Springtime, 1916. Irish expatriate and soldier-turned-outlaw Trooper O’Hara is adrift in the baring woods of Southern Ohio. Thirty-some years away from home, Trooper’s leather face is furrowed, the fire of his hair all but extinguished by the darkness he has seen; he is a man changed by America. Having crossed the mark of middle age, Trooper is ready to end his odyssey, to bid goodbye to his fellow fugitives and ride the Eastertide back to County Sligo, Ireland. There is just one thing he must do before he leaves: visit White Woman Street, where he will implore the mercy of a certain ghost. For only then, he believes, can he reconcile with his conscience, “wipe the slate clean and go back to being what he was.”
So begins Sebastian Barry’s White Woman Street, now showing at the Irish Repertory Theatre in Chelsea. At its heart, it is a classic tale of atonement, overlaid with themes of exile, loss of innocence and the deception of memory. While the audience can see the impossibility of Trooper’s dream, realizing that there is truth to that old saying “you can never go home,” Trooper, for all of his experience, is blinded by a self-preserving naïveté. It is not that he is unprepared for the journey ahead, but that “home” no longer exists. Tucked away in the American wilderness and oblivious to worldly events, Trooper is unaware of the recent insurrection in Dublin, a bloody rebellion led by Irish republicans against British rule. Old Ireland persists in his mind alone; and even if Trooper sees home again, he is unlikely to recognize it.
Still, in at least one way, Barry seems to suggest that Trooper has never left home. Upon his arrival in the States, Trooper enlisted in the American military and was sent to fight in the Indian Wars. The morbid similarities between the Irish and the Native Americans is lost to no one, including Trooper, who coldly remarks, “Ever see an Indian town—the tent towns? Put me in mind of certain Sligo hills, and certain men in certain Sligo hills. The English had done for us, I was thinking, and now we’re doing for the Indians. You asking Trooper why he never killed? I seen plenty killed. I don’t say I didn’t.” It’s not that America is so different from Ireland; it’s that here, Trooper finds himself on the other side of the gun. Although he never murdered with his own hands, as the play unfolds we learn of one death in particular—that of a beautiful Indian girl, from a brothel on White Woman Street—for which Trooper blames himself. Guilt is the reason why he left the army. And he is not so much hiding from the law as he is from his past.
In all honesty, this is not Mr. Barry’s best work. But, the man is one of the most accomplished wordsmiths of our century—a poet, novelist, and of course, playwright—and, thus, one can overlook this fumble. After all, White Woman Street made its debut back in 1992, and it was one of Barry’s earliest attempts at the style known as “interlocking monologues.” At times, the pieces of this play don’t exactly “click,” but if the theatergoer is willing to jam them together, the resulting picture is well worth the extra exertion of imagination. For anyone who had the privilege of watching The Pride of Parnell Street (which made it’s way to 59E59 Theaters last September), or has read his novel The Secret Scripture (short-listed for the Man Booker Prize in 2008), it’s obvious that Barry has since mastered this artform. Just think of White Woman Street as “A Portrait of Sebastian Barry As a Young Man.”
White Woman Street will be at the Irish Repertory Theater until June 27th.
