Fool for love

By J. C. Lockwood

Friday, April 16, 2004

Jack Neary's play is a funny but tender take on the rocky road to romance

Brian Dowd is a dweebie twenty-something who is, amazingly, still scarred and crushed by normal adolescent hang-ups - and a forever just-out-of-his-grasp idealized love - that have gone on for about a decade and a half too long, and nagging self-esteem issues, most likely caused by well-meaning and somewhat intolerant - politically and religiously - parents.

This is a guy who, when he fantasizes about such things, imagines that the object of his affection is the only girl on earth and he is the only boy on earth and, instead of taking this gambit to its obvious conclusion - true romantic love, of course, this is a story for the family, not a Super Bowl game - his immediate thought is, "Boy, did she get ripped off."

But now it's put-up-or-shut-up time for our hero, now a college student, but still, in his mind at least - especially when it comes to, you know, her - a stumbling, bumbling boy called, with some justification, although in the particularly cruel way teenagers have, Howdie Dowdie. That's because she's going to get married, to that surfer dude from California ... or so he heard from his best friend Jerry Finnegan. Who should know because she's his sister. And if the words that have failed him since he was 10 years old fail him again ... everything will be lost. Everything.

Now - finally! - Brian Dowd is galvanized, which, he says, really hurts. Such is the set-up for "Jerry Finnegan's Sister," the Jack Neary comedy being staged through April 25 at the Firehouse Center for the Performing Arts in Newburyport.

It's a sweet, touching production that is instantly familiar - even if we don't want to remember those wonder years - that touches on feelings we've all had as our bodies and hormones sentenced us to the term of insanity known as adolescence, when the body races and the brain cannot keep up with it, and nothing, nothing makes sense.

Directed by Neary, a Lowell resident whose play "Sex and Catholics" (later re-christened for its run at the Lyric Stage of Boston as "Beyond Belief") anchored the Firehouse's New Works Festival in 2002, the production features Lisa Richardson, last seen locally as Vera in the Firehouse production of "Ten Little Indians" last year, and Noah Smith, an actor and playwright and the former artistic director for the Theatre for Young Audiences in western Massachusetts.

The production opens with the song "Daydream Believer," the Neil Diamond song made famous by the '70s fake band The Monkees, which establishes a mood of wistfulness, innocence. Our hero Brian tells the story - addressing the audience directly, sometimes even asking its opinions - in a series of vignettes - mostly narrated by Brian and acted out by Beth - that begin when the Finnegans move in next door to the Dowds.

The story is about young Brian - "sort of," he says at the beginning, "but it's mostly about her."

It's the early 1970s. Brian is 9 years old. Beth is a year younger - and every bit as irritating as Gilda Radner's "Judy Miller" character.

They argue about the Finnegans' heresies - the family's supposed "Publican" proclivities - and the events at the Watergate, which they have no clue about, though Brian can weave a pretty good story. Brian is smitten - even before she, at age 12, "magically sprouted." But he can never seem to get the words out: To tell her how he feels, to ask her out on a date. So he remains on the periphery of her life - like a good girlfriend, almost - well, a kind of bitchy girlfriend, actually, always dumping on her choices in boys. And she has plenty of boyfriends. And they talk about her. And it drives him crazy, even though none of it is true.

Beth is no dummy. She knows what's going on, that what's on Brian's mind has nothing to do with what comes out of his mouth, which is mostly scolding. She gives him opening after opening, practically draws a roadmap to her heart. She does everything but put the words in his mouth. He complains - to himself, to the audience - that the words always fail him, but it seems more like a crisis of confidence.

They drift apart as they go off to college. And now, with Beth's impending marriage, it's time to get over it, to finally speak his heart. But will he?

A two-man show with little in the way of set (four risers, three chairs and a bench) or production eye candy, the gaze of the audience is on the two actors from beginning to end - a lot of pressure, even when you're working with Neary's deftly written and funny text.

Richardson and Smith acquit themselves nicely. The former, who has to portray Beth as several different girls as her character grows, has the audience in stitches with her "I Like Boys" and "I'm Your President" monologues - as well as her screechingly bad ukulele performance.

Smith has it a bit harder. He tells the story as a boring twenty-something and you very quickly get the idea that his contemporaries were right with their "Howdie Dowdie" cracks. He admits as much: "At this point I'm coming across as a less than sympathetic character," he says at one point. "Bear with me. All the evidence isn't in." And it's true. You just want to smack him, to shout at him from the audience - an action he all but encourages. Not that it would do any good. This is, of course, proof that he has the character nailed.

There are no earth-shattering moments in this show: Just a nice night with more than a couple of laughs and some good, clean fun.

Interested? "Jerry Finnegan's Sister" runs through April 25 at the Firehouse for the Performing Arts, Market Square, Newburyport. Show times are Thursday through Saturday at 7:30 p.m. and Sunday at 3 p.m. Tickets are $12-14. For information,