Review: DOOLEY AT THE BAR at Westport Community Theatre

Got plans for the last weekend in September? Change them. You must meet the renowned newspaper writer Finley Peter Dunne in Westport Community Theatre’s opening show Dooley at The Bar.

Written and starring Alexander Kulcsar, this one-man play is about journalist Finley Peter Dunne and his famous Dooley stories. Dunne wrote for Chicago newspapers during the Gilded Age when everybody read multiple newspapers each day. For the under 40 crowd: newspapers were the only source of reliable news and offered the best entertainment. They were respectable then, not like today’s papers, which are like flattened TikTok stories with once venerable names stamped on them.

Dunne’s most popular columns were the Dooley stories. Dunne invented Dooley, a South Side Chicago bar owner with a charming Irish accent and keen and witty observations of late 19th century America. Dooley had opinions and comments about everything – immigrants, the poor, obscenely rich business titans, politicians, and anything else that came to mind. One of the column’s biggest fans was Theodore Roosevelt, even though Dunne often targeted him in his columns.

Kulcsar introduces Dunne to the audience as an ordinary newspaper man. For the record, Dunne was no lightweight in the newsroom. He wrote many meaty stories on crime, baseball, and politics. In the show, as in his real life, he was offered $10.00 above his regular pay to write an editorial column. That would be about $355.00 in today’s money, except that most newspaper and magazine writers are getting paid less for their work due to constant budget cuts so executives can get paid more. Once Dunne agrees, he transforms into Dooley.

And the audience is treated to a dizzying variety of subjects. Dooley doesn’t understand the Suffrage movement because he believes women don’t need more rights since they already have privileges men don’t. He talks about “All the rights I enjoy I don’t enjoy,” such as the right to pursue happiness, but happiness has the right to run away. He says he knows history but doesn’t trust it. When he talks about the Roman Empire and its expansionism, he looks at his bar and says he doesn’t want to expand it by two feet after all.  He talks about when the Roman Senators surrounded Julius Caesar, which he pronounces as Sayzer, and slayed him. He scoffs at the news reports about the nation’s prosperity. He says, “I ain’t afraid of immigrants as you are…. Teach them about our institutions before they come.” He likens life a Pullman dining car where “Mr. Rockefeller has had 42 helpings” of rich food and grabs the plate meant for the next person. And he skewers Andrew Carnegie and his obsession to build libraries everywhere. “A Carnegie Library is architecture, not literature.” He doesn’t feel it’s an effective way to meet the needs of the poor. Only money can do that.

Kulcsar’s play is well-written and engaging. He also designed the set which has a traditional bar in the rear and two tables, three chairs, a stool, and a coat rack in front of it. As Dunne and Dooley, he uses all of it. Everything in the set is well-thought out and era appropriate. Nothing on it is superfluous. Kulcsar commands this play with his strong stage presence and superb acting. This critic remembers his riveting performance as Freud in Freud’s Last Session in 2013 at the Square One Theatre in Stratford. Kulcsar’s performance in Dooley at The Bar is a tour-de-force.

Kudos to director Michael Stanley for the smooth flow, to Jeff Klein for his lighting design, and to David Rylander for the sound design. The play is about 75 minutes long and there is no intermission.

Fun fact: Chicago is home to Finley Dunne's Tavern, established in 1996 and is quite popular in the area of Paulina Station in the Lakeview section of the city. You’ll want to go there if you’re in Chicago. www.finleydunnes.com

Dooley at The Bar runs through September 28 at the Westport Community Theatre, located in Westport Town Hall, 110 Myrtle Avenue. (203) 226-1983. For tickets, visit www.westportcommunitytheatre.com.