The actor John Keating is really a tall bag of bones with fright-wig hair and frightened-deer eyes, a glance crafted for character parts. That he nabs the guide part in Laoisa Sexton’s “The Pigeon within the Taj Mahal” at the Irish Repertory Theater is purpose enough to check out it, regardless of whether the Enjoy’s protracted execution wears out the prickly allure of its premise.
Mr. Keating plays the âm đạo giả Pigeon with the title, a sweater-clad, Elvis-quoting naïf who life in a very trailer park in rural Eire. Is he lonesome tonight? Not specifically. But he’s Evidently thrilled to find a young woman in smeared makeup and ripped tulle dumped on his doorstep. “You may have the uncommon magnificence,” he suggests to her unconscious type. “Like a swan inside a dirty lake!” This really is Lolly (Ms. Sexton), a plastered bride-to-be overdosed on vodka and human body glitter. On waking, she to start with threatens Pigeon having a hammer then softens at his odd hospitality.
As soon as Lolly is roughly awake, Ms. Sexton has excellent exciting contrasting her shallow city styles with Pigeon’s callow strategies. “D’you got iPhone, d’you need to do?” she whines. “I telephone?” the perplexed Pigeon asks. But as they remain while in the trailer, the Perform starts to spin its motionless wheels. There’s a lot of dialogue and plenty of depredation, Particularly the moment another bachelorette (Zoë Watkins) comes, but obtaining put these figures with each other, Ms. Sexton as well as director, Alan Cox, don’t know rather how to proceed with them. In spite of a persistent concept of innocence and expertise, plus some questions on the location of folklore in up to date Ireland, “The Pigeon while in the Taj Mahal” mainly feels like a one-act that outgrew itself. Rather less discussion wouldn’t harm.
But action problems Ms. Sexton significantly fewer than furnishing a vigorous, occasionally vulgar showcase for herself and one other actors. A deft performer, she Obviously enjoys Lolly’s woozy, crude obliviousness, but she is just as joyful to cede the phase to Mr. Keating. Pigeon isn’t an entirely credible character, but Mr. Keating lends him heat and a gentle sort of bravery, even although sporting lipstick in addition to a penis headband. Cheers to Ms. Sexton for permitting this distinct actor unfold his wings.