The calming bird calls and chiming crickets in perfect rhythm with the ocean waves combined with the whimsical with a hint of melancholy music score by David Remedios is a clever façade for what exists inside Tyrone’s American oceanside summer cottage.  So much of this production is about what each person is hiding inside as miserly owner Mr. Tyrone insists on keeping the lights off.

Under Courtney O’Connor’s delicate direction and just in time for St. Patrick’s Day, Lyric Stage Company continues its 50^th anniversary season with Ronán Noone Irish drama Thirst live and in person at Lyric Stage in Boston, Massachusetts through Sunday, March 17.  The show is two hours and 15 minutes including an intermission.  Click here for more information and for tickets.

Set in 1912 within scenic designer Janie E Howland’s impressively functioning kitchen equipped with running water and a piping hot wood stove and  heavy hanging black wrought iron pans as active as this trio of lonely and willful characters, Thirst delves into longing, heartache, and the inner turmoil that can very well define us all if we let it.

Thirst focuses on two Irish immigrant servants and a widowed chauffeur employed by the Tyrone family who are restless about their future and longing for a better life seemingly just beyond their reach.   Part unconventional love story, Thirst explores life’s challenges and the unique tie that binds this trio of characters to gradually understand each other.

Though it has a bit of a slow start, witnessing the unfolding of these multilayered characters helmed by Kate Fitzgerald who exuberantly embodies feisty, daydreaming, uproarious, and romantic Titanic survivor Cathleen, becomes an absorbing exploration for this trio to break free of their limitations and embrace happiness. 

With a thick brogue under dialect coach Rebecca Gibel, Fitzgerald’s excitability and wondrous daydreams blended with her maturity and frankness well beyond her age is a stark contrast to Aimee Doherty as Cathleen’s disillusioned, secretive and practical Aunt Bridget.  Doherty and Fitzgerald’s sweet and spicy rapport is as comical as it is bittersweet and their tendency to take things too far makes for some enthralling moments.  It is particularly fascinating to watch a wonderful actress like Aimee Doherty’s depiction of tone deaf Bridget when renowned singer Doherty is anything but.  Doherty has a particular flair during the production’s more lighthearted moments.   Michael Kaye is increasingly endearing as poetic and protective Jack heightened in a moving monologue about life’s complications toward the end of the play.  All of these characters have suffered grief and loss and it is touching to watch them argue, protect and encourage each other as they learn to understand each other’s innate struggles through humor and heartache.

Under Courtney O’Connor’s delicate direction and just in time for St. Patrick’s Day, Lyric Stage Company continues its 50^th anniversary season with Ronán Noone Irish drama Thirst live and in person at Lyric Stage in Boston, Massachusetts through Sunday, March 17.  The show is two hours and fifteen minutes including an intermission.  Click here for more information and for tickets.