Howie the Rookie by _Kevin Manganaro
Howie the Rookie, the play by Mark O'Rowe which opened last night at the Irish Arts Center in Hell's Kitchen, is so deeply set in the idioms of working class Ireland that it requires a glossary. Phrases employed throughout the show--"kip," "lodgy," "knackered," and "skullduggerous" just to cite a few--are spelled out and defined in the program for patrons eager to submerge themselves into this dark, intermittently touching look at contemporary Irish manhood. The buzzword here is "authentic," since O'Rowe seems dedicated, for better and for worse, to keeping this slice of life as real as possible. Structured as two one-act monologues, Howie explores the events leading up to and immediately following a night of heavy drinking and violence. Luckily though, O'Rowe has the good sense to offset such unpleasantness with self-deprecating laughs and a few warm moments. When we first meet Howie Lee, he's watching his friend Ollie burn a scabies-infested mattress. From such a skin-crawling beginning, Howie embarks on quite an evening--setting out to take revenge on the man who infected Ollie's mattress, and subsequently Howie's friend Peaches, with scabies. Now, if a show about avenging a scabies infestation isn't up your alley, you might want to depart Howie now, before the boys really get rip roarin'.
As Howie and his crew of idiosyncratic misfits hit the streets, O'Rowe's narrative becomes a lusty, musk-scented love letter to a boys' night out. Rowdy descriptions of hanging out in parking lots, riding on top of cars, binge-drinking, trying to pick up women and generally loutish behavior illuminate our energetic, disillusioned narrator, who's probably getting a little too old to carry on like this. It's to the credit of O'Rowe that Howie always sparkles with an essential sweetness, even as we see flashes of his cruel indifference towards his family. He may treat his kin maliciously, but we always feel the desperation with which Howie latches onto his friends, wide-eyed and eager to connect. When Howie's evening ends in tragedy, despite Byrne's excellent delivery of the material, the conclusion feels entirely false. Why, after such dedicated realism in depicting every encounter of Howie's evening, do we come to a "twist" that's so clearly tacked on to push emotional buttons?
John O'Callaghan in Howie the Rookie As the play's second act begins, we meet Rookie Lee (who shares Howie's surname, though he's no relation), who was the subject of Howie & company's scabies smackdown. As played by John O'Callaghan, Rookie is similar to Howie, but with fewer rough edges. He's more debonair with the ladies to be sure, and one gets the sense that he suffers fewer demons. The plot of the second act's monologue concerns Rookie's attempt to raise enough money to stave off a town tough guy named Ladyboy. Spinning dizzily from a bar, to an outdoor fight with a mentally handicapped man, to a lavish party where Matt Dillon makes an appearance, the second act has a fantastic tone, and seems lightweight in comparison to the grittier elements of the first. True, an entirely grizzly fight takes place at the aforementioned party, and it is described in wildly gory detail, but even that rings of fantasy, as each specific feels fetishized. O'Callaghan is excellent at selling his character's comic braggadocio. And to O'Callaghan's credit, there are moments where the audience wants to smack Rookie upside the head almost as badly as Howie does. What higher compliment could you pay an actor? If God, as they say, is in the details, then O'Rowe deserves kudos for turning an eye to the mundane minutiae of his subjects. How often do we see the knockabout lives of late-20s, hormone-spewing wanna-be tough guys who live with their parents? Even if his dialogue lacks the musical tones of David Mamet or Martin McDonagh's work, the conceit that one man tells each story gives the audience the feeling of sitting around a pub, pint in hand, being regaled by a stranger about "that one great night." Fascinatingly enough, a woman, Nancy Malone, directed this piece, which seems to celebrate testosterone. Her kinetic direction keeps her two stars constantly in motion, as if they're always on the hunt for the next thing to happen. Michael Carnahan's set seems curiously post-apocalyptic (Surely, even the most impoverished neighborhood of Dublin needn't look like Escape from New York), and often the actors seem to have trouble navigating it. Despite a comparatively lean running time of just under two hours, Howie still feels drawn out in parts, where colorful details are allowed to overwhelm plot and tone. Iif one turns a blind eye to this play's come-and-go gristle, there are significant charms to be found... That is, if "charms" is a proper word to use to describe a show that so prominently feature scabies. Howie the Rookie By Mark O'Rowe Directed by Nancy Malone Irish Arts Center