Review: A MAN OF NO IMPORTANCE at A Noise Within

“You just have to love who you love” is the sage and sweetly melodious advice that Dublin bus conductor and amateur theater director Alfie sings to his leading lady, Adele on learning of her romantic troubles.  It proves to be very comforting counsel that will echo back first to be dispensed to a friend of Alfie’s and ultimately to poor Alfie himself.

At A Noise Within, the red-headed actor Kasey Mahaffy (an oft-seen ANW company member)  dispenses Alfie’s warbled wisdom as he does just about everything: quietly and gently, with a half-smile that could be a mask for stoic resignation or deep uncertainty. Possessed of a poetic soul with no less a ghost than Oscar Wilde as his spiritual guide and muse, Alfie may be the title figure of A MAN OF NO IMPORTANCE, but of course this lovely Irish bloom of a musical by the RAGTIME team of Terrence McNally, Stephen Flaherty and Lynn Ahrens makes the case that our man on the bus is anything but.

Julia Rodriguez-Elliott’s season-concluding production of NO IMPORTANCE is as lovely as it is affirming. Featuring a cast who seamlessly transport us to a working-class Dublin community in 1964 – with music to match – ANW’s production spotlights not just its leading player, but pens a love letter to the lure of the stage and to those who can’t resist its pull. That’s Alfie, certainly, but also the butchers, housewives and tradesmen, who probably should not act, but do anyway. Because blokes like Alfie gives them a Wilde hair.  

The men and women who comprise Alfie’s troupe are parishioners at St Imelda’s Church and also regulars on his bus route. They get into the nitty-gritty of things like props and costumes  and certainly the performance part as the butcher Mr. Carney (played by David Nevell) not only seeks every opportunity to strut his stuff on the stage (the bigger the role, the better), but has also spent years wooing Alfie’s spinster sister, Lily (Juliana Sloan).

With Alfie as their creative leader, the St Imelda’s Players are fed a steady diet of Wilde verse on the bust, and usually stage the friendly-for-church THE IMPORTANCE OF BEING ERNEST. But Alfie’s decision to break tradition and stage the racy SALOME throws everything into a tizzy. The decision requires some subterfuge to keep St Imelda’s Father Kenny (Neill Fleming) from learning how unsuitable it is. Plus, Alfie has to find a young woman to enact the title role, do the dance of the seven veils and serenade the severed head of St Joh the Baptist. The not-so-very-princessy Adele (Analisa Idalia) is enlisted and Lily even believes hopefully that Alfie could be in love with his leading lady.

Alfie’s other quest is to get his bus driver mate Robbie (C.J. Eldred) to take the stage, too.  The two men are good friends, and can lift a pint together (at Robbie’s collegial insistence), via a bustling scene-establishing number titled “Streets of Dublin.” Alas, Alfie – like Wilde – clandestinely suffers from “the love that dare not speak its name.” Which, in 1964 Dublin, is not a circumstance destined to result in happy endings, even when you look in the mirror and Oscar Wilde (Nevell again) stares back and urges you to be true to yourself, take the plunge and, of course to love who you love, damn the consequences.  

The questions to be answered, then, include will Alfie rise above the rank of his title? Can he find happiness? What’s really eating Adele? Can the show go on? Matters play out to the sounds of an assortment of sprightly airs banged out by musicians Dylan Gorenberg, David Catalan, Julian Cantrell, Rod Bagheri, Natalie Brejcha under Bagheri’s musical direction.

It’s a winning lineup of songs – Nevell and Sloan puzzling out crazy Alfie and his love for reading all those crazy “buke;” Ed F. Martin’s Baldy, touching and unassuming as he serenades his late wife’s grave, wistfully remembering the “Cuddles that Mary Gave.” And “Art” the frisky exhibition of what theater players put themselves through.  

There are some rough seas ahead – for a few members of the company and certainly for Alife -  and some not so nice people, but Rodriguez-Elliott’s production largely embraces the gentleness, the kindness and – sure - the hopeful souls of its everyday folks and their endeavor. At the heart of all this warmth is Mahaffy, shrewdly and without pandering,  playing a man who will be just fine.

A MAN OF NO IMPORTANCE plays through June 1 at 3352 E Foothill Blvd., Pasadena.

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Best Musical - Top 3

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9.2% of votes

2. HEATHERS (Backyard Playhouse: Treetop Production)

5.3% of votes

3. HAIR (Conundrum Theatre)

5.2% of votes

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