Minimalist 'Stones' offers pocketfuls of charm

NEW YORK - If you were to cast 15 actors in the 15 roles in Marie Jones' 'Stones in His Pockets,' at Broadway's John Golden Theatre, you'd lose the essence of its charm.

Miminalist in props, lighting and costuming, the show would be less than half of what it is now if the two actors who are onstage throughout didn't play all 15 roles.

The play, you see, is not the thing - or not, at least, enough of the thing.

Although the two central characters are drawn well enough in the writing, the other 13 (including one of the main two at a younger age) are swiftly sketched impressions rather than people.

Interest lies not in their dimension but in the fact they're evoked so fluidly under Ian McElhinney's direction by the show's only two performers.

The main two lads they play, Charlie Conlon (Conleth Hill) and Jake Quinn (Sean Campion), are down on their luck and working as extras on a pudgy-budgeted American love story set a century ago and being filmed in rural County Kerry, Ireland.

Charlie ran a video store but lost his customers to a big corporate-run store down the block. Jake is just back from the States, where he failed to find the American dream.

The two are working for pauper's pay on a project steeped in illusions - the making of a Hollywood picture.

The pampered, primping $6 million American leading lady, one Caroline Giovanni (Hill's largest secondary part), can't speak with a brogue to save her soul. But Jake's not above telling her, 'You'd think you were born here.' Or telling her he's a poet, which is a mistake because poetry happens to be one of her stronger suits.

Hill also plays her self-important bodyguard, who describes his duties in loftier terms. And don't be bothering the stars, lads.

'Stones in His Pockets' originated in Belfast and has become a huge hit in London. It's off to a surprisingly hefty start on Broadway, but it's difficult to gauge which way word of mouth will take it. Audiences warm to the actors, who shift roles so gracefully that transitions often take place mid-gesture.

There are no costume changes. Hill and Campion wear the same work togs throughout, no matter who they're playing. Each character is projected solely by voice and body English.

The actors move around a couple of director's chairs and a couple of trunks. A Cinemascope film strip adorns the back wall. Beneath it, dozens of pairs of shoes are lined up ankle to ankle, ready to be pressed into service by the rest of the unseen film company.

The show is lighter, but less funny than one might expect. It's more of a diversion than it is a comedy, with content that blows by as freely as a feather.

The first act takes an odd twist - the suicide of one of the locals who was fired for unreliability and who stuffed his pockets with stones, presumably to weigh himself down as he waded out to sea.

He had become a druggie, which is tied by thematic implication to the indulgent lifestyle of the Hollywood visitors and indirectly to the repeated failure of himself and Jake to establish themselves successfully abroad.

As in the Irish 'Dancing at Lughnasa,' the eruption of dance brings the audience to an outpouring of applause.

It encourages a response to Hill and Campion and their deft nuggets of mime in a way the dialogue alone cannot.

Theatergoers of a certain age will warm to something extra - the recurring references to the last living Irish extra who had worked on 'The Quiet Man.'

Ed Blank can be reached at (412) 854-5555 or eblank@tribweb.com .