The Weir – 26 July 2025

Irish Repertory Theater is known for its incredibly high production value, and from my first step into the theater, I was struck by scenic designer Charlie Corcoran’s dusty little pub and the loneliness of sound designer Drew Levy’s howling wind. It already seemed to be a wonderful place for stories. The show was one of polite banter, ghastly tales, and stark realities, and the design elements were an incredible guide throughout. Sound added whimsy and silence in all the right moments. The incredible quantities of beer (properties: Deirdre Brennan) and the bartender Brendan (Johnny Hopkins)’s lack of desire to charge for them, simultaneously told a tale of forced camaraderie and loneliness. Lighting (Michael Gottlieb) focused our attention on each successive storyteller, allowing each character a moment of attention that gave them permission to share some of their darker experiences in a safe place.

Playwright Conor McPherson graced us with a set of stories about the supernatural—or perhaps, hallucinations. The set up was all about introducing the characters and letting the audience come to feel that these were reasonable, regular men whom we could trust with certain sensibilities. Valerie (Sarah Street) arrived as a newcomer to this rural part of Ireland, and each character came forward to share a story of an experience they had with a ghostly, otherworldly presence—for Jack (Dan Butler) it was the fairy road, for Finbar (Sean Gormley) it was a neighbor’s daughter’s invisible presence on the stairs, and for Jim (John Keating) it was a conversation with a man whose grave he had just dug. Valerie came forward, grateful for the validation, because she had had a phone conversation with her deceased daughter. This changed the tone of the conversation considerably, as most stepped forward wanting to retract their stories, as it seemed that validating Valerie’s distress might solidify her belief that she must continue to search for her dead daughter rather than live in the real world. In the end, Brendan and Jack show her some kindness, and they depart the bar to head their separate ways and reflect upon the day’s stories.

I seldom criticize Ciaran O’Reilly’s direction, but I’d like to offer a thought. Conor McPherson wrote into The Weir a very slow build. It took me a little while to get into it, and even though the banter was meaningful to the characters, it took at least half an hour before the audience could start making meaning out of it. Valerie was always sitting on a sideline somewhere, never in a place where we could see her reacting to the stories she was being told. I think the arc of the show would have felt a lot more natural if the audience could see on Valerie’s face how these stories were affecting her strangely. It would have been interesting and intense to watch her feelings build from a more central placement on stage. After all, everyone else in the room already knew these stories. They were being told for her. While everyone else was drinking and having a laugh, she was calculating how much to tell them and thinking about what it all meant to her. The audience didn’t get to realize that until the last half hour of the play when the other shoe dropped and we came to understand what was really being talked about. Though this moment would have been less dramatic if we’d seen it building, the whole first hour of the show would have been clearer.

In the end, this was not a story of loneliness and camaraderie, but rather a story of mental health challenges, grief, and fate. A weir is a kind of barrier controlling water flow. It is a fitting symbol for how Valerie’s daughter died swimming and opened up a floodgate of denial, shame, and longing in Valerie. It is also a somewhat archaic structure—like the older men who make up the town and keep its history alive in the storytelling. A weir is an instrument of water control, but also one that can be overtaken by water, symbolically implying that there’s such a thing as too much of a good thing—too much of a supernatural story.

As a production, The Weir is fantastic for those who love a slow build with a surprising ending that utterly changes the dialogue. It contains quick wit, great social commentary, and truly laudable design elements that keep the audience fully engaged.

I attended this performance on a press pass from Print Shop PR.