Characters of Jerry and Sammy in a pound of demand by Sean O 'Casey?
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Instead, the evening, which also includes Sean O'Casey's “ A Pound on Demand,” turns out to be ... Eckert Jerry - Joe Grifasi Sammy - Brian Dennehy Woman ...
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Trinity Rep's decision to prelude Eugene O'Neill's great character study Hughie with a wide farce by Sean O'Casey is a bit of a tease, and ultimately a lousy choice. A Pound on Demand isn't really entertaining as an amuse-bouche. It suffers from Harvey syndrome, which means that drunken stumblebums haven't been boisterous in almost a half-century. Brian Dennehy has been cast in the pivotal part of Erie Smith in Hughie, and the crowd has come to see him. (In 2003, the actor won a Tony Award for his performance in the Broadway version of Long Day's Journey into Night.) The addition of a Pound on Demand as a filler, at Dennehy's suggestion, only adds another half-hour to the proceedings.
Catherine Baker Steindler gives her Pound firm a near-vaudevillian amount of leeway. Every activity takes place in the open. Dennehy's portrayal of Sammy, a lumbering sot, is devoid of any discernible brilliance. It's up to his sane sidekick Jerry (Joe Grifasi) to keep the performance going; after all, it was Jerry's idea to cash in Sammy's one-pound Post Office savings account, and it's in Jerry's best interests to keep Sammy sufficiently composed so that his signature can assure their solvency. Grifasi brings an appealing, antic caginess to the part, evoking an Everyman against unfathomable odds.
Secondary characters Ginger Eckert (as a prim young postmistress) and Cynthia Strickland (as a fussbudget patron) have clearly been given carte blanche to ham it up; high school thespians are usually more discreet. William Damkoehler, a Trinity Rep regular, follows Grifasi's example in anchoring the piece with the type of reality that O'Casey's work necessitates. Eugene Lee's P.O. set, right down to the disintegrating floor tiles and weathered wainscotting, merits praise for realism.
During the interval, the set's centrepiece transforms into the front desk of a sleazy hotel, and a New York skyline around 1928 is displayed stage left, in an amazing example of presto-chango. The El girders above (complete with resident stuffed pigeons) come to alive with genuine audio screeches (created by Richard Woodbury); they even tremble when the train rumbles by. Erie Smith (Dennehy), a down-on-his-luck petty gambler coming off a bender, trudges into this scene with an annoyed groan.
Dennehy's advantage — or misfortune, depending on how you look at it — is that he's one of those performers who exudes a sense of well-being. Smith may appear a little worn, but the torn, sweat-stained seersucker suit provided by costumer William Lane is excellent. He's still presentable. In truth, the big-shot ambitions that lured him to the city appear to be little more than a threadbare but lasting dapperness.