Lyric Stage centers the dreams of Irish immigrants in 'Thirst'

It’s 1912 and Bridget, Cathleen, and Jack — two servants and a driver — talk of their lives as they move about a family kitchen.

Bridget and Cathleen, immigrants from Ireland, long to be free of the confines of suffocating servitude, and Jack dreams of entrepreneurship. He’s angling to open a car rental company of sorts if his investor comes through and to win Bridget’s heart. But hers has hardened some due to a big, shame-inducing secret she keeps buried. When the pain of it bubbles up, she aims to stamp it out with generous swigs of alcohol until she numbs.

These three people — minor characters mentioned in Eugene O’Neill’s autobiographical play “Long Day’s Journey into Night,” — are fully fleshed out in a terrifically acted “Thirst,” at the Lyric Stage Company through March 17. The action takes place in the Tyrone family kitchen designed by Janie E. Howland (a realistic one outfitted with a coal-black wood-burning stove on which they cook bacon and eggs) a white fridge, shelving, and a working sink with butcher block counters.

Elliot Norton Award winner Aimee Doherty, Kate Fitzgerald, and Michael Kaye (The Huntington’s “Common Ground Revisited” and “Art of Burning”) starring as Bridget, Cathleen and Jack, respectively, are especially gifted actors who laugh, dance, and fight their way through life. It’s fun to watch them trade barbs and show a little tenderness when they can muster it. Still, even with the incredible acting, I was waiting for a significant crisis or some rising action to be introduced in the story arc. Instead, Ronán Noone, the playwright for “Thirst,” leaves out a big climatic event and leans on the lives of the trio with their disappointments and deep desire for change to spur the development of their characters and move the narrative along. Over time, it becomes clear that the characters are thirsty for many things. They desire love, freedom, the ability to achieve their dreams on their own terms, and even redemption.

Bridget struggles with alcoholism, the absence of her family, and yearns for her beloved home country. Jack is haunted by his wife’s death, how he wasn’t there for her when she needed him, and his battle with addiction. Cathleen wonders if getting on the boat to America put her on the wrong path. She wants to head to New York to become an actress, but instead, she serves meals to the Tyrone family under the watchful eye of her overly critical aunt Bridget, whom she finds it difficult to connect with at times.

All in all, Noone’s narrative, with lovely direction from producing artistic director Courtney O’Connor, offers a glimpse into the lives of three people making the best of their situations. By the show’s end — a little lengthy at over two hours — it’s unclear if everyone will get what they want. But there’s a ray of hope signaling that some of them just might.

The Lyric Stage Company production of “Thirst” shows now through March 17.