Review: THE IRISH... AND HOW THEY GOT THAT WAY... at Seventh Sister

Sure, and it's a Saint Patrick's Day weekend, and why is Frank McCourt's THE IRISH... AND HOW THEY GOT THAT WAY so infrequently performed, even at this time of year? The 1997 musical revue has been wonderfully successful every time its home theatre, New York's esteemed Irish Rep, trots it out. It ran for over a year in Chicago. It has played locally before, at the Fulton. But that it isn't played virtually everywhere in March? Amazing. Unless it's that finding seven talented people who can sing, dance, deliver a bit of dialogue between songs, play an instrument or two, and sing Irish and Irish-American tunes without irony is too difficult.

It clearly isn't too difficult for Lancaster's Theater of the Seventh Sister, now helmed by Cynthia Charles. This production, directed by Mike Truitt, has plenty of energy and plenty of song, and how can you really resist people accompanying themselves on the washboard?

A celebration of all things Irish, and more particularly Irish-American, from the Potato Famine on, the show is mostly frivolous fun, with flag-waving ensemble singing of George M. Cohan, and bouncy choruses of "Who Threw the Overalls in Mrs. Murphy's Chowder?" but there's a deeply serious side as well. The ravages of the Irish famine are described in monologues of chilling original documents, as are the tales of the Northern and Southern "Irish Brigades" fighting each other during the American Civil War. There are spoken and musical reminders that the Irish miners of Pennsylvania organized the first strikes and demands for unionization that were later followed by the immigrant Jewish workers of the garment industry. "No Irish Need Apply" is a stark reminder that in an earlier America, Irish workers were considered lower and less intelligent than even African-American workers. Discrimination exists, but it sometimes moves its targets.

Still, the Irish-American experience of hard work and harder celebration is taken up with such numbers as "Erie Canal" and "Paddy On the Railway" for work, and "Moonshiner" (also known among folk enthusiasts, with slightly different lyrics, as "Rye Whiskey") and the classic partying-too-hard tale of "Finnegan's Wake."

While McCourt leaves out some of the key details of Irish history after the Potato Famine immigration, such as the 1916 Easter Uprising, or the fact that the Irish still immigrate to the United States in droves (and are one of the largest groups of illegal aliens in this country), there isn't time for every Irish fortune or misfortune to be documented, and time's needed to dance and to fiddle (fiddling courtesy of Lily Brown). In these, the ensemble succeeds in abundance.

The cast is comprised of the hardworking ensemble of Aisling Burns, Susan DiNovis-Truitt, Lily Eder, Sheldon Markel, John Reshetar, John Rohrkemper, and Brit Trofe. They sing, they dance - some more than others - and tell tales both of the old country and the new. The acoustics at Ephrata Main Theatre are a bit quirky, as was the sound, and so some singing was swallowed up, though dialogue was properly audible.

The show continues through the 20th, with its neighboring restaurant, Lily's on Main, serving an Irish menu this weekend aside its regular fare. There's still time to run to Ephrata to celebrate the Irish and a far too infrequently performed show. Tickets are available at the door, or visit www.seventhsister.com.

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