Marie Jones’ Olivier award-winning 1996 comedy 'Stones In His Pockets' arrived at Liverpool’s Playhouse theatre as part of a 14-week national tour some 20 years after its West End and Broadway triumphs. Director Lindsay Posner worked on the script with writer Jones for an updated version for America in 2018 and the same script is being used for this run. The show’s pedigree is undeniable and the themes of exploiting low paid workers, casual racism, male suicide and exposing Hollywood as a tinselly ‘La La Land’ are just as current, if not more so, today. The play is about what happens when a big-budget US movie company comes to Ireland to film in a small Kerry town. Locals are hired as extras for the Irish themed film and we open with townsmen Charlie and Jake taking full advantage of the Hollywood catering truck which is an opening laugh repeated when we discover that the extras have been taking double rations to feed their families.
This is low-budget theatre with two amazing male lead roles with nowhere to hide on a minimalist set, designed by Peter McIntosh. The green turf and a blue sky back-cloth is reminiscent of the kind of production you feel should be off Broadway somewhere because, with endless reruns of Joey in Friends and Sex In The City, that is what we’ve been conditioned to believe New York theatre is like. The mainly middle-aged Playhouse audience however was a mix of local regulars some, like myself, of Irish descent and returners (my neighbours hadn’t been to the theatre for 20 years). People, looking for something different on a freezing, wet March night. You would be right in thinking this is a long preamble as I am loath to get to the point but here goes…It’s not funny. At least not as funny as it perhaps would have been when it was first written. It’s a titter here and there and humorous on occasion but the promise of a comedy award-winning show never materialises largely because the material is all a bit dated. That’s not to say that the audience didn’t enjoy it. The performances of the two-handed cast, Owen Sharpe and Kevin Trainor, as they step seamlessly in and out of male and female character roles portraying film extras, colourful inhabitants of an Irish village and a Hollywood film cast and crew was more than worth braving the elements to see. They moved a large trunk around the stage with great effect becoming a bar, a carriage and at one point a Winnebago as they glided in and out of scenes and characters at a pace.
It’s a send-up of stereotypes and perceptions of the film industry on both sides of ‘the pond’ before the ‘Me Too’ movement and increased awareness of male suicide. Topics are dealt with by satirising situations. The lonely Hollywood leading lady pursues the star-struck extra only to use him to practice her Irish accent. The extras become more and more aware of injustice as they reveal their own reality of drink, drugs, unemployment and poverty and realise their own exploitation until finally the production company try to exploit a tragic event; the jig is up and it’s finally time to take back control. The play is perfectly paced, initially slow, it picks up and takes the audience on a believable journey to rural Ireland while debunking the romantic perceptions of the money-making movie moguls. There is a lot to think about and even if the jokes didn’t always land, the piece is light-hearted and made all the more enjoyable by the enthusiasm and mastery of performance by Sharpe and Trainor particularly in their roles as Charlie and Jake as they make the most of their male-bonding movie opportunity. It’s a classic in the making and if I’m still around I’d love to see it in another 20 years.
Reviewer - Barbara Sherlock
on - 18/3/19
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