How It’s New York: Dirty Money is set in Woodside, Queensand was performed in a pub on Manhattan’s Upper East Side.
How It’s Irish: Dirty Money was written by Dubliner Anto Nolan,performed by Corkman Mick Mellamphy at Ryan’s Daughter Irish pub, anddramatizes a tale from the streets of Dublin. John Kearns reviews Dirty Money at The Plays Upstairs:
"Dirty Money takes the audience on a riveting,wild ride through the plundered laundromat, a house raided by police, and the unforeseenplace where money is found for for a new life in America."
The run of Dirty Moneyat Ryan’s Daughter ends on the night of Saturday, September 15th. To keep up with the productions at PlaysUpstairs, “Like” the Ryan’s Daughter Facebook page.
The Plays Upstairs productions at Ryan’s Daughter bar at 350East 85th Street (at 1st Avenue) are so Irish and New Yorkthat it is impossible to capture these qualities in blurbs like thoseabove. The simplicity and purity of Plays Upstairs' productions, relying on words and acting and very little in the way of lightsor sound or sets, carry on the ancient Irish (and human) tradition ofstorytelling. The productions in theupstairs party room of the Upper East Side pub also reflect a real New Yorkattitude: let’s not wait for permission or acceptance to perform our work Let’s do it ourselves!
(Full disclosure, my play, In a Bucket of Blood, was the first play produced at Plays Upstairs backin 2006.)On Thursday night, I attended Dirty Money, Anto Nolan’s one-man play, featuring Mick Mellamphy, Upstairsat Ryan’s Daughter and, as usual, it was an evening of compelling theatre in arelaxed atmosphere. You get your pint atthe bar, take your seat facing the playing area in front of the window onto 85thStreet, and enjoy the show. Dirty Money ispart of a series of four one-act plays written by Nolan, who has worked as anactor, playwright, and director for 32 years. Mellamphy, who frequently appears on stage at the Irish RepertoryTheatre (The Hairy Ape, The Field, Philadelphia, Here I Come), was nominatedfor a Best Actor award in the 2010 1st Irish Festival for his rolein The Prophet of Monto, which he also performed in Dublin in 2011.
From the start, DirtyMoney has the audience guessing. Whereas its setting -- with its New York payphone, construction tarpsand netting, and discarded shopping cart -- is distinctly American and NewYork, its accent is decidedly North Side of Dublin. Our narrator, Ger, played with passion,conviction, and wonderful comic timing by Mellamphy, tells us he is waiting bythe “perfect payphone” for a call from a woman.
But for the first five minutes we are in the dark as to who the woman isor why this Dubliner is on this rough-looking street in Woodside. For the next 45 minutes, Ger fills us in onhow he found himself in these straits, unraveling a twisting tale about meetingthe girl he’s expecting to call and getting the money for a new life inQueens.
We learn that the woman has kept our man waiting for a longtime. He had started out with 18cigarettes, has smoked one per hour, and now finds them all gone. Ger can’t understand why the woman can’tsimply call him as he had asked.
“All she has to do is say, ‘Yes,’” Ger opines, “or … ‘No.’ But as me father used to say. ‘It’s hard enough to get a woman to do what she wants to do, let alone to get her todo something you want her to do.’”Back in Dublin, Ger suddenly announces to his father that heis leaving and going to England, though his true destination is where we findhim. He buys a plane ticket and saves itin his sock drawer for a departure time in May. But, what will Ger do for money once he gets to New York? He decides to pull a “job,” a robbery in anunexpected place where he wouldn’t “step on any big toes,” as he might at abank or liquor store. Ger determinesthat the dirty money he needs will come in the form of coins spent to cleanclothes. He cases several laundromatsuntil he finds the right one to victimize, then enlists is brother to help himwith the planning.
If all goes as planned, however, Ger will end up with bagsfull of coins, which are not so easy to take on a plane. To convert the coins to paper money, he turnsto a local, low-level gangster called “Yum Yum 'cause that’s a noise he makeswhile he eats.” Mellampy is hilarious portraying the negotiations between Gerand Yum Yum and Ger’s dealings with the gangster’s minions. Even Susan, the girlfriend he’s expecting toring the payphone, comes across vividly as a woman who is at least two stepsahead of Ger as he schemes to give her a lift home on a rainy evening and askher out.
As Mellamphy narrates this Dublin backstreet adventure, theplaying area in the upstairs party room of Ryan’s Daughter bar becomes YumYum’s criminal den, a roof, a ledge of a building, and Mrs. O’Leary’s backgarden. Mellamphy leaps from theabandoned shopping cart, throws himself on the floor, and peers throughimaginary windows. With the considerable power of Nolan’s taut, energetic,straightforward storytelling and Mellamphy’s vibrant and accomplished acting, Dirty Money takes the audience on a riveting,wild ride through the plundered laundromat, a house raided by police, and the unforeseenplace where money is found for for a new life in America. In the end, you realize that you never know the background ofany character you run across on the streets of New York. They might have histories you would never imagine. Likewise, you might not expect to findcompelling works of theatre in the Upper East Side neighborhood of Yorkville,but you will -- Upstairs at Ryan’s Daughter.
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