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Stuck
11 Apr 2003 - Irish Independent:
"Day & Night: Deadbeat blues - Stuck" (by Brian Lavery)
RANTING AND RAVING:
Sean Power in Stuck, above, brings this one-man show about a drunk out-of work actor to life
Stuck
(Focus Theatre, Dublin)
JACK, AN out-of-work actor strung out on booze and pot, is broke on the streets of Toronto and having a very bad day. Thank goodness he has an audience and a theatre guests in his home, he says - so he can get it all off his chest.
For a rambling, chaotic hour on a bare stage, he relives every fantastical chance encounter and missed opportunity, and shares the wisdom of the streets.
Mostly, he tells some crazy stories.
David Rubinoff's one-man play is a perfect showcase for actor Sean Power. His Jack has a stand-up comic's dry delivery and self-deprecating humour, and his contagious physical energy fills the barren, empty space at the Focus Theatre with a natural ease. At one point, he literally bounces off the wall. This may be inspired by Kerouac, and Jack may meet Ginsburg and Burroughs in one of his more vivid hallucinations, but the similarities end there.
Jack comes across colourful characters, and Power's versatile impressions are the life of the play. There's Charlie, the former ticket tout who never got to see his favourite ice hockey team play, and Steve, the Caribbean shopkeeper who can't explain why a Blue Bandana gang - the toughest in town - stole all his newspapers. An Irish thief robs Jack's apartment and then forces him, at gunpoint, to drive to the hospital where his son is being born.
"Up the 'RA," he says, and feeds Jack a bag of prunes. If this weren't surreal enough, wait until Jack meets the lesbians in the laundrette, the horny nun who knits, and the stuttering gay Mormon with a split personality.
This is very funny stuff.
Brian Lavery
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