Maryann Plunkett has delivered so many extraordinary performances over the years. In her latest, Erica Murray’s intimate drama The Loved Ones, she plays a sixtysomething woman living in a remote stretch of western Ireland, not far from the famous Cliffs of Moher, in an old family farmhouse that she’s turned into an Airbnb. There’s a solidity to Plunkett’s Nell, a woman whose groundedness to the land and to her own sense of self has been disrupted by the death of her only son, Robin, six months prior (for reasons that we never learn).
Robin, whom Nell raised entirely on her own, clearly remains her pride and joy — even after he fled his native land for a professorship in London and marriage to an even more ambitious young woman from County Clare who might best be described as prickly. Orla (Clare O’Malley) is flying in to meet Nell with a plan for the two to scatter his ashes — but also to get Nell’s blessing on her plan to try to use some of Robin’s frozen sperm to make another attempt at having a child after multiple miscarriages while Robin was still alive.
Murray raises the stakes immediately, though, with the arrival of one of Robin’s former students, Gabby (Alana Raquel Bowers), a 21-year-old from a gritty part of London who turns up at Nell’s door seven months pregnant with a child she she insists is Robin’s, and stories she gleaned from her professor/lover about Nell (including her fraught relationship with Orla). This is a doozy of a story, one where Gabby manages to elicit Orla’s sympathy and support before she learns the fill circumstances of the pregnancy. There are heartfelt exchanges about the guilt and shame that come with unwanted pregnancies — as well as the overriding pressure on women to pursue motherly roles no matter what. Director Nicola Murphy Dubey orchestrates the pacing of these discussions, and the transition between them, with finesse.
Bowers, who was a standout earlier this year in Cold War Choir Practice, conveys both the isolation of her situation as well as a kind of matter-of-fact bravery to seek shelter with Nell with a half-formed plan to finish out her pregnancy in Ireland, give the baby up for adoption, and return to her studies in the fall with nobody close to her any the wiser. Without knowing the child’s father, O’Malley’s Orla seems supportive. But she also carries herself with a prim brittleness that helps explain the offhand references to past bad behavior (like an incident at the funeral where Nell was unable to offer a eulogy and a flareup with a pregnant woman at her job that necessitated a leave of absence and company-mandated therapy).
The show’s biggest stumbling block is the introduction of a socially awkward American Airbnb guest (Donna Lynne Champlin), who blunders into the domestic drama with a fruequency and duration that defies common sense — especially on the cramped but cozy farmhouse set (designed by Tatiana Kahvegian and lit by Kat C. Zhou). Even if Nell were desperate to avoid a one-star review on her Airbnb listing, which frankly seems the last thing on her mind, surely the blunt force of nature that is Orla would turn to her at some point and say, “Can you please just go away? This is a private family matter.”
In the less comedic second act, we learn more about Champlin’s Cheryl-Ann and how she wears her chipperness as a shield against the loneliness and loss she too has endured. There’s more to this bird-watching Harry Potter superfan, and to Champlin’s performance, that the oblivious American we first encounter. But she remains more of a doofus ex machina for the central plot. The plausibility of the story is also undercut by Murray’s decision to compress the action into a single day of revelations, hard truths, and blurted-out but ill-advised opinions. She also sidesteps the tied-with-a-bow resolution she’s foreshadowed from the jump, leaving the ending more open-ended. That’s believable but unsatisfying.
The Loved Ones stands on more secure ground when the focus remains on Nell. Plunkett radiates an Earth mother rootedness that keeps drawing your focus even as she scrambles to process the news that Gabby delivers and to buy herself some time on what to do with it. Time is the one commodity that all four women seem eager to manipulate — to reverse, to slow down, to speed through. But managing time proves as daunting a challenge as navigating the jagged cliffs of mourning. ★★★☆☆
THE LOVED ONES
Irish Repertory Theatre, Off Broadway
Running time: 2 hours, 10 minutes (with one intermission)
Tickets on sale through August 2 for $55 to $125