Fans of this fine, deeply vulnerable actor won’t worry much about any of this, of course. And everyone else gets to spend time, at least, with a man who has a clear capacity to love. As you do so, if you’re of a certain age, you’ll track back through your own experience as sure as a Guinness is a stout.
Walking With Ghosts
Opening Night: October 27, 2022
Theater: Music Box Theatre
Website: gabrielbyrneonbroadway.com
As a young boy growing up on the outskirts of Dublin, stage and screen legend Gabriel Byrne sought refuge in a world of imagination among the fields and hills near his home, at the edge of a rapidly encroaching city. Moving between sensual recollection of childhood in a now almost vanished Ireland and commentary on stardom, the actor-writer returns to Broadway to reflect on a life’s journey.
BUY TICKETSREAD THE REVIEWS:
October 27, 2022
And yet, I left the Music Box Theater, where Walking with Ghosts is currently housed, feeling neither particularly entertained, nor motivated to learn more about who Bryne is.
READ THE REVIEWOctober 27, 2022
What the show lacks (and this is true of the memoir, as well) is a sense of why he’s examining his life now. In public. Why would a man lay himself bare like this, on Broadway? It’s hard to discern because the show all but ignores the latter part of his life and acting career. “Walking With Ghosts” never provides satisfying answers, even as it keeps the focus relentlessly on Byrne, with little to distract from his performance.
READ THE REVIEWOctober 27, 2022
One-person shows actually have two jobs. The first is to tell a captivating story. The second is to make a case for why only one person is needed to tell that story. In “Walking with Ghosts,” Gabriel Byrne — an indelible actor of stage and screen — tries his hand at both, to no avail.
READ THE REVIEWOctober 27, 2022
Yes Despite the abundance of other projects, this polished but informal program (unobtrusively directed by Lonny Price) of personal anecdotes, private memories and rueful reflections on his life seems special.
READ THE REVIEWOctober 27, 2022
Byrne is different. At his best as an actor, he tends to disappear into a role — whether it was James Tyrone or James Tyrone Jr. He’s an actor who needs a big role, and the Byrne of “Ghosts” is all too ephemeral, not to mention forgettable.
READ THE REVIEWOctober 27, 2022
Far from distracting or pushing us away from Byrne, such technical elements have the uncanny effect of enticing us to lean in further. Walking With Ghosts may not necessarily be life-changing, but the spectacle of seeing this great actor reminisce about his own personal and artistic coming-of-age turns out to be surprisingly affecting indeed.
READ THE REVIEWOctober 27, 2022
But then, why bother trying your audience’s patience with a two-act Broadway slog instead of mounting a tight, hour-long performance at Joe’s Pub? James Tyrone certainly knows why.
READ THE REVIEWOctober 27, 2022
It’s a deeply personal story, and there’s not much attempt to put his experiences in a larger context. Each self-contained, bite-sized section ends in a blackout. Connecting the dots between vignettes in a more powerful thematic way would give the show a cumulative wallop that now feels somewhat lacking.
READ THE REVIEW
October 27, 2022
But some of the stories Byrne tells us, as beautifully distilled and performed from his bestselling memoir as they are, also feel not fully told. They touch on serious subjects, and things that have reverberated in his life—but the deeper ones feel too glancing in the telling. Unlike perhaps the full book, the stage show feels like a peekaboo exercise in memoir, and the reticence, or self-editing, or whatever it is, ill serves some of the material.
READ THE REVIEW