Review of The Weir, New Haven Theater Company
George Kulp, a founding member of the New Haven Theater Company, has a way with sets. Together with Rich Burkham, Kulp has devised a cozy pub that looks lived-in and worn, with a stone fireplace, a wood-burning stove, an ancient cash register, and photos on the wall that ostensibly capture the local history of the setting of NHTC's latest offering, Conor McPherson's The Weir. Set in Sligo, an out-of-the-way town in West Ireland, the play features four locals and a newcomer. All gathered in the pub on a windy night, they begin to regale one another with unnerving tales. Directed by Kulp, The Weir plays for the next two weekends, May 7-9 and May 14-16.
Steve Scarpa, George Kulp, J. Kevin Smith, Melissa Anderson, Gavin Whelan, John Bachelder on the set of The Weir
Kulp said he's been thinking about The Weir since NHTC staged McPherson's The Seafarer back in 2014. In that play, Kulp played the newcomer to a friendly group of Irish cardplayers, a figure with an occult significance. The two plays are linked by the fact that the Irish characters like to sling what they call "the cod," which is anything from exaggeration to hearsay to outright fiction, fed by the sense that, as Hamlet says, "there are more things between heaven and earth than are dreamt of in your philosophy."
Jim (Steve Scarpa), Jack J. Kevin Smith), Brendan (Gavin Whelan) in The Weir, New Haven Theater Company
There are weird things in The Weir, which takes its name from the one technological innovation in the area: a weir, or hydraulic dam, that regulates water flow. If metaphorical, we might assume McPherson has in mind a weir as analogous to how the flow of dialogue in the bar moves toward greater and greater personal revelation.
Brendan (Gavin Whelan), Jack (J. Kevin Smith), Valerie (Melissa Anderson), Finbar (John Bachelder), Jim (Steve Scarpa) in The Weir, New Haven Theater Company
The New Haven Theater Company has a way with plays featuring strong dialogue, and The Weir, which thrives on banter, is a bit like getting the band back together. Founding member Steve Scarpa returns to the stage, not having been in an NHTC show since 2017, when he appeared in Middletown and A Public Reading of an Unproduced Screenplay about the Death of Walt Disney, though he directed Kulp last season in Heisenberg. The latter play, a two-hander, also featured a memorable role for Melissa Anderson who returns as Valerie, the newcomer to Sligo from Dublin. Scarpa had a key role in The Seafarer and here he plays Jim, a somewhat taciturn figure who tells the most harrowing story. That is until Valerie decides to share a story from her past.
Jack (J. Kevin Smith), Finbar (John Bachelder) in The Weir, New Haven Theater Company
Two of the locals are rather antagonistic toward each other, sometimes in a good-natured way, other times with more manifest bitterness and hostility. Jack is played by J. Kevin Smith, president of the NHTC board, and a regular actor in NHTC shows, notably as Walt Disney in A Public Reading..., in Edward Albee's The Zoo Story in 2020 and Annapurna in 2022, both two-handers. Here, Jack is a small business owner and bettor on horses who resents the way Finbar asserts himself thanks to his increased fortunes via lucrative real estate deals. The play is set in the 1990s and Finbar is benefiting from the era of the "Celtic Tiger," when land in Ireland suddenly became a commercial investment. Finbar is played by John Bachelder who participated in the staged reading of Incident at Vichy at NHTC in 2016; he has also played in The Seafarer, though not with NHTC.
Brendan (Gavin Whelan) in The Weir, New Haven Theater Company
The final cast member is the barkeep Brendan, who established the premises on his farm, primarily to give the regulars a place to congregate, though in the summer the exasperating German tourists have a way of taking over. Brendan is played by Gavin Whelan who was notable as the dissenting disciple in last spring's The Christians.
Conor McPherson has a way with storytelling. The plot of The Weir is minimal; what matters is what these born raconteurs talk about to pass the time. The main question is whether or not Valerie will fit in, and why Finbar, the only married man amongst them, has taken it upon himself to show Valerie around town. The three single men may have a shot, maybe not, but it's Finbar who gets the ball rolling, telling about a house said to be built on a "faery road." The house just happens to be the one Valerie is now living in.
Finbar (John Bachelder) in The Weir, New Haven Theater Company
Each character but Brendan gets a chance to hold the floor, holding our attention with a story that features a touch of the supernatural, but which also reveals something about the attitude and general outlook of the speaker. Brendan, while not as apt to spin yarns, is given an important sense of presence by Whelan; he's not only the group's host, he seems to have his own unspoken thoughts about the way the others orchestrate their verbal arias. Jim's story, for instance, has the feel of a fever dream, a hallucination, or a dark look at Jim's inner self. As played by Scarpa, Jim, who lives with his ailing mother, is the most retiring or shy, and his comment on Valerie's story clearly aggravates Brendan.
Jim (Steve Scarpa), Jack (J. Kevin Smith), Valerie (Melissa Anderson) in The Weir, New Haven Theater Company
Bachelder's Finbar, in his fancy suit and general air of knowing more than the others, is the least likeable, but he's also clearly the one who has taken the measure of the company. He condescends to the others. Jack resents such attitudes and has donned a suit to maintain his own dignity. As presented by Smith, Jack is garrulous and discontented, but he's also a steady performer, using the bar as his prized space to hold court. He's the most charismatic, though grown a bit seedy. His final story—the only one without a touch of the supernatural—presents a "one that got away" tale that, in the telling, perhaps is an opening for Valerie's consideration.
Valerie (Melissa Anderson) in The Weir, New Haven Theater Company
Valerie's story is delivered by Anderson in a nicely modulated rise from a kind of get-acquainted background story to a heartbreaking realization of mortal helplessness and mystery. Up until then, she has seemed at most the perennial "good sport," listening to liquored men vie for her attention while pretending to sip an undrinkable white. But after Anderson's tour de force presentation of Valerie's state, we may well wonder if we've become like the wedding guest in Coleridge's "Rime of the Ancient Mariner," made to hear a story retold when there is no way it can have a different ending.
The Weir leaves you feeling glad for human company and that inestimable ability to put things into words.
Jack (J. Kevin Smith), Brendan (Gavin Whelan), Valerie (Melissa Anderson) in The Weir, New Haven Theater Company
The Weir
By Conor McPherson
Directed by George Kulp
Co-Producers: Ralph Buonocore and Gavin Whelan; Production Stage Manager: Stacy Lupo; Set Design: Rich Burkham and George Kulp; Lighting Design: Adam Lobelson; Dialect Coach: Moira Malone
Cast: Melissa Anderson, John Bachelder, Steve Scarpa, J. Kevin Smith, Gavin Whelan
New Haven Theater Company
April 30-May 2; May 7-9; May 14-16, 2026