Actor charms in Urbanite Theatre’s Sarasota premiere of one-man play ‘The Smuggler’

For its production of “The Smuggler,” Urbanite Theatre has been turned into a warm and inviting bar, where an Irish immigrant spins a tale about his struggles to make it in the United States and the criminal activities he took on to help support his family.

That immigrant is named Tim Finnegan and he’s played, like all the other characters in Ronán Noone’s play, by Giles Davies. He makes specialty drinks for a few audience members (or bar patrons) sitting at small round tables while he draws us into his captivating and sometimes sordid story.

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Timmy has a roguish quality, but with a smile and glint in his eye that makes him surprisingly charismatic and ingratiating. (The sharp vest, tie and the fabric bands around the sleeves on his striped shirt in Dee Sullivan’s costume design add to a classic image.) You will almost forgive him anything, even when his story about stealing from undocumented people trying to get their own start in this country takes its darkest turns.

During Saturday night’s performance, there were times I sat horrified and charmed at the same time, watching Davies smoothly wrap us in his web of deceit and crime.

Oh, and Noone’s script is written in mostly rhyming verse, but as performed by Davies and directed by co-artistic director Brendan Ragan, it sounds so natural that the rhymes appear to be more of an afterthought or coincidental. You barely notice they’re there until you do.

The verse style gives the playwright a structure for telling the story, but I’m not sure what it adds to how it is told. But overall, it has an impact.

Tim is a bartender by night and a stay-at-home dad and writer by day and the way he weaves this story makes you think he could become a best-selling writer if he just got the kind of break that keeps eluding him.

Or maybe this is one that he actually did write and publish, and Tim has just found a unique way to share it with the audience.

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Whatever the case, for about 70 minutes, Davies draws you into Tim’s story and the struggles that begin when the bar he works in closes and his wife is forced to change jobs. With a baby son in the house, the pressure is on to make some money. One night while pouring drinks, a customer talks about making a fortune acting as a kind of coyote for undocumented workers, helping them get established and charging them outrageous interest fees that must be paid back before they are “free.”

Tim is intrigued about getting in on the action, but he also has his own twisted way of capitalizing on the situation.

As Tim recalls what happens, we see Davies play Tim’s various customers; his wife, Tina; in-laws; colleagues in a construction business; and most impressively, an apparently oversized and vicious animal that becomes one of the highlight moments of the production.

Davies is truly a charmer throughout and Ragan has staged the play so it always feels like Tim is stepping away from the bar to tell the story. It just fits, and it looks so appealing on the impressive bar set created by Frank Chavez, and co-lit by Simean Carpenter, which adds to the warm and inviting feeling.

As much fun as it is to hear, Tim’s story is also a frightening and disturbing reminder of the desperation that leads to so much of the crime that plagues our society and the lengths some people will go to just to stay afloat.

‘The Smuggler’

By Ronán Noone. Directed by Brendan Ragan. Reviewed Jan. 15. Urbanite Theatre, 1487 Second St., Sarasota. Through Feb. 20. 941-321-1397; urbanitetheatre.com

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This article originally appeared on Sarasota Herald-Tribune: Review: Sarasota’s Urbanite Theatre opens one-man play ‘The Smuggler’