The young playwright who wrote this classic of Irish literature certainly had a way with words. During a short life that ended two years after it was first staged in Dublin, John Millington Synge established himself as a prolific writer within the revival of Irish literature taking place early last century.
Synge had some of the luck of the Irish, too. The Playboy of the Western World is a title that has developed a bit of traction, and lives on.
Early last century when the play opened, the concept of "playboy" that he was writing about was nothing like from what comes to mind now, of course. The Playboy empire that emerged in the 1950s in America, with its bunnies and centrefolds, is a far cry from the idea of a playful young man prone to spin a yarn. Beautiful County Mayo where the action is set on the rugged west coast of Ireland is hardly the global West either.
This robust, dynamic production of Synge's three-act Irish play from the National Theatre in Britain is directed by Caitriona McLaughlin and populated by a vibrant cast of actors speaking in Irish-English aka Hiberno-English dialect. Events take place in the shebeen, an unlicensed pub run by Michael Flaherty (Lorcan Cranitch, a wonderful drunk), that is the vital centre of town life, the community hub.
Working with the restrictions of a single location, the play opens outwards with lighting denoting the time of day or night, doing its best with the shift in mood between scenes within the pub walls. Mist wafts across the landscape beyond, and mummery musicians appear from time to time in their straw costumes, making the ordinary seem strange.
Nicola Coughlan (Bridgerton, Derry Girls) in the key role of Pegeen Mike, the diminutive, sharp-tongued daughter of the publican, wears red tights and ankle boots. She is terrific opposite said playboy, Christy Mahon (Eanna Hardwicke), who stumbles into the public house with a tall story about having killed his old man.
To the guffaws of those present, Christy lurches around looking hunted and haunted until his posture straightens with the realisation that the patricide is met with blatant admiration. In fact, it turns him, a strange and furtive lad, into something of a local hero, with approval among the ladies. Had he known that two attractive women, Pegeen and Widow Quin (Siobhan McSweeney, Derry Girls), would have fought over him, he laughs, he would have despatched his father sooner. What a thought.
The play garnered notoriety from the outset. When first staged, audiences objected, understandably, to the idea that a young man who murdered his father could find approval. Riots were reported.
The depiction of young Irish womanhood was a problem too. Besides Pegeen and the widow, a band of lusty young village women emerge wanting Christy too. A gaggle of girls descend on him with treats to tempt and taunt him with, like duck eggs, a pad of butter and a cut of cake.
One of them even licks his boots, in another moment in the play of footwear fetishisation. The dark side of celebrity with its badass heroes, an issue for the here and now, gets the serve it deserves.
The issue of patricide is more tricky. However, the murky morality of Christy's apparent patricide is swiftly cast aside when his father (Declan Conlan) enters the shebeen, upright but with a bloody wound at the back of his skull. Yet, it's all in good fun.
Even if crusty Old Mahon never gave his son peace and beat him mercilessly, it still weren't right to kill him, or were it? The extent to which the good people of Mayo were prepared to overlook it, even to celebrate it, is intriguing. In its oblique way, Synge's play offers a strong critique of Irish masculinity, with its oppressive practices and its self-aggrandising behaviours.
The unruly mayhem ends in riotously funny final scenes. If only it was less of an effort to get a handle on every word spoken here. I gave it my best, and I wish you luck.