Review: THE NIGHT ALIVE at Rochester Community Players

Ireland has a long and rich history of producing playwrights with unique voices, exploring intricate themes through complex characters. Everyone from Eugene O'Neill to Samuel Beckett to Martin McDonagh fits this bill, and today this description applies most aptly to Conor McPherson. McPherson is known for exploring the mystical and macabre through dark humor, particularly with his play "The Night Alive", currently being afforded a high-quality production by the Rochester Community Players until April 8th.

"The Night Alive" is a 2013 stage play by Conor McPherson, directed at RCP by Jean Gordon Ryon. It is a play that explores the lives of a few lost souls, and a chance connection that may change their lives. Tommy (Matt Ames) is a man who has been drifting through life for the past two years after becoming estranged from his family. He lives in his uncle (Wyatt Doremus)'s house, making ends meet through whatever crackpot schemes he and his friend Doc (David Byrne) can concoct. When he saves a young prostitute named Aimee (Cassie Buscemi), Tommy begins to feel a glimmer of hope that he can make something of his life. All of that may end, however, as a man from Aimee's past (Andreas Gabriel) makes an unwelcome appearance.

"The Night Alive" is not a polished play. It's dirty, grimy, and disheveled, as are its characters, which can-perhaps counterintuitively-sometimes be a difficult aesthetic to capture in a production. RCP does a superb job creating the world of Tommy and Doc, with a stage littered with trash and detritus, and main characters who look as though they haven't seen the inside of a shower in quite some time. It's a beautiful-and critical-piece of world-building by Ryon and the show's production team, without which the play wouldn't really work.

On the acting front, RCP's "The Night Alive" is equally impressive, from Ames' comedic oafishness as Tommy, to Byrnes' sweet simplicity as Doc, to Buscemi's fragile Aimee. I admittedly would have liked to see Doremus crank the cantankerousness of Uncle Maurice up a few notches---I think the piece works best when Maurice is borderline unhinged---but overall the ensemble does a tremendous job of bringing to life these desperate, unwashed bohemians.

"The Night Alive" is thematically complex. It traffics in ideas such as why we're here, whether life is meaningless, intense loneliness, and the inexplicable chaos of the universe. RCP shines daylight on all these ideas and delivers a performance that leaves the audience ruminating for days after walking out of the MuCCC.

"The Night Alive" is a dark and funny play from one of our most talented contemporary playwrights, brought to life in a thoughtful production by Rochester Community Players. You have two more chances to see it; for tickets and more information, click here.