The only way I could have salvaged any enjoyment of the prose hurled at me in the Workshop Theatre Group production of Owen McCafferty’s Mojo Mickybo, was to have arrived armed with a low brow Irish slang dictionary, a flashlight and the desire to work in the dark.

it took near 30 minutes to get accustomed to the brogue and near an hour to figrr out half o' what wer bein’ said.

What we experience is the birth of a civil war. Could take place anywhere or at any time. The time represented here is 1970 and the place is Belfast Northern Ireland. Mojo and Mickybo, a couple young lads, one from up the road and the other from t'other side of the bridge, meet and form a seemingly irrevocable bond of friendship. They have their dreams in common... dreams like moving to Australia, becoming fearsome fighters or becoming as famous a Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid. They share a common innocence. Their only worry is avoiding a drubbing by a couple of local bullies calling themselves the Rubber Bullet Gang. The boys are oblivious to the mounting horror swirling about them, but enveloping their parents and the whole of Great Britain in what would come near to being all out sectarian civil war.

For over an hour, Jacob Pennington as Mojo and Matthew Boyce as Mickybo worked themselves into a lather as they carried the full weight of 16 characters around a patch of floor decorated as a tattered Republican flag with wooden stools as set pieces. Each careened back and forth portraying their own dysfunctional parents, schoolyard bullies, Butch Cassidy, Sundance and various townsfolk at a breakneck pace. 

restless leg syndrome during pregnancy

To my mind they seemed a bit young for the roles, but I can’t take away from two solid performances.

Unfortunately, and as evidenced by the dozen or so in the audience, the Workshop Theatre Group (what is the fascination with the English spelling of the word THEATER?) will live and die by its play selection as much as by production quality.  In the playbill WTG states a commitment to the "theatrical process and the provision of a stimulating professional environment where theatre artists can further their craft." I would ask the audience be stimulated as well.  In order to survive one must get the fannies into the seats. It is a shame for so few to see the work of Director Steve Earle, his cast and crew.

Mojo Mickybo, though not the most accessible theater piece presented in recent memory (I did lose count of the number of times the word "foohk" was spewed), it was a worthy effort and an indicator of good things to come.

That’s all I got fer ye now. I’m off to McGinty’s fer a pint, so foohk off all o’ ya.