The Playboy of the Western World is a three-act play written by Irish playwright John Millington Synge, first performed at the Abbey Theatre, Dublin, on 26 January 1907. It is set in Michael James Flaherty's public house in County Mayo during the early 1900s. It tells the story of Christy Mahon, a young man running away from his farm, claiming he killed his father.
The play is known for its use of the poetic, evocative language of Hiberno-English, heavily influenced by the Irish language, as Synge celebrates the lyrical speech of the Irish.
On the west coast of County Mayo [1] Christy Mahon stumbles into Flaherty's tavern. There he claims that he is on the run because he killed his own father by driving a loy into his head. Flaherty praises Christy for his boldness, and Flaherty's daughter (and the barmaid), Pegeen, falls in love with Christy, to the dismay of her betrothed, Shawn Keogh. Because of the novelty of Christy's exploits and the skill with which he tells his own story, he becomes something of a town hero. Many other women also become attracted to him, including the Widow Quin, who tries unsuccessfully to seduce Christy at Shawn's behest. Christy also impresses the village women by his victory in a donkey race, using the slowest beast.
Eventually Christy's father, Mahon, who was only wounded, tracks him to the tavern. When the townsfolk realize that Christy's father is alive, everyone, including Pegeen, shuns him as a liar and a coward. To regain Pegeen's love and the respect of the town, Christy attacks his father a second time. This time it seems that Old Mahon really is dead, but instead of praising Christy, the townspeople, led by Pegeen, bind and prepare to hang him to avoid being implicated as accessories to his crime. Christy's life is saved when his father, beaten and bloodied, crawls back onto the scene, having improbably survived his son's second attack. As Christy and his father leave to wander the world, having reconciled, Shawn suggests that he and Pegeen get married soon, but she spurns him. Pegeen laments betraying and losing Christy: "I've lost the only playboy of the western world."
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Riots occurred in January 1907 during and following the opening performance of the play. The riots were stirred up by Irish nationalists and republicans who viewed the contents of the play as an offence to public morals and an insult against Ireland. The riots took place in Dublin, spreading out from the Abbey Theatre and finally being quelled by the actions of the Dublin Metropolitan Police.
The fact that the play was based on a story of apparent patricide also attracted a hostile public reaction. It was egged on by nationalists, including Sinn Féin leader Arthur Griffith, who believed that the theatre was not sufficiently political and described the play as "a vile and inhuman story told in the foulest language we have ever listened to from a public platform". With the pretext of a perceived slight on the virtue of Irish womanhood in the line "a drift of chosen females standing in their shifts, maybe" (a shift being a female undergarment, similar to a nightgown), a significant portion of the crowd rioted, causing the remainder of the play to be acted out in dumb show. Nevertheless, press opinion soon turned against the rioters and the protests petered out.
Years later, William Butler Yeats declared to rioters against Seán O'Casey's pacifist drama The Plough and the Stars , in reference to the "Playboy Riots": "You have disgraced yourself again. Is this to be the recurring celebration of the arrival of Irish genius?"
The production of Synge's play met with more disturbances in the United States in 1911. On opening night in New York, hecklers booed, hissed, and threw vegetables and stink bombs while men scuffled in the aisles. The company was later arrested in Philadelphia and charged with putting on an immoral performance. The charges were later dismissed.
The play was staged by the Edinburgh Gateway Company in March 1957, with Norman Fraser playing Christy and George Davies playing his father. [2] [3]
In 1995, a production at Boise State University was directed by Richard Klautsch. It starred Roger Titmus, Isaac Perelson, Randy Davison, Sam Read and Sally Eames. [4]
In September 2007, the play returned to the Abbey in a modern adaptation by Bisi Adigun and Roddy Doyle. Set in a suburb of West Dublin, it tells the story of Christopher Malomo, a Nigerian refugee who claims to have killed his father with a pestle. In 2011, The Old Vic, in London, played host to a classic adaptation directed by John Crowley starring Robert Sheehan, Niamh Cusack and Ruth Negga. [5]
In 1912, Sil-Vara and Charles H. Fisher translated it into German as Der Held (literally 'hero') des Westerlands [6] or Der Held der westlichen Welt and had it published by Georg Müller and performed at Max Reinhardt's Kammerspiele, Berlin, at the Neue Wiener Bühne in Vienna and at the Stadttheater in Münster. [7] In 1973 the Irish language national theatre group Taibhdhearc na Gaillimhe produced an adaptation in the Irish language by Seán Ó Carra entitled Buachaill Báire an Domhain Thiar. [8] [9] The play was adapted in 1984 by Trinidadian playwright Mustapha Matura, lifted out of turn of the century Ireland and set down in 1950s Trinidad, and retitled Playboy of the West Indies . In 2006, a Mandarin Chinese version of the play set in a hairdressers shop in a Beijing suburb was performed at the Beijing Oriental Theatre. It was produced by the Irish contemporary theatre company, Pan Pan. The play attracted controversy when a member of the audience complained about the shortness of the skirt worn by Sha Sha, playing the Sarah Tansey character. Following the complaint, the play was attended by two policemen. [10]
In 1975 Giselher Klebe's operatic adaption Ein wahrer Held (A True Hero) premiered at the Zurich Opera House. A 2003 operatic rendition by Mark Alburger was produced from 23 to 26 August 2007 by Goat Hall Productions/SF Cabaret Opera at Oakland Metro Opera House, in Oakland, California. A musical theatre version, written by Kate Hancock and Richard B. Evans, premiered at the STAGES 2005 musical festival at the Theatre Building Chicago. In 2009, a musical adaptation entitled Golden Boy of the Blue Ridge premiered in New York City. With music by Peter Mills and a book by Peter Mills and Cara Reichel, the musical transplants the story to 1930s Appalachia and is set to a bluegrass-flavoured score.
A 1962 film version of the play was produced in Ireland, with the screenplay by writer-director Brian Desmond Hurst. It stars Siobhán McKenna as Pegeen, Gary Raymond as Christy, and Elspeth March as Widow Quin, with music by Seán Ó Riada. [11]
London weekday ITV contractor Associated-Rediffusion made a production of the play for schools, in three parts plus an introduction to the history of the period, which aired in February and March 1964. [12]
A 1994 TV movie adaptation was entitled Paris or Somewhere. Set in rural Saskatchewan, it starred Callum Keith Rennie as Christy Mahon, a young American farmer who arrives in town and claims to have killed his father. He charms the town with his story, particularly Peg (Molly Parker), the daughter of a local store owner and bootlegger. The screenplay was written by novelist Lee Gowan. A film adaptation was also made in 2016. Set in the USA and titled, ' My Father Die', it was written and directed by Sean Brosnan.
In June 2018, a new feature-length film production entitled Christy Mahon - Playboy of the Western World [13] was registered by Swiss producers on IMDB. Filming will be in Bray, Ireland and scheduled for late October / November 2019. The producers procured a print of the play from a notebook version of the text published in 1912 and upon which they based their screenplay.
While based in a fictional shebeen (unlicensed pub) in the Geesala area of County Mayo, [14] [15] [16] some of the characters and events in the play are partially based on a true story which was reputedly recounted to Synge by an old man from the Aran Islands. [17] According to Synge, the character of Christy Mahon, the "savage hero" of the play, [17] was at least partially based on a convicted criminal who assaulted a woman on Achill Island in the late 19th century. [18]
This man, James Lynchehaun (c.1864-1937) from Tonregee townland on the Corraun peninsula, [18] brutally assaulted his English employer, Mrs Agnes MacDonnell, at her home on Achill Island on 6 October 1894. [17] He reportedly "burned [her] from ankle to knee, fractured her skull with a stone, knocked out one eye, bit her nose off and kicked thorns from a whin bush deep into her vagina" after burning down her home, Valley House, on an 800 hectare property. He was arrested, convicted, sentenced to lifetime penal servitude, escaped, sheltered by locals from the police for a while, recaptured (after a £300 bounty for his recapture was placed), imprisoned for seven years before escaping again, making his way to the United States. He became something of a folk-hero in the US, falsely claiming his actions had been political and carried out on behalf of the Irish Republican Brotherhood, until Irish nationalist Michael Davitt publicly referred to him as a "murderer" and refused to shake his hand, as did Douglas Hyde. (Davitt may have been under the mistaken impression that Mrs MacDonnell had died. She survived, albeit disfigured and forced to wear a veil when out in public, dying in 1923 after rebuilding Valley House.) [19]
Efforts by the British authorities to have Lynchehaun extradited were rebuffed by American politicians and courts including the United States Supreme Court. President Teddy Roosevelt was then recruited [by Lynchehaun's supporters] to prevent his deportation. In a landmark court case in Indianapolis, where Lynchehaun had settled, Charles Washington Moores Jr. (1862 - 1923), [20] US Commissioner, "ruled that Lynchehaun's crime in Achill was a political one and the prisoner could, therefore, not be extradited. 'Let the prisoner be discharged', he ordered". Vice-president Charles W. Fairbanks visited Lynchehaun to tell him the news. Lynchehaun later visited Ireland twice, being deported the second time. He ultimately left his family in Indianapolis to wind up living in Glasgow. He died in Girvan, Scotland in 1937. [21]
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Source: [22]
Synge admitted readily to friends that the [Lynchehaun] case was one of two to have fascinated his imagination in the course of writing the play, which contains an allusion to 'the man bit the yellow lady's nostril on the northern shore'
Achill Island is the largest of the Irish isles and lies off the west coast of Ireland in County Mayo. It has a population of 2,345. Its area is 148 km2 (57 sq mi). Achill is attached to the mainland by Michael Davitt Bridge, between the villages of Achill Sound and Polranny. A bridge was first completed here in 1887. Other centres of population include the villages of Keel, Dooagh, Dooega, Dooniver, and Dugort. The parish's main Gaelic football pitch and secondary school are on the mainland at Polranny. Early human settlements are believed to have been established on Achill around 3000 BC. The island is 87% peat bog. The parish of Achill consists of Achill Island, Achillbeg, Inishbiggle and the Corraun Peninsula.
The Abbey Theatre, also known as the National Theatre of Ireland, in Dublin, Ireland, is one of the country's leading cultural institutions. First opening to the public on 27 December 1904, and moved from its original building after a fire in 1951, it has remained active to the present day. The Abbey was the first state-subsidized theatre in the English-speaking world; from 1925 onwards it received an annual subsidy from the Irish Free State. Since July 1966, the Abbey has been located at 26 Lower Abbey Street, Dublin 1.
Edmund John Millington Synge was an Irish playwright, poet, writer, collector of folklore, and a key figure in the Irish Literary Revival. His best known play The Playboy of the Western World was poorly received, due to its bleak ending, depiction of Irish peasants, and idealisation of parricide, leading to hostile audience reactions and riots in Dublin during its opening run at the Abbey Theatre, which he had co-founded with W. B. Yeats and Lady Gregory. His other major works include In the Shadow of the Glen (1903), Riders to the Sea (1904), The Well of the Saints (1905), and The Tinker's Wedding (1909).
Maire O'Neill was an Irish actress of stage and film. She holds a place in theatre history as the first actress to interpret the lead character of Pegeen Mike Flaherty in John Millington Synge's controversial masterpiece The Playboy of the Western World (1907).
Playboy of the West Indies (1984) is a play by Trinidadian playwright Mustapha Matura, a Caribbean version of John Millington Synge's 1907 The Playboy of the Western World.
Riders to the Sea is a play written by Irish Literary Renaissance playwright John Millington Synge. It was first performed on 25 February 1904 at the Molesworth Hall, Dublin, by the Irish National Theater Society with Helen Laird playing Maurya. A one-act tragedy, the play is set at Inishmaan in the Aran Islands, and like all of Synge's plays it is noted for capturing the poetic dialogue of rural Ireland. The plot is based not on the traditional conflict of human wills but on the hopeless struggle of a people against the impersonal but relentless cruelty of the sea.
Joseph Michael Kerrigan was an Irish actor.
DruidSynge is a theatre production of the complete plays of John Millington Synge by the Irish Druid Theatre Company. It was the vision of Garry Hynes, the first woman to win a Tony Award for best director, to create the day-long cycle of all six plays;
Gweesalia or Geesala is a small Gaeltacht village situated on the Gweesalia peninsula in the Electoral Division of Rathhill, in the Civil Parish of Kilcommon, in the Barony of Erris in western County Mayo, Ireland.
Nick Lee is an Irish actor. His work on screen includes Reign ; The Fall (BBC); Jack Taylor (TV3/RTL); Raw (RTÉ); Single-Handed: The Stolen Child (RTÉ); as Michael Collins in Frongoch - University of Revolution (TG4/S4C); The Clinic (RTÉ); Battlefield Britain (BBC); and the final series of Bachelors Walk (RTÉ). His stage work includes: The Changeling ; Dubliners ; Juno and the Paycock directed by Howard Davies ; Pineapple by Philip McMahon (Calipo); Malachy in The Dead School by Pat McCabe ; The Passing written and directed by Paul Mercier and Three Sisters directed by David Leveaux ; Dmitry Karamazov in Delirium by Enda Walsh; Shawn Keogh in The Playboy of the Western World directed by Tony award winning director Garry Hynes ; DruidSynge- The Complete Plays of JM Synge directed by Garry Hynes ; The Year of the Hiker directed by Garry Hynes ; as Michael Hegarty in The Freedom of the City by Brian Friel ; as Patrick Kavanagh in The Green Fool
Pegeen is the anglicized spelling of Peigín, an Irish given name meaning "little Peig" or "little Margaret", and may refer to:
Young Cassidy is a 1965 British biography drama film directed by Jack Cardiff and starring Rod Taylor, Julie Christie, and Maggie Smith. It is a biographical drama based upon the life of the playwright Seán O'Casey.
Maureen Charlton was an Irish playwright, poet and broadcaster.
Tóin an tSeanbhaile is a small village located on the north east point of Achill Island, Ireland. It lies within the Mayo Gaeltacht.
Liam O Mallie, inspiration for the character of Christy Mahon in The Playboy of the Western World, fl. 1873.
Gustav A. "Geza" Silberer was an Austrian journalist and author of Jewish extraction born in Werschetz who wrote in German under the pseudonym Sil-Vara.
Cecil Sheridan was an Irish comedian and actor who performed in variety shows and pantomimes in Ireland and Great Britain during a versatile career spanning over forty years.
A loy is an early Irish spade with a long heavy handle made of ash, a narrow steel plate on the face and a single footrest. The word loy comes from the Irish word láí, which means "spade". It was used for manual ploughing prior to and during the Great Famine.
The Playboy of the Western World is a 1962 film version of the 1907 play written by John Millington Synge. It was directed and co-written by Brian Desmond Hurst and stars Gary Raymond and Siobhán McKenna. Filmed in County Kerry, the film features many of the Abbey Players. The film was produced by the Four Provinces company created in 1952 by Hurst and Michael Morris, 3rd Baron Killanin who had previously produced John Ford’s The Rising of the Moon and Gideon's Day.
Bridget Patricia Byrne is an Irish writer of narrative nonfiction. Two of her books deal with historical events in nineteenth-century Achill Island.
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