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'Emperor Jones' rules at Irish Repertory Theatre in New York

CAHIR O'DOHERTY

Irish Voice Reporter

Published Thursday, October 29, 2009, 4:45 PM

Updated Friday, October 30, 2009, 9:40 AM

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Read more: Eugene O’Neill, Entertainment, Performing Arts, Theater, Douglas E. Thompson

John Douglas Thompson in "The Emperor Jones" at the Irish Rep.

If you want to wield power in this world you’ll need a whip. You also need to be unafraid to crack it.

But just remember that, as Irish American playwright Eugene O’Neill outlines in the revival of his remarkable play "The Emperor Jones" now playing at the Irish Repertory Theatre, sooner or later that whip is going to be used on you too. Power always comes with a price attached, and it’s usually steep.

First performed in 1920, when it caused a sensation, "The Emperor Jones" was a revolutionary play in its time. To begin with it presented a black actor in the title role and then it placed him in a position of ultimate authority, even lording it over the white men who fear and loathe him.

It may be hard from this vantage point in time to understand what a provocation that sight was to many theatergoers even in New York in 1920, but the fact is that O’Neill was turning every convention of the era on its head. Black men were more commonly portrayed as shiftless stereotypes, and they were certainly never seen as powerful or threatening.

In the title role of Jones, actor John Douglas Thompson commands the Irish Rep’s stage like a Colossus from the moment he appears. Dressed in bright colored military garb and thigh high leather boots, he’s almost (but not quite) a caricature of authority, his appearance calculated to dazzle and amaze, all the better to prevent anyone from ever questioning his authority.

Douglas Thompson inhabits the role with such conviction that you wonder if he’ll ever emerge from it. To begin with he’s all swagger and poise, strutting around like the overbearing potentate he knows himself to be.

But as the play progresses the shadows that surround Charlie Corcoran’s superbly effective set begin to lengthen with what O’Neill calls little formless fears that begin to collect around him.

When the play opens Douglas Thompson’s character is -- unknown to himself -- about to make his last stand. The tom-tom drums are beating far away offstage turn out to be a warning that his number is finally up.

O’Neill seems to be considering the ways in which colonialism and violent resistance to it must always live in a tense standoff, which certainly speaks to the Irish experience, but there’s a racial element at work here that gives the play even more metaphorical heft, sometimes to the point where it can be difficult to discern the playwright’s ultimate intentions.

What’s never in doubt is the strength of this play or this magnificently realized production. In the modern theater most directors ignore a playwright’s stage directions. Indeed, it’s become almost an article of faith.

Nowadays the playwright’s notes are often blacked out, overlooked or even torn up because most modern directors believe that a script is just a starting point, a blueprint for the main event -- themselves.

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A sea change in the history of the Irish theatre came with the establishment in Dublin in 1899 of the Irish Literary Theatre, later to become the Abbey Theatre. The history of this theatre is well documented, and its importance can be seen from the list of writers whose plays were first performed here in the early days of the 20th century. These included W.B. Yeats, Lady Gregory, John Millington Synge, George Moore, and Sean O'Casey. The Abbey was to create a style that held a strong fascination for future dramatists of Irish plays. Indeed, it could almost be said that the Abbey created the basic elements of a national style for Irish plays. This period also saw a rise in the writing of plays in Irish, especially after the formation, in 1928, of An Taidhbhearc, a theatre dedicated to the Irish language. The Gate Theatre, also founded in 1928, introduced Irish theatre audiences to many of the classics of the European stage. The twentieth century saw a number of Irish playwrights come to prominence. Samuel Beckett is probably the most significant of these. Beckett had a long career as a novelist and poet before his first play, Waiting for Godot (1953) made him famous. This play, along with his second, Endgame, is one of the great works of absurdist theatre. Beckett was awarded the Nobel Prize in 1969. The Lyric Theatre, founded in 1944 by Austin Clarke was based in the Abbey until 1951 and produced many of Clarke's own verse plays. From the mid 1950s, the Unitarian Church at St Stephen's Green, Dublin was home to Amharclann an Damer/The Damer Theatre. The Damer produced both professional and amateur Irish plays. The world premier of Brendan Behan's An Giall (The Hostage) took place here in 1958. Behan went on to be an extremely popular dramatist, particularly through his work with Joan Littlewood's Theatre Royal in Stratford, East London. But in general, the Abbey was the dominant influence in Irish theatre across the 20th century. Beckett's example has been almost entirely ignored in Irish theatre, although his plays are regularly performed on the Irish stage. Behan, in his use of song and direct address to the audience, was influenced by Bertolt Brecht and Denis Johnston, and used modernist techniques including found texts and collage, but their works had little impact on later Irish plays. In the 1970s and 1980s, a number of Irish theatre companies emerged to challenge the Abbey's dominance and introduce different styles and approaches with regard to Irish plays. These included Focus Theatre, The Children's T Company, the Project Theatre Company, Red Kettle, Druid Theatre, TEAM and Field Day. These companies nurtured a number of writers, actors, and directors who went on to be successful in London, Broadway and Hollywood or in other literary fields. These include Joe O Byrne, Peter Sheridan, Brian Friel, Stephen Rea, Garry Hynes, Martin McDonagh, Conor McPherson, Marina Carr, Jimmy Murphy, Billy Roche and Gabriel Byrne. In the 1990s and 2000s a new wave of Irish theatre companies arrived. These include: Bedrock, Blue Raincoat, B*spoke, The Corn Exchange, Corcadorca, Fishamble, Pan Pan, Playgroup, Raw, Rough Magic, and Tardy Lasso.

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