Outside Mullingar

Samuel J. Friedman Theatre, New York City

(212) 239-6200

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John Patrick Shanley’s “charmer of a play” isn’t for cynics, said David Rooney in The Hollywood Reporter. You might think that when the creator of the Pulitzer Prize–winning drama Doubt turned his attention to Ireland, the result would be another dark, searching morality play. But the tone of this tale of slow-blossoming romance “could hardly be more different.” Sure, Outside Mullingar begins in the immediate wake of a funeral as two neighboring farm families fall into a dispute over a strip of land. But despite the “ingrained pessimism” of these country folk, their appetite for living is stronger, and the play evolves into “a tender paean to rural life, to the Irish spirit, and to the enduring belief that love will find a way.”

“You needn’t be a cockeyed optimist to deduce that the skies will ultimately clear for the play’s moody, broody central characters,” said Charles Isherwood in The New York Times. As soon as we learn that Debra Messing’s quarrelsome Rosemary Muldoon harbors an epic grudge against her taciturn neighbor Anthony, we know from past experience with romantic comedies that we can “settle back in our chairs and await a satisfying final clinch.” Before it arrives, Messing and Brían F. O’Byrne somehow “bring these somewhat sentimentally conceived characters to convincing life.” Messing gives Rosemary just enough orneriness to explain her long maidenhood, and O’Byrne, who’s “one of the most reliably fine stage actors of his generation,” patiently unwraps Anthony’s tender heart.

Unfortunately, the playwright “makes a shocking error in judgment” before he’s through, said Jesse Green in New York magazine. Anthony is harboring a dark secret that turns out to be so ludicrous that the big revelation “undermines all the beautiful work O’Byrne has done to create a dignified and sympathetic character.” And O’Byrne is far from alone in having a stellar contribution wasted. Shanley has written a lot of great dialogue here, just as he did for both Doubt and the movie Moonstruck. “Indeed, there’s not much to dislike about Outside Mullingar except its entirety.” Many of its individual scenes “will be used in acting classes for decades.”