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Re-Joyce and Synge: Playwright offers something Wilde

Wednesday, March 22, 2006

Click here to enlarge this photo photo courtesy of john morogiello Sleight of hand and twist of Yeats: Laurie Boyd (left) and John Morogiello star in ‘‘Irish Authors Held Hostage” at the District’s Warehouse Theater.

‘‘The O’s on the wrong side of my last name,” jokes Morogiello, an Eirophile whose comedy with music runs through April 15 at the District’s Warehouse Theater.

‘‘The first time I read [Irish author James Joyce’s] ‘A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man,’ I thought ‘Wow, this is my life.’”

Not exactly: Joyce’s ‘‘Portrait” details the life of a student in Ireland; Morogiello grew up in Peekskill, N.Y., where a ‘‘great high school teacher — Judy Maier” turned him on to Irish literature.

‘‘After you fall in love with Joyce, if you study theater, you study Wilde, Yeats, O’Casey, Lady Gregory.

And Morogiello studied theater. He earned a bachelor of arts in theater from the State University of New York (SUNY) at Stony Brook, and a master’s in media with a theater minor at SUNY Albany. His wife’s work for the USDA brought the couple (who married on Bloomsday, Joyce fans might want to know) to Montgomery County, and Morogiello settled into the life of an actor⁄playwright. As such, he wears a series of hats: He’s Playwright in Residence at the Maryland State Arts Council, author of a number of plays, including a short that was later adapted into a film ‘‘Happy Hour,” named Best Short Comedy at the 2003 New York Independent Film and Video Festival and is currently on British television.

What about ‘‘Irish Authors Held Hostage?”

‘‘It’s something that I wrote just for fun,” says Morogiello. ‘‘A lot of things led to me writing it. I had just written a play on George Bernard Shaw. My agent sent it out on Sept. 9, 2001.

‘‘I had 9⁄11 going through my head, I had Ireland going through my head, and I just needed to laugh. I wrote a few sketches.”

The sketches became ‘‘Irish Authors Held Hostage,” which, under the hand of director Martin Blanco, won the Outstanding Production award at the 2003 Washington Theatre Festival.

‘‘We decided ‘Let’s try to take this to New York,’” and they did. There, at the New York International Fringe Festival, the play’s reviews inspired Morogiello and company to bring it all back to D.C.

Making light

Oscar Wilde called seriousness the only refuge of the shallow. Morogiello sees comedy as the only refuge for the rest of us — particularly in this ‘‘war on terror” age. The playwright understands that it’s easy to go too far when satirizing terrorists, but says he’s tried not to put any limits on his art.

‘‘We keep it light,” he says. ‘‘The idea is not to make a political point, the idea is to laugh — and that’s what it comes down to in the end.”

What’s funny about ‘‘Irish Authors Held Hostage?” Well, the idea is that famous Irish authors — John Millington Synge, Wilde, Shaw, Joyce, Sean O’Casey, Samuel Beckett and Brendan Behan — are kidnapped, each by a different international terrorist. Morogiello calls it ‘‘a comic series of variations on a theme.”

‘‘We found there’s no shortage of Irish authors,” he adds. ‘‘But we seem to have run out of terrorists, which is a good thing.”

The comedy comes from the quirks of the Irish authors, and the glimmer of humanity in those who hold them hostage.

‘‘It seems to be about communication,” Morogiello says. ‘‘All these terrorists want to be heard, and they’ve chosen terror as their means for communication — for ill, I think.”

Of course, the playwright — nonchalant about the hearing aid he has worn since high school — understands how tricky communication can be. He sticks to the story that a 105-year-old theatrical impresario known as J. Thaddeus Burian is behind this production, which stars Terence Aselford, Lori Boyd and Terence Heffernan, plus Morogiello and musicians Tina Eck and Matt Shortridge.

Burian may be an inside joke, but Morogiello insists that ‘‘Irish Authors Held Hostage” is not.

‘‘We’ve had a lot of people come up to us in D.C. and New York, and say, ‘I had no idea who any of these authors are,’” he says. ‘‘You don’t have to know about the authors to enjoy the show — and you don’t have to know the terrorists either.”

Extensive program notes are available for Irish lit newbies, even though Morogiello figures that his beloved Irish authors are part of pop culture despite exile (Joyce), angst (Yeats) and even incarceration (Wilde). Indeed, there may be room for one more unappreciated author on the roster.

‘‘We only got one bad review in New York,” says Morogiello, ‘‘and it was from the Irish Echo.

‘‘Rejected by the Irish,” he adds, with a satisfied smile. ‘‘I’ve arrived.”

The J.T. Burian Theatricals production of ‘‘Irish Authors Held Hostage” runs through April 15 at The Warehouse Theater Second Stage, 1021 7th Street, N.W., Washington, D.C. Performances begin at 7:30 p.m. Thursdays through Saturdays, and Wednesday, April 12, and 3 p.m. Sundays. Tickets are $20. Call 1-800-838-3006 or log on to www.BrownPaperTickets.com.