By Ben Waterhouse
Willamette Week
January 14, 2009

Please remember, as you take your seats for Artists Rep’s laudable production of Conor McPherson’s Christmas with the devil: For this playwright, ghosts and demons are no mere literary device. In McPherson’s plays, the paranormal exists not as a metaphor, but as concrete reality. Maybe it’s because he’s Catholic (the Church still affirms the existence of demonic possession, after all) or because he’s Irish (all that mist), but McPherson’s is a haunted world. Never before, though, has the haunting had such substantial presence as in this boozy 2006 play. It’s Christmas Eve, and Sharky (Bill Geisslinger) has returned from a short-lived chauffeuring gig to care for his ailing, blind older brother, Richard (Tobias Andersen). Their alcoholic friend Ivan (Todd Van Voris) is also about, having lost his glasses while drinking heavily the night before. Then Nicky (Leif Norby), a preening git and the new husband of Sharky’s ex, shows up for a few drinks and a game of cards, bringing with him the dapper and apparently good-humored Mr. Lockhart (Denis Arndt). Lockhart is far more devilish than he seems, however—and he’s playing for keeps. Van Voris and Norby are two of this towns finest actors, but here they are completely outgunned by their older colleagues. Andersen goes big, spitting, hacking and swearing away as the totalitarian and self-obsessed (but very funny) Richard, but it’s Geisslinger’s performance that really makes the show. Sharky at first seems all but dead inside, and Geisslinger, an 18-year veteran of the Oregon Shakespeare Festival, lets his tremendous internal torment show bit by terrible bit. For all that, and the cosmic stakes, The Seafarer is a heartwarming show. Richard sums it up: “We all know you’re an alcoholic and your life is in tatters and you’re an awful fucking gobshite. But you know what? You’re alive, aren’t you?”