Into the mind of ‘The Butcher Boy’ in a world-premiere musical adaptation at Off-Broadway’s Irish Rep

In 2017, Irish Repertory Theatre was approached by Asher Muldoon (Dear Evan Hansen National Tour), then a senior in high school, with a new musical adaptation of Patrick McCabe’s unsettling 1992 novel The Butcher Boy, for which the student (currently a senior at Princeton University) wrote the book, music, and lyrics. The Off-Broadway company mounted a workshop and a concert performance in 2018, and is now presenting the world premiere of the full stage production – the first original musical to be developed by Irish Repertory Theatre in eight years.

Members of the cast. Photo by Carol Rosegg.

Set in the Irish village of Clones in the 1960s, the dark tragi-comedy follows the story of the young Francie Brady, who seems unaware of the serious problems of drinking, brutish behavior, and mental illness in his family until their condescending neighbor Mrs. Nugent refers to them as “pigs.” What he convinced himself was a happy childhood, with loving parents and a best friend forever in Joe, and filled with comic books and TV shows (highlighted in Charlie Corcoran’s scenic design of word balloons on dilapidated wooden-slat walls and the backdrop of a large-scale analog TV, with vintage projections by Dan Scully and props by Brandy Hoang Collier) soon reveals itself to be a disturbing case of cognitive dissonance that takes a dramatic turn into a devastating path of escapist fantasies, catastrophic loss, three years’ confinement in a psychiatric institution, and horrific violence.

His journey is interspersed with expressive musical numbers that enhance the moods – which change from funny to poignant and heartrending, and ultimately, to shocking and repellant – delving into his delusional imaginings and psychotic thoughts, including his visions of anthropomorphic pigs (played by Teddy Trice, Polly McKie, David Baida, and Emma Camp, filling in for Carey Rebecca Brown when I was there, in masks by Stanley Allan Sherman), who join him in singing “Big Fat Piggies!” (sparked by the insults leveled at him) and “Ride Out!” (a country-western song-and-dance inspired by the popular television shows he watches) and encourage him in his brutal actions.

Teddy Trice, David Baida, Nicholas Barasch, Carey Rebecca Brown, and Polly McKie. Photo by Carol Rosegg.

Nicholas Barasch turns in a thoroughly engrossing portrayal in the lead role of Francie, who at first appears as an average boys-will-be-boys kind of kid, having fun, getting into mischief, charming people with his lies, and eliciting laughter from the audience, while rejoicing in his perfect life and wishing that he could “Live Like This Forever.” But then “Francie Gets Mad” and we witness the arc of his madness, as his attacks on the judgmental Mrs. Nugent (Michele Ragusa) and her refined son Phillip (Daniel Marconi), who is befriended and protected by Joe (played by Dan Macke, filling in for Christian Strange on the date I attended), become more physical (fight direction by Rick Sordelet).

He is increasingly abandoned by everyone he thought cared about him, from his bipolar suicidal Ma (Andrea Lynn Green) and abusive alcoholic Da (Scott Stangland) to Joe, his uncle Alo (Joe Cassidy), and three different women, real and imagined, named Mary (Kerry Conte) – with a recurrent apparition of the BVM among them. All the actors effectively deliver the personalities, their attitudes, interactions, accents, and speech patterns (dialect coaching by Amanda Quaid), and most importantly, the way in which Francie sees them (with lighting by Kat Zhou and sound by M. Florian Staab that help distinguish between the real recollections and the wild dreamscape of Francie’s psyche).

Among the most entertaining and upbeat of Muldoon’s original musical numbers is the Vaudevillian-style “Phillip’s Song,” in which the school clothes of the boy, who is accompanied by Joe doing high kicks in a two-person chorus line, are decked in glitter (costumes by Orla Long). The cast is backed by the fine band of Danielle Giulini on violin, Mike Rosengarten on guitar and banjo, Joseph Wallace on bass, Martha Hyde on reeds, and Turner, who also serves as conductor, on piano, with orchestrations by Muldoon and Sammy Grob.

While it might be hard from some to reconcile the grave subject matter of The Butcher Boy with some of the more amusing scenes and lively songs, the result is that the deteriorating state of Francie’s mind and the acceleration of his deadly actions pack an even harder punch in the end. It worked for me.

Running Time: Approximately two hours and 20 minutes, including an intermission.

The Butcher Boy plays through Sunday, September 11, 2022, at Irish Repertory Theatre, 132 West 22nd Street, NYC. For tickets (priced at $50-70, plus a $2.50 processing fee), call (212) 727-2737, or go online. Everyone must wear a mask while inside.

For a preview of the show, watch the trailer below:

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