Review: NT Theatre Live’s ‘Playboy of the Western World,’ by John Millington Synge

Part of the foundation of the Irish theater movement in the early 20^th century, the dark comedy The Playboy of the Western World by John Millington Synge was staged over the winter in London’s Lyttelton Theatre. 

With a filmed record of that production available worldwide through National Theatre Live, I was curious to see how well the raucous but poetic speech of the playwright’s Western Ireland characters translated from the printed page to the stage.

Under the direction of Caitríona McLaughlin of Dublin’s famed Abbey Theatre, this performance was certainly faithful to its Celtic origins—in one sense, perhaps too much so. 

Even as the son of an immigrant from this same area of rural Ireland, I sometimes found it difficult to make out the words emitted from these brogues. I could only imagine how puzzled some listeners unused to these accents would feel.

With that said, the show—which I saw last week, four months after its run ended, onscreen at the Barrymore Film Center in Fort Lee, NJ—exhibited its same sprightly subversiveness, though not in the same pious and nationalistic environment that caused riots with a reference to female undergarments (“shifts”) at its Dublin premiere in 1907.

While the Protestant Synge threw some darts at the conservative Roman Catholic Church that held sway at the time over the countryside, he might be surprised to see that a different object of his ironic eye has struck an even louder chord with modern audiences: the lionization of bad boys, even one like his Christy Mahon who is believed to be a patricide.

Under the rapt gaze of his County Mayo listeners, the terrified young runaway Christy (played with elan by Éanna Hardwicke) magnifies his deed with each retelling, until he becomes what local barmaid Pegeen Mike calls “a fine, handsome young fellow with a noble brow."

Nicola Coughlan, who has attracted quite a following here in the US with her roles in Derry Girls and Bridgerton, infused Pegeen with an appropriate fire and spirit made restless by her milquetoast fiancé Shawn Keogh and other layabout local males. 

Siobhán McSweeney made her rival for Christy’s affections, the Widow Quin, a formidable competitor with her own distinct style, forthright and flirtatious.    

The actresses playing other local girls making a play for Christy—especially Marty Breen as Sara Tansey—were equally delightful. And Declan Conlon as Christy’s father, making an unexpected (and, for the newly idolized Christy, unwelcome) return in search of his son, was appropriately fierce and thunderstruck by the scene he beholds.

The acting was vigorous and Katie Davenport’s scene design vivid. But if you want to experience the full tart flavor of Synge’s dialogue, it’s better to have read it before on the page—or to watch the 1962 film adaptation starring Gary Raymond and Siobhan McKenna (now available on DVD).