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| L-R: Jakob von Eikel and Quinn Cassavale in THE CLEARING. Photo by Carol Rosegg. |
Arthur
Miller’s The Crucible is set in the late
seventeenth century at the time of the Salem witch trials but clearly is intended
to be a metaphorical indictment of Senator Joseph McCarthy’s communist “witch-hunts”
of the last century. In similar fashion,
Helen Edmundson’s The Clearing is
set in Ireland in the mid-seventeenth century when Oliver Cromwell sought to force
the Irish Catholics out of Ireland, but is meant as an indictment of the
Bosnian “ethnic cleansing” of the late twentieth century (and, before that, of the
Nazi Holocaust of the 1940s).
The Clearing, a very powerful and
beautifully written work, was first staged to rave reviews in 1993 at London’s
Bush Theatre and has enjoyed frequent revivals since then. It is currently being revived again, this time
by Theater 808 at 59E59 Theaters on East 59th Street in midtown Manhattan and,
I must say, this outstanding production really is one not to be missed.
The
play revolves around Robert Preston (Jakob von Eichel), the Protestant son of
an English landowner who has re-settled in Ireland and his Irish Catholic wife
Madeleine (Quinn Cassavale). The couple
are very much in love, she has just borne him a son, he has begun to develop
his small farm, and their future appears extraordinarily bright. Until, that is, word arrives that Cromwell’s
government is about to confiscate the lands of the Irish Catholics in order to
redistribute them to the soldiers of Cromwell’s army in lieu of their unpaid
wages and to transplant the original Irish landowners to the much less
hospitable province of Connaught.
The
Prestons’ Irish Catholic neighbors, Solomon Winter (David Licht) and his wife
Susaneh (Tessa Zugmeyer) are at immediate risk and they are forced to register
for “transplantation.” The Prestons,
themselves, would appear to be at somewhat less risk, given Robert’s own aristocratic
English background, notwithstanding his marriage to an Irish Catholic woman. But Madeleine is not just any Irish Catholic
woman: although her closest friend, Killaine Farrell (Lauren Currie Lewis) is a
companion and servant in Madeleine’s home and godmother to her son, Killaine
remains in close contact with their childhood friend, Pierce Kinsellagh (Hamish
Allan-Hedley), a Tory Irish guerilla,.
And Madeleine, herself, still retains some contact and an affection for
Pierce.
When
Killaine is arbitrarily seized by English soldiers in the street and scheduled
for transportation to Barbados where she would be an indentured servant,
Madeleine pulls out all the stops in attempting to obtain her release,
including a risky appeal to the English Governor, Sir Charles Sturman (Neal
Mayer) and an attempt to purchase her release from the sailor guarding her (Ron
Sims). Robert, on the other hand, is as
reluctant to stick his neck out for Killaine as he was for his friends Solomon
and Susaneh, fearful that to do so would jeopardize his own position as a
landowner in Ireland. And when push comes
to shove, Robert chooses to betray his own wife and friends, prompting
Madeleine to take her young son and abandon Robert with the direst consequences
for all involved.
The
actors’ performances are superb across the board. I was especially impressed by Quinn Cassavale
who is vibrant, courageous and passionate as Madeleine and by Neal Mayer who is
as coldly Mephistophelian as Sir Charles Sturman as one can possibly
imagine. But I also thought that Lauren
Currie Lewis is delightful as the innocent Killaine and that Hamish
Allan-Headly, as Pierce Kinsellagh, comes across as tough and single-minded in
his belief in his cause. Which is not to
suggest that David Licht, Ron Sims, Jakob von Eichel and Tessa Zugmeyer don’t
also play their parts with consummate skill for they certainly do.
