Catch 'Banished Children of Eve' While You Can For A Taste Of Civil War New York

By Gwen Orel

Director Ciaran O'Reilly is one of the best in the city - his work shines with creativity and theatricality, from nuanced work on naturalistic shows like The Field to his insightful use of spectacle last year on Eugene O'Neill's The Emperor Jones.

The thrilling opening mise-en-scene of a busy nineteenth century New York in the new play Banished Children of Eve, adapted by Kelly Younger from Peter Quinn's best-selling 1994 novel, shows O'Reilly's strong visual sense.

The show doesn't entirely work - but when it does, it soars.

The opening tableau, with buskers, minstrel performers, an African fish seller, city passersby, is unforgettable.

The play takes place during the summer of 1863, just before the notorious "draft riots" in New York City. It was the third year of the Civil War, and an increased draft - which the rich could opt out of by paying - lit the fuse for a violent explosion.

Blacks living in the city were murdered by mobs who blamed them for the war. Minstrelsy was the popular art form of the day - you had to black up and shuck if you wanted to get anywhere in theatre (you can see traces of this in Fred Astaire's blackface homage to Bojangles in Holiday Inn, often cut in network airings, not to mention Al Jolson in The Jazz Singer, 1927).

David Lansbury plays Jack, an Irish Shakespearean actor starring in an adaptation of Harriet Beecher Stowe's Uncle Tom's Cabin in a minstrel review.

Onstage with him is Eliza (Amber Gray), a black woman posing as South American (it was not actually illegal for black performers to appear onstage; Quinn missteps here; there were African-American companies during the 19th-century; see Carlyle Brown's The African Company Presents Richard III. Mixed-race casts would have been scandalous, however). Together they look after street urchin Squirt (phenomenally talented young dancer Christopher Borger).

Jack wants to take Eliza to Canada and marry, but the plans are delayed by his fondness for the drink (he and Squirt busk outside of McSorley's, mentioned so often in the play the pub should have taken a back cover ad) and Eliza's distrust, aided by the Fulton Fishmarket woman who raised her, Euphemia (Effie) Blanchard (Patrice Johnson).

That's one thread of the story. The other follows Jimmy (Jonny Orsini), an Irish-American who lures Irish maid Margaret O'Driscoll (outstanding Amanda Quaid) on a date so his boss Waldo Capshaw (Graeme Malcolm) can rob her employers.

Capshaw has promised Jimmy the $300 opt-out money. Stephen Foster (Malcolm Gets), composer of "Beautiful Dreamer" as well as "Dixie", hangs out in the dive pub/hotel where Jack and Eliza live.

He dreams of a non-minstrel, musical adaptation of Uncle Tom's Cabin. Everything comes together during the riots - more or less.

It's exciting to see a straightforward historical piece done for the stage (we're much more used to it in series television, like Boardwalk Empire) but dialogue often feels more expository than shaped, and the focus becomes diffuse.

Capshaw apparently works for the devil - it's a fault in the story, as is his inexplicable power over everyone (Malcolm's acting never goes beneath the surface, either).

Lansbury and Quaid are perfect, and Malcom Gets as Stephen Foster (a rather undeveloped lurker) sings angelically, but Gray's rapid-fire delivery exhausts the ear.

Johnson's Effie's anger over minstrelsy feels awfully modern - but her one-note rants don't help. Her humor, however, delights: "When you Irish gonna stop talking about that damn famine!" she shouts.

But Barry McNabb's minstrel choreography is breathtaking, and Charlie Corcoran's surprising, sliding semicircle walls add movement to the shifts. Though not perfect, the show should also not be missed.

The production runs through December 5 at Irish Repertory Theatre, 132 West 22nd Street. 212-727-2737 or www.irishrep.org.