The Belle of Belfast
Opening Night: April 15, 2015
Closing: June 7, 2015
Theater: Irish Repertory Theatre
In 1985 Belfast, fiery and profane Anne Malloy drinks and smokes her days away with her chubby curry chip-addicted best mate. When she turns to her parish priest, Father Reilly, seeking the comforts of the flesh in addition to the comforts of the soul, she discovers her troubles have just begun. A wry and bittersweet portrait of a city at war, The Belle of Belfast forces us to consider what is wrong and what is righteous.
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April 24, 2015
Just before Nate Rufus Edelman’s winning drama “The Belle of Belfast” begins, the buzz saw intensity of Stiff Little Fingers’ republican anthem “Alternative Ulster” and John McDermott’s set — an imposing exposed-brick wall covered with graffiti and topped with barbed wire — signal that you’re in the caldron of Belfast, Northern Ireland, in 1985. Add John Larson’s black-and-white projections from the bloodstained history of the Troubles, and throw in the hormones and caustic temperament of a 17-year-old live wire, and you’re in a pressure cooker at steam heat. The Belle of Belfast Anne Malloy (Kate Lydic), a red-haired teenage bundle of rage, profanity and casual lust, has been raised by her dotty great-aunt Emma (an artfully amusing Patricia Conolly). Emma seeks social companionship in the confession booth with the patient priest Ben Reilly (Hamish Allan-Headley); Anne seeks Ben’s companionship as well, but not of the ecclesiastical variety, and Ben, who merely wants to tend a flock rattled by the city’s endemic violence, must keep her at bay.
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