By Lynn Venhaus

Two oil-and-water grown brothers, Valene and Coleman Connor, constantly bicker and fight like two Rock ‘em, Sock ‘em Robots – but real physical and psychological damage takes place in “The Lonesome West.”

That’s a calling card of Irish playwright Martin McDonagh, whose works, often involving dysfunction, are mostly bleak, dark, and if a pitch-black comedy, outrageously funny.

Such is the case in West End Players Guild’s hardscrabble production, running through May 8, of McDonagh’s 1997 play, part of his Connemara trilogy (Tony winner “The Beauty Queen of Leenane” and “A Skull in Connemara” being the others). It was Tony nominated for Best Play in 1999, when it transferred to Broadway.

The middle-aged brothers escalate violence over the most mundane things – such as bags of Taytos’ ‘crisps’ (chips). Think “The Odd Couple,” only more gruesome and foul-mouthed.

While McDonagh’s contemporary play is not as well-constructed as Sam Shepard’s “True West” about two battling brothers that at times, resembles a Looney Tunes’ roadrunner and coyote cartoon, the material is suitable for an acting showcase.

And WEPG rises to the challenges, with strong production values and outstanding performances.

It’s just that hurling insults gets tedious, and the story has no where to go after two and a half hours.

The amount of physicality required of Jeff Kargus as Valene and Jason Meyers as Coleman is enormous, and they are ferocious onstage, with a toughness and single-mindedness that is stunning.

Their agility in movement is matched by their full immersion into the Irish dialect, which is superb all throughout the two-act drama-comedy.

The remarkable dexterity Kargus and Meyers display as these difficult characters indicates much dedication to getting all aspects right. One must note the superb work of fight director and weapons supervisor Michael Monsey for his intense choreography.

Kargus, never better, has long passages of dialogue to deliver as the more sympathetic and dutiful brother, as Meyers’s Coleman is maniacal, likely a psychopath, has shot his father and will likely kill again – and no one would be surprised if Valene was his target.

Shades of Cain and Abel, and that is not a joke. Both are examples of arrested development, but Connor is a one-note character compared to Valene. As the hot-head, Meyers outbursts of rage quickly build in a matter of seconds, but he is not always convincing in depicting menace. He’s downright cruel about his brother’s religious figurines – and you’ll find out about the dog soon enough.

Valene isn’t entirely innocent, for they have antagonized and done horrible things to each other over the years. Kargus does a fine job conveying his character’s peculiarities perfectly, including a fascination with the old ABC western “Alias Smith and Jones,” which ran for three seasons from 1971-73, patterned after the wildly popular film “Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid.” Apparently, it made a huge impact on Valene as a youth (or maybe home video).

The reason it is brought up in conversation is part of a bigger discussion on suicide, and whether the individual goes to heaven or hell. The Catholic Church believes those who kill themselves do not ascend to heaven, although there is some debate.

When a rash of suicides in the small town take place, people talk. Which leads to the old TV show discussion, because actor Peter Duel, 31, died of a self-inflicted gunshot after the first season.

That’s only one of the stream-of-conscience discussions in the shabby abode where the brothers live in the rural town of Leenane, in County Galway, where there is a shocking underbelly of mayhem and far too many strange-circumstances fatalities.

Scenic designer Brad Slavik has fashioned a very specific kitchen-living room combo with splendid detail while Frank Goudsmit’s props establish how the brothers live in an old farmhouse.

Tony Anselmo’s lighting design reflects the different moods and a more unsettling nighttime, while Jenn Ciaverella manages a sharp sound design – the Chieftains’s folk music is a good choice to play before the show and during intermission.

Under Robert Ashton’s fluid direction, the ensemble works together well, with Ted Drury as the hapless local priest Father Welsh and Hannah Geisz as Girleen Kelleher. Their comic timing is crisp, as is their ability to not break character, no matter how daffy or audacious the dialogue sounds.

Drury’s booze-swilling, advice-giving priest is hell-bent on saving the brothers’ relationship, but realizes it’s hopeless, and his despair is palpable.

Ashton has included a handy reference sheet to explain some of the Irish terms, such as poteen – meaning moonshine. You’ll see the men drinking copious amounts of the hooch, which is made from potatoes.

McDonagh, an Oscar nominee for writing “Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri,” doesn’t seem to have an endgame here, which is frustrating, but at least what WEPG does with it is impressive.

Photos by John Lamb

West End Players Guild presents Martin McDonagh’s “The Lonesome West” from April 29 through May 8 at the Union Avenue Christian Church, 733 Union in the Central West End. For more information or tickets, visit westendplayers.org

The West End Players Guild is employing touchless ticketing, socially-distanced seating and indoor masking of all patrons, front of house staff and volunteers.

West End Players Guild closes out its 110th season with Martin McDonagh’s The Lonesome West, a four-time Tony Award nominee on Broadway (including Best Play of 1999).  The show opens Friday, April 29 and runs through Sunday, May 8 in the theatre at the Union Avenue Christian Church in the Central West End.  

Set in Leenane, County Galway, in western Ireland, this darkest of dark comedies offers multiple murders and suicides, periodic drunken rages and fistfights, a couple of knife attacks, random acts of sacrilege and oodles of despair.  Like the two other plays in McDonagh’s Leenane Trilogy, it would be a rather sad story if it wasn’t so outrageously funny. 

The story revolves around brothers Valene and Coleman Connor who, as the play begins, have just buried their father, recently deceased as the result of a shooting accident.  Valene and Coleman are a middle-aged and embittered pair.  They have nowhere to go in their lives and are in no hurry to get there.  Neither brother is especially saddened by the death of their father.  Each seems animated instead by his all-consuming hatred of the other.  They spend their days and nights brawling over the most trivial and mundane of slights, both real and imagined, much to the dismay of their parish priest, Father Welsh.  Welsh fears (not unreasonably) that the brothers are headed for a violent end, and is on a mission to salvage their relationship at any cost.

Robert Ashton directs the WEPG production which features Jason Meyers as Coleman Connor, Jeff Kargus as Valene Connor, Ted Drury as Father Welsh and Hannah Geisz as Girleen Kelleher, a flirtatious teenager who makes a living selling her family’s poteen (Irish potato moonshine) door-to-door.  The Connors are among her most frequent top-volume customers. 

WEPG will present The Lonesome West in seven performances at 8 p.m. Thursday (second week only), Fridays and Saturdays and 2 p.m. Sundays, April 29-May 8.  Tickets for all performances are now on sale at www.WestEndPlayers.org/tickets.

West End Players Guild this season employs touchless ticketing, socially-distanced seating and indoor masking of all patrons and front-of-house staff and volunteers.  For full details on our public health policies, please visit www.WestEndPlayers.org/covid-19-policies/.

Mark Abels photos

Okay, let’s try this one again.  The Lost Year is ending and the season that never happened is gone for good, but now our darkened theatre is getting ready to light up once again.  Plan to join us in September for opening night of our 110th season of Big Theatre in a Small Space, with another exciting schedule of plays never or rarely seen in St. Louis.  

            September 17-26, 2021:  What if you could go back in time and change the one moment that reshaped your life forever?  What if you could see a lost love of 40 years ago just one more time, to learn how her life turned out?  Would you?  Steven Dietz’s Bloomsday, a bittersweet tale of love won and lost on the Emerald Isle, poses the questions.  The answers are for you to discover.  Jessa Knust makes her WEPG directing debut.   

            December 10-19, 2021:  Shirley Lauro’s A Piece of My Heart is, according to one reviewer, “six women telling a story you are not sure you want to hear.”  Four young military nurses, a Red Cross worker and a USO singer fly off to the Vietnam war, full of hope and driven by their desire to serve.  But the life they live there breaks their hearts and, for some, their lives.  Yes, it’s a story you may not want to hear, but it’s also one you’ll never forget.  Dani Mann directs.

            February 11-20, 2022:  In an alternate universe much like our own, in a budget motel room in a snowy part of the country called New Hampshire, the first woman to make a serious run at a major party’s presidential nomination is teetering on the brink of elimination from a race that hasn’t even really started yet; and her husband, himself an ex-president, isn’t helping much.  The play is Hillary and Clinton, Lucas Hnath’s take on what might have happened in that motel room.  Is Hnath’s tale history or fantasy?  We can’t say for sure, but we can promise a show that is smart, funny and full of characters you just might recognize.  Tim Naegelin directs his first WEPG production. 

            April 29-May 8, 2022:  We end our season where it began – in Ireland.  But Irish playwright Martin McDonagh’s The Lonesome West is no warm-hearted Irish love story.  This dark, dark comedy is the tale of Coleman and Valene, two brothers who can barely keep from killing each other.  McDonagh makes you laugh and laugh at things that really shouldn’t be laughed about.  But go ahead and laugh out loud.  We won’t tell.  Robert Ashton returns to WEPG to direct.   

            Season tickets for the upcoming season go on sale in July online at WestEndPlayers.org/tickets. Individual show tickets will go on sale in August.  All shows are at the theatre in the Union Avenue Christian Church, 733 Union Boulevard in the Central West End.  Watch for further announcements and check for more information, including public health protocols to be observed at the performances (when they are finalized), at WestEndPlayers.org

Actors, take note:  Auditions for A Piece of My Heart, Hillary and Clinton and The Lonesome West will be held July 17 (Bloomsday, originally scheduled to be presented in April, 2020, has already been cast).  More information and audition sides will be posted at WestEndPlayers.org/auditions in June. 

“Silent Sky” Photo by John Lamb

            West End Players Guild is the region’s oldest continuously-operated theatre company, presenting “big theatre in a small space” since 1911.