THEATER REVIEW : Immigrants’ Chronicle of Struggle : History lends realism to the personal and social torments faced by Irish characters in ‘The Ring.’

As a play, Michael Holmes’ “The Ring” is mostly a chronicle of the immigration of three Irish souls fleeing poverty-stricken Ireland during the U.S. Civil War. But it’s more than just that.

Their final night on a Kerry hillside, their voyage across the Atlantic looking for gold-paved streets and their terrible beginnings in New York’s underworld are cinematic in their sweep, but Holmes has something else on his mind than just their history.

The threads of the trio’s desperate struggle--Sean and Billy’s time with the Union Army, during which Billy loses an eye at Antietam, Billy’s dubious success as a knuckle-fighter at Gallus Mag’s Sportsman’s Hall, Kathleen and Sean’s powerful love for each other, even the hint that Sean might become an actor--are part of a smaller tapestry that is really a tone poem about friendship, respect, faith and hope.

The play, at the Chandler Studio, also paints a vivid picture of the first wave of American immigrants who were subjected to hatred and distrust, and who formed the country’s first violent street gangs in an effort to gain a forceful foothold in the new soil. The Irish were first, then the Italians, then any group that threatened the status quo.

Holmes intriguingly surrounds his three fictional protagonists with images of actual history and characters of the era. Gallus Mag, a woman who dressed as a man, was as real and as tough as the Slaughter House Gang that continually tried to recruit Sean. While Sean is boxing at the Sportsman’s Hall, he is spotted as a possible actor by F.S. Chanfrau, a colleague and friend of the Drews and Barrymores.

Chanfrau is producing a revival of one of his own starring vehicles, “Mose,” about a boxer and firefighter of heroic aspect, and wants Sean to play his old role.

There are only a few inconsistencies along the way, such as Kathleen’s question at the end about whatever happened to the Slaughter House Gang. Surely she read about Sean’s secret solution to that problem in the city’s tabloids. But these are balanced by some elegant directorial touches, such as Sean at a picnic idly spinning his derby at the top of his walking stick.

All this local and historical color might not work, as the play might not, without the taut, detailed authenticity of the performances of the three actors, and the rhythmic flow of Holmes’ direction. He simplifies and illuminates both in his writing and staging the lines of romance and courage that pass before the offstage panorama of a brawling, violent Manhattan suffering its first growing pains.

Stephanie McGurn is Kathleen, and Joseph Dean Vachon is Sean. They each seem to have an inner light that gives tone and shape and a vivid freshness to characters we’ve met elsewhere. Robert Bardy’s Billy is a performance in harmony with McGurn and Vachon’s melody, as right as the prophetic and charming “Three Blind Mice” they sing their last Kerry night, and which ends the beleaguered opening chapter of their life in the New World.

The production is effectively staged in a black-box set. A few props, fluid lighting, imaginative blocking and a performer’s sense of time and place prove good theater doesn’t always need castles and helicopters to work. Just talent.

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WHERE AND WHEN

What: “The Ring.”

Location: The Chandler Studio, 12443 Chandler Blvd., North Hollywood.

Hours: 8 p.m. Friday to Sunday. Ends June 11.

Price: $12.50.

Call: (818) 780-6516.