Big Break

A Couple's Big Break That's Not So Lucky

Last year the company dazzled with “ Wife to James Whelan ,” a neglected drama by Deevy , who for a time in the 1930s was a favored playwright at the Abbey Theater in Dublin. “Temporal Powers” isn’t quite as layered a play, but the company gets the most out of it with terrific performances directed by Jonathan Bank (who also directed “James Whelan”).

Min and Michael Donovan (Rosie Benton and Aidan Redmond) are a penniless couple who have just been evicted from their home and find themselves living in a half-crumbled ruin, conjured nicely in Vicki R. Davis’s set. Min envisions herself as deserving better, and just as she is berating Michael for his lack of drive, he finds a packet of money that someone has stashed in a nook.

Michael recognizes immediately that these are surely ill-gotten goods, but Min is more in a finders-keepers frame of mind, and thus Deevy sketches her theme of how poverty intrudes on morality.

“Would you ask I’d do wrong?” Michael asks her when she urges that they keep the money.

“Wrong?” she replies. “What is wronger, I ask you, than crawling through life with tattered rags on your back?”

It soon becomes clear that the money is loot from a robbery, and that the Donovans know the robber: Ned Cooney (Con Horgan), Michael’s brother-in-law. Michael’s upstanding friend, Moses Barron (Eli James), and Lizzie Brennan (Wrenn Schmidt), the young woman who hopes to become Mrs. Barron, are among the characters folded into the mix, all of them nicely etched by this skilled cast.

By the time Deevy has spun her intrigues, both Min and Michael’s true colors have become clear, and the system of justice for those on the low end of the economic spectrum has been tested. For the audience it’s a longer-than-usual journey — this is a two-intermission play — but a rewarding one.

LSU suspensions could be big break for Ducks | Jesse Sowa

The Sept. 3 showdown between No. 3 Oregon and No. 4 LSU might have lost a bit more of its shine. The Ducks will be without defensive back Cliff Harris and possibly linebacker Kiko Alonso after separate offseason incidents.

From the Associated Press today …

BATON ROUGE, La. (AP) — Police obtained arrest warrants Friday for LSU quarterback Jordan Jefferson and a teammate, Joshua Johns, on charges of second-degree battery for a bar fight that injured four people last week, and the players have been suspended indefinitely by the school. “We will continue to cooperate with the authorities in an effort to find out exactly what took place during the incident,” Miles said.  “As sad as this incident is, it’s important that we learn from this and that we take away a valuable lesson. This has weighed on all of us. It’s time for us to come together as a team and focus on what we are here to do.” The team’s success now will ride on how the players are able to regroup from a series of setbacks this offseason, one of which occurred Thursday when LSU suspended starting wide receiver Russell Shepard for violating school and NCAA codes that pertain to discussing NCAA inquiries with teammates who are also scheduled to be interviewed on the same matter. Earlier this summer, Steve Kragthorpe, who was hired after last season as the Tigers’ new offensive coordinator, announced he had Parkinson’s disease. He has remained on staff as quarterbacks coach, but relinquished offensive coordinator duties. Miles has since promoted offensive line coach Greg Studrawa to fill that void.

How big is it?, a big book all about bigness

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