In a two-hour program with no intermission, he displayed the stamina and agility of a man 30 years younger.
The program's two main drawbacks were taped music and no intermission, despite a two-hour running time.
First produced last summer, at London's Donmar Warehouse, with the same cast, the almost two-hour show is performed without an intermission, but it is filled with pauses.
It's no accident that "Celtic" nearly rhymes with "mystic," and the nearly two-hour performance (sandwiched around a 20-minute intermission) had its share of moments that evoked journeys into mist-shrouded realms--including Moloney's tin-whistle showcase on music he wrote for the film "Far and Away". The Chieftains handled jigs with barreling gusto.
Despite his and Ms. Young's very appealing performances, this two-hour show is not for the restless: it is performed without intermission.
What's more, he has done it with remarkable clarity and meaning, resulting in a two-part film with a combined four-hour running time presented with an intermission after about 2 1/2 hours.
The three parts are given over a nearly seven-hour span, broken up by a 45-minute intermission and a 90-minute dinner break.
According to his program notes, Taplin wishes to do the entire epic in an evening, but the sense of this very full four-hour (with two generous intermissions) performance is that that would be folly.
But, at the gala on Sunday, the younger man was fully engaged from early on in an evening that, including intermission, hit the five-hour mark.
(There is no intermission during the nearly two-hour play.) The clothes are roughly 20th century, with blasts of rock music erupting between scenes.
