ICTC has chosen a winner to close out it’s Emerald Anniversary 20th Season. John Millington Synge wrote The Playboy of the Western World early in the last century. What started out as a diamond in the rough has become a jewel in the crown of modern Irish literature.
The early Twentieth Century was a time of great upheaval. In Europe, social forces roiled and bubbled, foreshadowing revolution to come in Russia and in Ireland, the downfall of kings, the collapse of empires and a world at war. Music. art and literature reflected these changes, breaking sharply with the classical past.
Picasso caused a stir when his cubist period first appeared in 1907. The jarring and multi-faceted portraits had never been seen before and heralded the advent of modern art.
Stravinsky’s ballet, The Rite of Spring, actually caused a riot at its premiere in Paris six years later. The primitive themes, the pounding, rhythmic score with sharp, discordant notes was unlike any music ever heard. Blatantly sexual, it was such a departure from classical ballet, the audience had a visceral, physiological reaction: fist-fights broke out in the aisles and old ladies bopped each other on the head with umbrellas. What fun!
After the ballet’s premiere, the producer, Impresario Serge Diaghilev of the Ballet-Russes was reported to have commented to Stravinsky that the scandal was “exactly what I wanted.”
This seminal moment of modernity came to theatre in the guise of John Millington Synge’s comedy, THE PLAYBOY OF THE WESTERN WORLD, produced at the Abbey Theatre, also in 1907.
Synge, largely a failed poet up to the time of PLAYBOY, wrote a play which caused a similar outbreak of rioting and outrage when it opened in Dublin. Like Picasso’s cubism in art and Stravinsky’s dissonant music, never had theatre experienced a play quite like PLAYBOY.
Unlike the genteel parlors inhabited by the works of G.B. Shaw or Oscar Wilde, Synge reveled in the down and dirty of a County Mayo pub. The people he created hung on the lowest rung of Irish society (if one discounts the Tinkers). Their foibles, jealousies, and hypocrisy were laid bare, splayed open like fish-guts. The audience had never witnessed such an unflattering self portrait of the Irish people. Irish virtue, Irish maidenhood, and especially Irish religion had never taken such a punch in the nose. The audience reacted accordingly. They rioted.
Like Diaghilev, Synge was no fool. After the play’s uproarious opening he wrote his leading lady: “It is better any day to have the row we did last night than to have your play fizzling out in halfhearted applause. Now we’ll be talked about. We’re an event in the history of the Irish stage.”
(If you go to see this play, and you should, be sure to read the thoughtful, excellent Director’s Note in the program.)
It is not the play’s wonderful history, however, but the play itself that has kept THE PLAYBOY OF THE WESTERN WORLD among the most revered and revived plays of the past century. It’s a rollicking good yarn, and in this case, it is matched with a rollicking good cast and robust, clear direction to bring it to life.
The story is that of Christy Mahon (one might think of him as a metaphor for Christ), an errant farm boy who is on the lam after bashing out his scolding old dad’s brains and leaving him for dead. Weary and ragged Christy happens upon the tavern of one M.J. Flaherty in County Mayo, on the rough and wild west coast of Ireland.
Questioned by none other than himself Michael James Flaherty, (a great romp by Dan Walker) and the curious locals who inhabit the bar (terrific performances by Gerry Maher and Christopher Standart) Christy claims he killed his own cruel father, thumping his head with a shovel. The country folk are astonished and greatly impressed. They praise Christy for his bravery in the face of such obvious oppression. Word of the deed soon spreads.
The barmaid, (and Michael James’s daughter) the beautiful but trigger-tempered Pegeen, falls hard for the fascinating Christy. Eventually they decide to marry. Pegeen’s deeply religious fiancee, the toady Shawn (a solid and very funny Kevin Craig) is shocked, and tries a variety of (failed) schemes to wrest his intended back from the filthy scoundrel.
Christy’s ever more dashing tale makes him a “rock star” of sorts among the villagers. Pegeen gets some competition for Christy’s affection by a conniving neighbor, the Widow Quin (a wonderful turn by Josephine Hogan, who captures every scene she’s in) and a gaggle of adoring young farm girls, (Genevieve Lerner, Jessica Wegrzn and Natalie Mack) all deliciously dirty (as in real farm dirt, not smutty.) The girls squeal like Justin Beiber fans when Christy prevails in a prestigious donkey race, a feat which only enhances his unlikely celebrity as the Playboy of the Western World. The fable holds, and grows.
Of course, such a blissful and lucky state of affairs cannot last, after all, this is Ireland. Christy’s Da, Old Mahon, returns from the dead, or rather from the never was dead, spoiling it all for our shiftless hero. And the father, in the bloody and malevolent form of Vincent O’Neill, would strike terror in the heart of anyone. The curtain torn down, Christy is revealed as a fake and held in contempt by all, especially by his betrothed, Pegeen.
In a desperate attempt to regain his stature, Christy once again attacks Mahon, and presumably finishes the job this time. But too late, Christy’s web of deceit has come crashing down, the once adoring townsfolk turn on the wretched boy and now, led by the scorning and bitter Pegeen, they prepare to lynch Christy for his cowardly sins, patricide finally among them.
In a final twist, Christy is saved when Old Mahon, like some superhuman cockroach, once again returns to life. You just can’t kill the man, with a shovel no less. Father and son reconcile in an hilarious and memorable moment. Off they go, shaking their dust at these dreadful peasants. And Pegeen, once willing to give it all up for this pretend playboy, has betrayed her love, lost it all and is now left to bemoan her own folly.
One wonders what all the fuss was about, but as noted, the Irish theatre-going public was unaccustomed to such a bald and unvarnished portrayal of the Irish character. These characters, however, are “characters” in name only, they are much more akin to real people who still walk the earth. And we know these people, oh how we know these people. Ignorant, judgmental, prudish, insular – whole modern day political blocks are built of such stuff. Outwardly pious, inwardly poisonous, all too often we worship celebrity and mistake cowardice for valor. This was the firefly Synge captured and put on display, in a way quite unlike any modern playwright before him.
Shrewish and haughty, Pegeen is an unattainable Virgin Queen for the likes of Christy, that is until she swallows the mania and sees him in the delusional light of her community. Cassie Gorniewicz as Pegeen hits the bull’s eye. She is a knock-out goddess of fire and ice, who intimidates the men in her world, even the likes of her own father. How could poor Christy resist her after she has shown him the only kindness and tenderness he had perhaps ever known?
Patrick Moltane gives us a remarkable performance, transformed from a snarling cur to the dashing hero and finally landing somewhere in between, Christy makes an unimaginable journey to find his place in a world that had no place for the likes of him. Mr. Moltane wears the emotions beautifully, up and down go his fortunes, momentarily proud, then smashed on the rocks, he sails his ship true, with never a false moment.
With all this lamentation, one might think PLAYBOY is just another tiramisu of tragedy, but not so, The dialogue fairly crackles with wit, the characters are genuinely funny and some of the scenes will, I promise, make you
laugh out loud.
Director Derek Campbell has obeyed the first rule, and cast his play perfectly. His story is clear as a bell and moves like the wind (the three original acts are well- ordered into two acts, all done in under two hours.)
This handsome production is enhanced with a super set by Ron Schwartz, which captures all the crabbed, hard scrabble isolation of the West of Ireland, the lights are by Brian Cavanagh, up to his usual high standards, and not least, the perfect score by Sound Designer Tom Makar. Also notable are the wonderful period costumes by Marie Hasselback Costa and terrific hair and make-up by Susan Drozd (The aforementioned dirty farm girls were truly inspired.)
THE PLAYBOY OF THE WESTERN WORLD by John Millington Synge, directed for the Irish Classical Theater Company by Derek Campbell, at the Andrews Theatre through June 26.
Photo: Patrick Moltane and Cassie Gorniewicz