An Irishman at Heart

Kevin Tighe Up Close
By Brad Bradley
Irish American Post New York Bureau

Of the quartet of actors appearing in Martin McDonagh's A Skull in Connemara  currently in New York, Kevin Tighe may have the least Irish of theater resumes. He is four generations removed from his distant paternal heritage (a great-grandfather was part of the first wave of Irish immigration to the United States around 1850 at the tail end of the infamous potato famine. His maternal roots are Czech-Bohemian).

Tighe, of course has carefully prepared for his role in rural Galway, to the point where even in offstage speech he displays a convincing Irish sound, apparently not his usual voice even a few months earlier.

Learning from biographical notes, Tighe's Irishness is no more immediate than my own (he has neither active family links nor travel time to give him a natural link to the Gaelic culture). And Tighe himself says that his acting assignments only once before took him to an Irish dramatist. That was for a solo show based on the writings of Brendan Behan, a mid-20th-century figure whose irreverence presages the reputation of Martin McDonagh. However, I was stunned to hear the Irish musicality of the actor's offstage voice.
Probably some credit should be given to the poetry of Yeats, for whom Tighe admits an affinity. Yet more central to the present vocal challenges, Tighe strongly credits Stephen Gabis, the New York dialect coach for the current production in which he stars -- for enriching the sound of the play in general and his voice in particular.

The successful month-long U.S. premiere of Skull   at Seattle's ACT (A Contemporary Theatre) played to full houses last summer and was especially resonant for young audiences there. However, Tighe reports that after six-month layoff, the sound of the play now – after a month of additional rehearsal and a week of preview performances in February --- "provides a heightened reality and brings out comic qualities so essential to the work."

Part of this comes from what might be described as the melodic pulse of this piece, the content of which is described in press articles as an exploration of "the bizarre, funny, and terrifying tales of life in this remote part of Ireland." The performances have been accentuated by Gabis' dialect work as well as fine tuning notes by author McDonagh over several days of rehearsals. Besides instituting small textual cuts, the playwright concentrated largely on the non-verbal sounds of the play, painstakingly pointing up vowels, consonants and even grunts to take the sound beyond the confines of the scripted words in his text.

No wonder that the Roundabout Theatre Company likes to hire Gabis, most recently for the previous offering in the Gramercy Theatre, O'Casey's still remarkable Juno and the Paycock, also notable for its earthy Irish sound and humor. Concerns about authentic stage sound for these plays bring to mind The Beauty Queen of Leeenane, easily the most successful and well-known of Martin McDonagh's work – at least on this continent. While its stunning local production in 1998 deservedly went on to win a pile of Tonys and other awards for its imported cast and director, the language at times drew attention to itself for its roughness of expression.

A Skull in Connemara is the fourth of McDonagh's plays to be seen in New York. In addition to Beauty Queen,  the others were The Lonesome West  and The Cripple of Inishmaan. 

Skull  is the only of the four to begin on this continent with an entirely American production. It has been directed by Gordon Edelstein, who initiated the project at Seattle's ACT, where he continues as artistic director of that four-theater complex which produces 15 to20 shows a season.

Actor Tighe's faith in the present production is reflected in his nod to the director who he credits for bringing "life and heart" (assuredly implying "art" as well) into a work in which the challenges are considerable, not the least of which is a structure that we agreed could be described as "stylistically variegated."

Tighe is bicoastal, residing both in New York and Los Angles, where he -- as a self-described "journeyman actor" -- is within reach of various film commitments in the Northwest, especially the newer hub of activity in Vancouver. While not a marquee name, Kevin Tighe's voice and face will be familiar to many mature television viewers from Emergency, the long-running semi-documentary style dramatic television series from the 1970s in which he played the central role of paramedic Roy DeSoto for six seasons. Tighe deservedly takes some pride in the fact that the Smithsonian Institution maintains an exhibit about that TV show in its social services division.

Now playing approximately his own age (56) in Skull, Tighe effectively inhabits the character of widower Mick Dowd, whose connections to the play's title are reflected in his annual assignment as a local gravedigger, unearthing what he suspects to be the remains of his late wife.

Dowd has been described by a Roundabout season subscriber as sullen, grumpy, cantankerous, and certainly neither reflective nor sophisticated. And Tighe himself speaks of the character's "wildness and creative madness." All this struck me as fascinating, because Tighe himself seems the approximate opposite of these descriptions offstage. Instead, he presents a kindly, charming and genteel manner...and certainly a reflective and sophisticated mind.

My theater spy also recalls that in various feature films, as in Skull, Tighe typically is cast as a heavy rather than as a sympathetic character. His companionable personality is quite another thing than his typical on-stage persona, making his career a remarkable case of anything but type casting for an in-demand character actor.
 
 

If You Go A Skull in Connemara  by Martin McDonagh, with Kevin Tighe, Christopher Evan Welch, Christopher Carley and Zoaunne LeRoy, continues until at least May20. Performances are scheduled for 7:30 p.m., Tuesday-Saturday and 2:30 p.m. on Wednesday, Saturday and Sunday.  Starting May 2, a Sunday matinee at 2:30 p.m. will replace the Wednesday mid-afternoon slot.  Tickets are $55 for all seats, all shows at the Gramercy Theatre, 127 E. 23rd St. Call 212-777-4900 for reservations.