The Irish writer/performer Pat Kinevane has brought his latest solo play, Silent, to the Odyssey Theater in a West Coast premiere. Kinevane, attached to the Fishamble New Play Company in Dublin, had a big success in 2007 with Forgotten, which went on to win numerous theater awards around the world. Silentis following along the same path.
Kinevane, a dynamic actor with a rollicking Irish accent, plays Tino McGoldrig, a homeless man whose mind has been wrecked -- but not destroyed -- by drink and drugs. In a stream-of-consciousness monologue punctuated with a soundtrack of voices and music, Tino looks back on his shattered life and tries to understand where it went wrong.
It started with his childhood, we soon learn, and his coarse, foul-mouthed mother who looked at the world and humanity through ugly, hateful eyes. Tino and his brother tried to escape this bleak legacy by immersing themselves in the lush, romantic world of film, especially those starring Rudolph Valentino. Valentino's bi-sexual persona helped feed Tino's brother's homosexual urges, a development which brought society's wrath down on the lad when he later came out of the closet.
Tino, much to his shame, did not have the courage to defend his brother from the bigots and homophobes. Now he is stricken with shame and sorrow, emotions which he tries to cover up with a barrage of jokes and quips, mostly on the bawdy side.
The verbal pyrotechnics of Silent are supported by lashings of physical theater -- dance, motion, dazzling lighting and sound effects. Tino also breaks the fourth wall by interacting with the audience, trying to bring it deeper into his world and make it truly feel his pain and anger, his humor and defiance. It makes for daring, bravura-like theater.
