CONOR MCPHERSON'S 'THE NIGHT ALIVE'

Conor McPherson is a wizard, but you wouldn’t know it. There is little flash in the playwright’s works, only the occasional bang—even pivotal moments are for the most part served up at room temperature in a way that can sometimes leave you feeling unsatisfied but that never, never rings as false. More keenly aware than most of the banality of both our hurts and our joys, McPherson is not one for setting off fireworks, but with surprisingly little material, he can build a fire you will watch for hours.

And that, in essence, is what he’s done here in The Night Alive, currently playing at the Atlantic under the direction of the playwright himself. The play centers around Tommy (Ciarán Hinds), a forty-something piecing together work here and there while living in a room in his uncle’s home, and the relationship he develops with a young woman he rescues one night from a violent boyfriend. The moment the lights come up on Tommy’s apartment, we know what world we have entered. It is a world of stain and clutter, of gauzy, rancid afternoon light trickling in through the tattered window covering and every visible thing one week or one wear beyond its washing date. Dishes crusting in the sink, ripe vegetables lying unearthed in the garden, and on every counter and surface the hordes of daily disjecta that taken together constitute this man’s life. These conditions may sound not at all unusual for a stage play, but McPherson’s trick (or rather his triumph) is to keep everything—set, text, and performance—one step away from the level of filth that becomes dramatic by default. Squalor on stage or film possesses its own sort of glory, and McPherson’s study is not in the glorious, but rather in the ways we make do from day to day, the need that crouches inside us raw and eternal even when everything else seems perishable.

The play is deliberately evasive—there is violence (occasionally shocking violence), and fear and death and lust, but at the end we are left with the uneasy feeling that nothing has been gained. And this is deeply unsettling. As theatergoers, we can take anything that comes, be it good or bad, assured in the knowledge that whatever befalls will bring about change. Whether for the better or the worse sometimes doesn’t matter, for the fundamental principle is upheld that things happen and our lives move forward. There is, if not a reason, a motion; and that in the end is what matters to us. All of the lives on display in this piece have come unmoored in one way or another, and by the time we reach the end, it isn’t clear that they’ve drifted any closer to shore. They, as well as the audience, remain one step away from any solid truth—unable to grasp the thing that would make their lives work, or even to grasp what exactly that thing might be.

Hinds is well-tuned and endearingly scuzzy, with his obsolete mustaches and apparently rarely-washed soccer jersey. Michael McElhatton as his best friend Doc does an exceptional job; officially diagnosed as five-to-seven seconds slower the average person, he ambles cheerily about the stage with a sedate smile plastered to his face, like a dog with a broken leg who’s had it so long he no longer notices. Much depends here on the rapport of these two men, and the actors find a satisfying groove together. Perhaps the standout performance of the night was that of Brian Gleeson, who as the violent and mentally-ill young Kenneth jitters and starts across the stage like a broken toy, the spring compressed but the coil mangled so that his energy has got nowhere to go. His is a sharp example of the lives one scuff beyond ever regaining their sheen that McPherson is so adept at rendering. Nothing is ever really resolved, life goes on (if we can call it life), all of us stuck together in the same room, peering through a dirty curtain at the light.

The Night Alive runs through February 2 at the Atlantic Theater Company, 336 West 20th Street, New York. Photography by Helen Warner.

Patrick Barrett is a playwright living in New York whose work has appeared at The Flea Theater, the Abrons Arts Center, and the Edinburgh Fringe Festival. He is a graduate of Columbia University.

Esteban Gomez Finds Creatives a Home

With years of experience in the fashion industry, the Creatives Agent at Compass offers designers, photographers, stylists, models, and others a new approach to find a place to call home.

The Last Magazine Celebrates the Fall 2019 Issue

The cover story of our Fall 2019 issue is a love letter to New York City by photographer Dan Martensen and stylist Clare Richardson starring one of our favorite models of the moment, Binx Walton. For our launch party, we packed into Lola, one of the East Village’s newest hotspots, for an all-night dance party […]

Peter Ash Lee's New Magazine 'Burdock' Celebrates Asian-American Talent

Named after a root vegetable common to Asian cuisine, photographer Peter Ash Lee’s new magazine and digital platform celebrates Asian-American culture in an attempt to welcome a more diverse group both in front of and behind the camera.

Hans Neumann's Berlin Skaters

In an exclusive photo essay and “video poem,” the Peruvian photographer and director explores his family’s ancestral home through the lens of a group of young skateboarders who reflect the vitality of a new generation of European youth.

FUMI NAGASAKA STARTS A 'TEENAGE RIOT'

In her second book, the Japanese photographer captures the individual personalities and æsthetics of four adolescent girls in their hometowns in a collection that is both intimate and anthropological.

RO KWON ON CULTS AND YOUNG LOVE IN 'THE INCENDIARIES'

In her propulsive début novel, ten years in the making, the author ponders the unfathomability of others in the tale of a young woman who joins a cult.

MARTIN ZÄHRINGER GOES FISHING WITH JOHN BAKER

In his first book, the London-based photographer documents every facet of the life of a Barbadian fisherman with whom he felt an immediate kinship, acting as both visitor and companion.

JONAH BOKAER'S FIFTEENTH ANNIVERSARY

The collaborative, media-mixing contemporary choreographer celebrates fifteen years of his own company with a retrospective program and world premiere to look back while moving forward.

MARIO SORRENTI SHOWS A NEW SIDE OF KATE MOSS

In a new book of previously unreleased photographs, the famed photographer spotlights the iconic model’s innocence from their days of youthful love.

ROMAN MEJIA SHINES IN A NEW GENERATION OF DANCERS AT NEW YORK CITY BALLET

As the company makes its way through tumultuous times, the eighteen-year-old demonstrates the promise of a rising young crop of dancers with his clean lines and bounding jumps.

NEW YORK BY THE LAST MAGAZINE: VICE IMPACT PUBLISHER KATHERINE KEATING CHANNELS YOUTH ACTIVISM TO CREATE CHANGE

In an era of flourishing youth activism, the politically-minded advocate is harnessing the tools of social media and the internet to effect positive change by a young generation through direct calls to action.

NEW YORK BY THE LAST MAGAZINE: AUTHOR ALEXANDRA KLEEMAN SAYS WRITING IS LIKE PLAYING A VIDEO GAME

In her novel and short stories, the Staten Island-based author probes the border between science and literature with discomfiting tales about the body and its relationship to the perilous world around it.

HERMIONE HOBY'S 'NEON IN DAYLIGHT' REINVENTS THE NEW YORK NOVEL FOR A NEW AGE

In her début novel, the young British author ponders questions of selfhood and power dynamics in a thoughtful bildungsroman set during a sweltering New York summer.

ADWOA ABOAH HOSTS OUR TENTH-ANNIVERSARY PARTY WITH BURBERRY

Take a look at our tenth-anniversary celebration with Burberry at Radegast Hall in Brooklyn, hosted by our latest cover model Adwoa Aboah.

KANAZAWA

Photographer Marie Zucker was given rare access into an okiya, or boarding house, in the Japanese city of Kanazawa, where she captured these reflective images of geisha-in-training.

THE LAST WORD: ICEBERG

The Arctic ice pack puts the freeze on a teetering relationship in the latest edition of The Last Word, our ongoing series of original short fiction.

THE LAST GIFT GUIDE 2017

Our annual selection of gifts for you and yours, including everything you can imagine from a silk toothbrush on up to your own private island.

DAVID HALLBERG ON INJURIES AND INSECURITIES

In his new memoir, the celebrated principal dancer of American Ballet Theatre recounts his intense childhood training, joining the Bolshoi Ballet, and the arduous yearlong rehabilitation after a nearly career-ending injury that gave him a new perspective on his talent and the art form.