I used to know a guy with a small penis. If that seems a strange way of starting a review, stay with me, I beg you. It was like a little mushroom and I later found out he was having hormone treatment. Id always wondered why, at twenty-two, he had such a childish voice. I have no idea what happened to him, but I thought of him again while watching Martin Casellas The Irish Curse. The play takes place through a real-time ninety minutes in the self help group run by Father Shaunessy in the cold comfort of a Catholic Church in Brooklyn Heights. The men who come here are an eclectic bunch, but they all have one small thing in common - a very small thing, as it happens. Joseph is a lawyer whose wife has left him for that very reason, though they have successfully raised two children. He finds consolation in hard work and being invisible, a cellophane man, but desperation has finally driven him to share his torment with others. Stephen is a gay Irish-American New York cop who simply isnt packing, and its eating him up from the inside. A gay NYPD cop with a tiny dick? No, its no laughing matter. Sporty Rick is packing, but he does it with a rolled up sock stuffed down his crotch, while he chases every girl he meets. And the newest member of the group, fresh-faced Irish Kieran, is two weeks away from his wedding and has come only after contemplating suicide on the Brooklyn Bridge where a fateful chance encounter saved his life. And, as it turns out, Father Shaunessy has his own secrets as well. This could so easily have become a succession of cheap laughs, but Casellas tender script and David Zaks sensitive direction give us a revealing glimpse of male dignity at its most frail. In spite of this, there is plenty of humour. I loved the moment when the members of the group unite to project their agony onto the leaders of the world and wonder if wars are not about territory and religion but what men have down their trousers. (Okay, there was Thatcher and the Falklands, but then she did have balls). There is some sharp philosophising too. The most poignant observation and lesson that comes out of this group, as each character takes centre stage, is that the real tragedy is not the size of the appendage, but the fact that each man has allowed it to define what he is. The acting is first rate, particularly that of Donal Cox as Father Shaunessy, one of the only seven heterosexual priests as he is jokingly referred to. He holds the group together with firmness and compassion that belies his own inner demon. When he is forced to stand up and reveal what made him start the group, you could almost hear the traffic cease outside. James Butler as Kieran, whose testimony, if you can call it that, ends the play and takes us into the real dark pit of where these men are in their everyday lives. And then, remarkably, the sun comes out and we learn that Kieran will return to the group, but as a married man. He so nearly never arrived at all. This is a drama about despair turning to hope, about men facing their gender identity. It never preaches and its never strident. It is also warm-hearted and completely lacking in cynicism. A taut, well-rounded and deeply satisfying portrait of five men that had me holding my breath.
