Jim Parsons (right) plays Alfie Byrne in A Man of No Importance, and A.J. Shively plays his co-worker Robbie Fay, whom Alfie wants to lure into a community theater troupe, in the Classic Stage Company revival of the 2003 musical.
The tensions between life and art, and between experience and imagination, lie at the heart of the 2003 chamber musical A Man of No Importance. When it premiered, Roger Rees played the homosexual director of a Dublin theater company in the 1960s, suffering from period repression and bigotry. Classic Stage Company’s revival stars Jim Parsons, the Big Bang Theory actor who apparently wants to demonstrate his acting and singing abilities beyond his Sheldon character—and succeeds.
The musical—with a book by Terrence McNally, music by Stephen Flaherty, and lyrics by Lynn Ahrens—is mostly told in dreamlike flashbacks, as bus conductor Alfie Byrne (Parsons), following the dissolution of his community theater productions at St. Imelda’s Church, is led down memory lane by his company. Ahrens’s lyrics (from the title song) help paint the scene:
Mare Winningham plays Lily, Alfie’s sister, and Thom Sesma is her suitor, the bigoted butcher Mr. Carney.
Picture the bus
As it moves down a street
Past a window of fish
And a priest on a bike.
At St. Imelda’s, Alfie’s stagings of Oscar Wilde dominated the repertory. Indeed, even on the bus he reads Wilde’s poetry to the passengers. However, his production of The Importance of Being Earnest was too racy for the church fathers, notably Mr. Carney (Thom Sesma), a butcher who is courting Alfie’s sister Lily (Mare Winningham). Nonetheless, Alfie has managed to persuade the priest to let him stage Wilde’s Salome. “It is not immodest,” Alfie assures the priest. “It is art.”
Director John Doyle, as is his wont, has the actors play instruments, and they create a vivid Irish atmosphere with fiddle, accordion, tambourine, etc. Doyle keeps the set simple, using wooden folding chairs, a gateleg table, and a ghost light as the primary objects on stage, while also paring the show to a trim 90 minutes.
Alfie’s personal story encompasses unrequited love for the driver of his bus, Robbie Fay (A.J. Shively). Alfie is determined to persuade Robbie to play John the Baptist, and to enlist a young woman passenger named Adele Rice (Shereen Ahmed) as Salome. But equally important are the show’s touching character portrayals of love stunted and sidetracked. It’s not only Alfie who is repressed. Winningham’s self-sacrificing—and deluded—Lily endures equal frustration:
And now and again
Mr. Carney proposes
And all I can say is—not yet.
My brother, he needs me.
Who else has he got
But some girl who he still hasn’t met?
The actors do a terrific job, although the contrast with the original performers is notable. At age 59, Rees as Alfie had the careworn appearance of a life of disappointment. At the same age, Parsons looks well-scrubbed, youthful, and more confident, even if his love life is stunted. With Alfie and Robbie looking nearer to contemporaries, a sense of Alfie’s life having passed him by is diminished. (For the record, apart from a moment of priggishness, no echo of Sheldon arises.)
Mary Beth Peil plays Mrs. Grace, one of the leading members of St. Imelda’s community theater. Photographs by Julieta Cervantes.
The original Robbie provided an early triumph for Steven Pasquale, who brought a virile sexuality to the part. Shively, at 36 a year younger than Pasquale was, gives a performance both deeply felt and dynamic, but Ann Hould-Ward’s costumes muffle his sexuality. Pasquale had a scene with a tank top; Shively, layered in woolens, is a risibly chaste object of erotic desire. He is also terrific in spite of it.
McNally’s book draws on Wilde’s aphorisms for many of its funny lines: “Once one has found high drama, even tragedy, there’s no going back to comedy.” But he also gives minor characters memorable moments: Mary Beth Peil is an amusingly vain Mrs. Grace; Sesma’s Carney is an exemplar of the well-meaning Christian who inflicts misery on others; and William Youmans as stage manager Baldy O’Shea is gut-wrenching when Baldy visits his wife’s grave.
There are a few drawbacks in the show that the intimacy of the space throws into relief. Alfie’s anthem “Love Who You Love” feels too prescient in its wisdom for the period. “Books,” Lily and Carney’s very funny assessment of Alfie’s flaws, winds up with a strikingly dishonest line: “The man needs a wife/To ruin his life/Not books!”—from two people who are yearning to get married! And the finale of reconciliation of all concerned feels contrived—wishful thinking on McNally’s part.
Still, the performances and score of A Man of No Importance lift it up, and Doyle’s production, his last as artistic director of Classic Stage Company, is on the whole a pleasure.
A Man of No Importance runs through Dec. 18 at Classic Stage Company (136 E. 13th St.). Evening performances are at 7 p.m. Tuesday through Saturday; matinees are at 1 p.m. on Saturday and 2 p.m. on Sunday. A 7 p.m. performance on Nov. 21 will replace the one for Thanksgiving Day. For tickets and information, call (212) 677-4210; email boxoffice@classicstage.org; or visit classicstage.org.
