Rex Ryan's foray into the life of Gerard Hutch is thought-provoking

Extra.ie​

2 days ago

When watching The Monk at Glass Mask Theatre that age-old adage about the truth and a good story might spring to mind. It wouldn't be the first time that a gangland veteran became the subject of an artistic endeavour — after all, we've had The General about the life of Martin Cahill and John Gilligan and Traynor were also committed to celluloid in Veronica Guerin, the film about the murder of the Sunday Independent journalist.
In that, Alan Devine played Gerry 'The Monk' Hutch long before he was found not guilty of the Regency Hotel murders in 2023 and subsequently unsuccessfully ran for election a year later.
But it's another leap that Rex Ryan has taken — devising a play about his one-time neighbour after a chance meeting with Hutch's son Jason who he knew from his neighbourhood of Clontarf. Ryan writes, directs and stars in The Monk after meeting with Gerry Hutch a number of times to discuss the man's life. Rex Ryan as a younger Gerard Hutch.
Hutch has given Ryan carte blanche to portray his life as Ryan sees it, and so though facts were checked and insight into his life was certainly provided by The Monk, the actor and writer has used dramatic licence to pepper fact with fiction.
We meet The Monk as played by Ryan just minutes before he is due to appear in the dock to hear whether or not he will be convicted of the murder of David Byrne at The Regency Hotel in 2016. What follows is like a fever dream trip through the life of Hutch, aided and abetted by screens that flash up different aspects of Hutch's life – from CCTV footage of an assasination attempt on The Monk as he dined out in a Lanzarote bar with his wife Trish to headlines about various robberies including the Marino Mart job which Hutch insists he had no hand, act or part in.
Throughout, the face of a young girl – the angel watching over him – appears on the screens questioning what Hutch is saying. We hear about Gerard Hutch's early life in Summerhill, which paints a picture of poverty for his own family and those around him. Rex Ryan as a long-haired Hutch.
There were times, he remembers, where there wasn't food on the table and how his mother looked after her children while his father worked on the docks until his back was broken and found solace at the bottom of a bottle.
He describes the children playing in The Cage who get dealt a rough hand, Hutch among them as small transgressions see him being carted off and institutionalised at a young age before he gives the authorities a reason to see him as a criminal as part of a young gang called the Bugsy Malones. Ryan's telling of 15-year-old Hutch's time in Mountjoy is a poignant one, revealing how a child learned strength from neglect in prison and brutality.
And it is in this vein that we continue, verging into the territory of 'ordinary decent criminal' — at one point there's a very Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels style retelling of how a robbery might be planned down to the second which treads very dubious ground. View this post on Instagram
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But just when you think the play has drifted into the realms of Robin Hood type territory, it turns again with a clever reproduction of the 2008 RTE interview where Paul Reynolds puts Hutch through the ringer, followed by a litany of death and bloodshed being blasted from the screens surrounding the stage while Ryan's Hutch insists he is simply the head of a family who's trying to sort out his nephew's mistake.
Without giving too much away, it's quite an ending as Gerard Hutch is called to court.
And we, of course, know that in real life Hutch was found not guilty. But because this production is a mishmash of fact and fiction, it's sometimes an uncomfortable watch for the wrong reasons. Rex Ryan as Gerry Hutch.
Had Ryan taken Gerard Hutch's story and completely fictionalised it using a different character, without revealing he had based it on The Monk, it would be an excellent play.
But with the actual crime boss looming large in the background, it becomes distracting and disorientating as the audience themselves have to figure out where the two truths lie.
The acting, writing, direction and staging is superb and certainly The Monk by Rex Ryan is thought-provoking but one of those thoughts is whether or not this was a good idea in the first place from a moral perspective. But as Hutch said himself, we'll let the people decide.