Editor's Note: We've had quite a bit of email from viewers commenting on this less than enthusiastic review. One of our regular readers and someone we know to be a frequent and intelligent theater goer, made an interesting case for both agreeing and disagreeing with our review and we therefore —with her permission— add it as a postscript before the production notes. I was particularly taken with Irene's suggestion that McPherson follow not just his Irish literary forbears, but, revisit the much done Irish family play within the context of a modern and thriving Ireland. —e.s.

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Simon Saltzman seems to be something of a shipwrecked sailor as the lone dissenter in a sea of Seafarer enthusiasts. Not being a critic but an ordinary paying customer, I found myself somewhere in the middle.

That long first act struck me as an all too familiar variation of the Irish play with it's humor relying on cussin' and fussin' and endless imbibing. We've seen other kin (dysfunctgional brothers seem to be a favorite family combo) forced by circumstance to live together in gloomy houses. McPherson's brothers are brought together by Sharky's having lost his latest job and coming home to care for his older brother Bill who lost his eyesight as a result of a drink-related Thanksgiving mishap. Their brogues are thicker than Irish stew and to pump things up there's a colorful outsider who sabotages Sharky's effort to keep Bill reasonably sober.

The first act is pretty much a set-up for the meat and potatoes of what's to come and The Seafarer would be much more seaworthy as far as I'm concerned if it cut right to the chase—. the poker game with McPherson's combination Dickensian Scrooge and Faustian Mephistopheles, the mysterious Mr. Lockhart. When that poker game becomes a game of redemption it turns the picturesque blathering into suspenseful drama and draws all of us into Lockhart's chilling vision of the hell as a coffin deep benath the sea. This metaphor for the prisons self-hate builds for Sharky is something we can all identify with and it is in this final act that McPherson validates his standing as one of the best contemporary torch bearers for the Irish story telling tradition. The actors play the game so magnificently that the tedious first act is forgivable.

And so, I agree and disagree with Mr. Saltzman's review. If that first act had been condensed and merged with the second, I'd be right in there with those who have declared it to be the greatest thing since Irish soda bread. —

Finally, having seen most of Mr. McPherson's earlier monologues that have been produced in New York, I was also pleased to see him continue to broaden his canvas, as he did in Shining City, with a larger cast and a departure from the monologue format. As a still young playwright, I'd like to see him leave the old-time Irish drinking tales long enough to write a play about economically thriving modern Ireland and perhaps, like Tracy Letts, write an August: Dublin Town. — Irene Connelly Safran, New York, NY.