“Catch of the Day” is a quirky and fun show that opened Sunday in Manhattan. Dare I say it reeled in the audience, and it wasn’t just the Tayto crisps.
The show is put on by a self-described Anglo-Irish troupe, reportedly known for its "theatre of chaos" style.
From the description of the show, you’re not sure what to expect—an impression that is immediately reinforced even before the performance begins, with cast members saying hello to the audience from the stage and one going around offering them crisps/potato chips. “Go on, you won’t be eating for an hour,” urges Mrs. Doyle, correction, Callum McGuire, who had the idea for this stage production.
I hesitate to call it a play. Although “Catch” has characters tell a story it’s not a straight staging. It’s like a trad session, like improv. Characters break “the fourth wall,” addressing each other, and the audience.
As a magician might select one person as the audience’s proxy, a woman named Brenda was selected on Sunday. “Ah no. She’ll be confused. Are you confused?” McGuire, as Callum, asks at one point.
“You know who Éamon de Valera was?” another character later asks Brenda. Jonty Weston, as Paul, echoes Brenda’s reply very deliberately, “He was Irish. That’s a good start,” he deadpanned.
What have de Valera and fishing to do with each other you wonder? Perhaps the most surprising thing about “Catch” is that it the outlandish story it tells is true.
In 1966, not one, but two, sturgeon were caught off Dingle, Co. Kerry, none having been encountered for 400 years before. Declared “Royal Fish” in 1324 due to their pricey caviar, they triggered a chain of events involving Ireland’s former taoiseach, the queen of England, and a convent of local nuns.
In 2018, McGuire discovered a radio documentary RTÉ had made in 2013 and was “convinced the tale deserved to be kept alive,” the program comments. And so a play by Writer-Director Megan Jenkins was born, alongside Red Fox Theatre. The “Catch” performers are all founding members of the Poole, England, company.
They foresaw the tale, “not only being very funny but also teaching English audiences a little bit about Irish-Anglo relations, things that may well have been left out of history class.” An excellent potted history of Ireland from the 12th Century to date sounds a serious political note in the playful performance.
Might a captured fish returned to sea be a former colony? And current-day tourist traps be a critique of selling out a country for which men died?
Those questions are just faint echoes behind the rousing music and irreverent laughs. Ben Simon, a virtuoso fiddler does backbends. Anna McCormick, who did musical arrangement, also has a beautiful voice. Multi-talented McGuire has great charisma and Jonty Weston delights as a camp nun.
The line went slack towards the end of the show and I wondered could they land their catch, but the very talented performers pulled it off.
“Catch of the Day,” by Megan Jenkins and Red Fox Theatre Company, runs till June 28 at 59E59 Theaters, on E.59th St. Tickets at 646-892-7999 or boxoffice@59e59.org.
Brits Off Broadway
The Brits Off Broadway festival, an annual showcase for smaller theatres from the British and Ireland, is now in its 26th year at 59E59 Theaters. The work—performed April to June—is generally excellent. Rounding out this year’s shows is “Catch of the Day,” reviewed here, and a play about the 2019 political protests in Hong Kong. Also, Charles Dickens’s partly autobiographical novel, “David Copperfield” is put on as a play by Guildford Shakespeare Company, fresh from a run in London.
