the Irish Repertory Theater, what begins as a wedding celebration ends up as a wake.

The clan has gathered in the 1970s at its ancestral home, Ballybeg Hall, for the impending nuptials of the youngest daughter, Claire, whose dream of being a concert pianist was stifled by the domineering father. She now spends her days playing Chopin, leaving to her sister Judith — forced by the father to place her illegitimate child in an orphanage — the burden of caring for the bedridden and demented old man, whose voice still booms over a house intercom, reciting old judicial rulings and shouting demands.

If the father is a living reminder of the oppressive past, the ghost of the mother, a former actress who escaped his tyranny by suicide, also floats through the house. The other siblings are Alice, an alcoholic who fled to London with her husband, Eamon; and Casimir, a failed solicitor who lives in Germany and may or may not have a wife and three children.

In the midst of this reunion is Willie Diver, a local with whom the family once would not have socialized and is now the glue that holds it together, and Tom Hoffnung, an American who is taking notes for a book about the Catholic Irish aristocracy. If that aristocracy ignored the Irish Rebellion, it is even less concerned with the Troubles going on 20 miles away in Ulster. To whatever depths it may have fallen, it is still an isolated class answerable only to itself.

Mr. Friel has probed the decline of Irish identity in plays like “Philadelphia, Here I Come,” “Translations” and “Dancing at Lughnasa.” In “Aristocrats” the dry rot has set in. Ballybeg Hall, like the family that occupied it, is decaying, alive only in memories that are not always reliable. As Casimir regales the American with tales of the hall’s glory days — the parties with guest lists that included cardinals, Chesterton, both George and Thomas Moore, Yeats and O’Casey — it becomes clear that it is all a fantasy, no more real than the croquet game he plays with imaginary mallets, balls and wickets.

CHARLOTTE MOORE HAS DIRECTED A FINE CAST in a well-paced and low-key staging. John Keating is excellent as Casimir, wide-eyed and loquacious with a bark of a laugh, but unable to answer a direct question. Laura Odeh, Lynn Hawley and Orlagh Cassidy deliver solid performances as the three daughters, and Ciaran O’Reilly is especially good as Eamon, the local boy who loved one sister but married another. Sean Gormley adds a nice turn as Willie Diver.

Aristocrats. One of the most distinctive voices in contemporary Irish theater, master storyteller Brian Friel is at the top of his form with this touching story of a once powerful and aristocratic family in its days of decline. In the author's most Chekovian play, he examines the Ballybeg "Big House" both in its remembered Heyday and in the era of a heartbreaking social change. Dark memories invade the family gathered for the wedding of the youngest sister as the family tries to escape the seriousness of their situation and the difficult life that awaits each of them as they follow separate paths.  Glorious Chopin melodies accompany the memories of the past and the realities of the present as the language flirts with lyricism and skepticism that Friel balances with his particular genius.

Brian Friel was born in Omagh, County Tyrone in 1929, and in 1939 moved with his family to Derry.  He now lives in County Donegal. He has published two collections of short stories, A Saucer of Larks and The Gold in the Sea. In 1980, he co-founded the Field Day Theatre Company in Derry. Brian Friel served in the Senate from 1987 to 1989. He has received honorary doctorates from the National University of Ireland, Trinity College, Dublin, Dublin City University, Magee University and Queen’s University, Belfast. He is an honorary fellow of University College, Dublin, a member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters, and a fellow of the Royal Society of Literature. He was elected to Aosdána in 1982. His plays have premiered and been produced at prestigious venues like the Abbey Theatre, London’s West End and Broadway and have been highly successful everywhere. His first major play, Philadelphia, Here I Come! was the hit of the 1964 Dublin Theatre Festival. In 1972 he was elected as a member of the Irish Academy of Letters. In 1981, Translations, one of his seminal pieces, was awarded the Ewart-Biggs Peace Prize. Dancing at Lughnasa, probably his most successful play so far, received three Tony Awards in 1992, including Best Play. 

Charlotte Moore ’s most recent directing assignments were Take Me Along, Gaslight, Meet Me in St. Louis, Mrs. Warren’s Profession, and Mr. Dooley’s America. Other directing credits include: Finian’s Rainbow at Joanne Woodward’s Westport Country Playhouse, She Stoops to Conquer, Samuel Beckett’s Endgame, the adaptation and direction of Finian’s Rainbow, Dion Boucicault’s The Colleen Bawn, J. Harley Manners’ Peg O’ My Heart, J.M.Synge’s Playboy of the Western World, and Dion Boucicault’s The Streets of New York, which she adapted and scored. New York stage appearances include Major Barbara, A Perfect Ganesh, Meet Me in St. Louis, The Perfect Party, Morning’s at Seven, Private Lives,  Love for Love, Holiday, Chemin de Fer, The Great God Brown, A Lovely Sunday for Creve Coeur, and many performances with the New York Shakespeare Festival, with directors who include Harold Prince, Tony Walton, John Tillinger, Vivian Matalon, Paul Weidner, Brian Murray, Michael Montel, Edward Berkeley, Arvin Brown, Louis Burke, Steven Porter, and Ellis Rabb.  Ms. Moore has directed forty-eight Irish Repertory Theatre productions and all twenty Gala Benefits. She has received two Tony Award nominations, the Outer Critics Circle Award, the Drama Desk Award, The Irish America Top 100 Irish Award, and the 2008 Irish Women Of The Year Award. She is the recipient of the 2008 Ambassador Award, the St. Patrick’s Committee in Holyoke’s John F. Kennedy National Award, and is listed as one of the “50 Most Influential Women” in the Irish America Magazine/Irish Voice Newspaper.

The cast features Orlagh Cassidy, Rufus Collins, Sean Gormley, Lynn Hawley, John Keating, Laura Odeh, Ciarán O’Reilly, and Geddeth Smith.

Set Design is by James Morgan, Costume Design by Linda Fisher, Lighting Design by Brian Nason, Sound Design by Zachary Williamson, and Wig and Hair Design by Robert-Charles Vallance. The Stage Manager is Pamela Brusoski. Assistant Stage Manager is Janice M. Brandine, Charlotte Moore, Artistic Director, Ciarán O’Reilly, Producing Director, Jeff Chrzczon, General Manager.

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Performance Schedule

Performances are Wednesday - Saturday at 8 PM., Matinees are Wednesday, Saturday, and Sunday at 3 PM.

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Running Time

2 hours with one intermission

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How to Buy Tickets

Tickets to ARISTOCRATS are on sale now. Tickets can be purchased by calling (212) 727-2737 or at the box office prior to each performance.

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Ticket Prices

Ticket prices are $65 and $55.

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Group Sales

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Accessibility

Irish Repertory Theatre's Main Stage is wheelchair accessible. Please mention at the time of your ticket purchase that you are interested in this service.

Assistive listening devices are available for every performance in all Main Stage productions. Visit our concessions area for the devices. ID is required.

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