Howie the Rookie hits the Cockpit Theatre for a limited ten-performance run. Director Jerome Davis, in collaboration with Burning Coal Theatre, revives a Dublin classic but fails to find authenticity.
The play is split into monologues, one per act, each told by one of the two Dublin-based characters, the thug Howie Lee and the younger, handsome Rookie Lee. The dialogue is long and dense, filled with Dublin vernacular. Fighting, women, partying and even Siamese fighting fish all feature in this meandering, rhythmical story.
Howie Lee discusses recent events in a rambling Beckettian monologue. He is looking for Rookie Lee. He and the lads are going to do him in for some such anecdotal transgression, did he give one of them scabies? The second act is set the following day from Rookie Lee’s point of view, and the audience gets a different perspective as the two meet again. Humour, tragedy and everything in between. The writing is brilliant. Inspired by Molloy by Samuel Beckett, Howie the Rookie won the Rooney Prize in 1999, with good reason.
The Cockpit Theatre is a modest in-the-round venue, perfect for small shows such as this. Andrew Price Carlile and Lucius Robinson give the play their all. They know their lines and perform with gusto. They are talented and enthusiastic.
However.
Price Carlile hails from Raleigh, North Carolina, where the Burning Coal Theatre Company is based. Robinson is from further north, in Virginia. Robinson plays Howie Lee and is the first of the duo to perform. His Irish accent is atrocious. Writer Mark O’Rowe is from Tallaght. There is a fairly iconic accent from working-class Dublin. It is googleable.
The bizarreness of the accents makes it impossible to find the play authentic at all, and with Dublin a mere hour’s flight away, Robinson and Price Carlile need to do better, or at least have a few strong words with dialect coach Rebecca Bossen.
Robinson’s brogue, or lilt, or whatever you want to call it, constantly hops between thirty-two imaginary counties. Price Carlile is slightly better, in that he sticks to one imaginary county, which at least gives his character some semblance of continuity.
If we look away from this fault, which is impossible, the acting is good. The pair both play confidently with fourth wall breaks, effortlessly joking with the audience before dropping back into the play with expert precision. When some idiot’s phone goes off, yes, this idiot, Robinson does not even blink. The issue is purely in the accents. But the accents are everything.
When Juno and the Paycock came to the Gielgud, Mark Rylance faltered due to a woeful accent. Regardless of how good the acting is, it is impossible to get into a production if every word sounds ridiculous. The actors do their best and both seem very nice, but we are not here to discuss their personalities. Howie the Rookie is a fantastic play, but does not survive the transition from page to stage.
Listings and ticket information can be found here
