Dublin, 1922, the Irish Civil War is tearing the nation apart. In the cauldron of the family’s tiny tenement flat, Juno Boyle, a beleaguered matriarch whose sharp wit is a survival tool, struggles to make ends meet and keep the family together. Her husband, ‘Captain’ Jack Boyle, fancies himself a ship's commander but sails no further than the pub. When providence comes knocking with news of a great inheritance, could the family’s troubles finally fade away?
Poetic, poignant, and hilarious, JUNO AND THE PAYCOCK is a big-hearted, black-humoured, tragi-comic triumph that reflects on a mother’s resilience in the midst of life’s most trying moments.
‘WHAT CAN GOD DO AGAINST THE STUPIDITY OF MEN?’
Tony award-nominee J. Smith-Cameron (Succession’s Gerri Kellman) stars as Juno Boyle opposite Mark Rylance as ‘Captain’ Jack Boyle in a highly anticipated new production of JUNO AND THE PAYCOCK, Seán O’Casey's timeless masterpiece, directed by Tony and Olivier award-winner Matthew Warchus (Matilda The Musical, Pride).
__Assisted Perfromances:__
Audio Described, 2 November, 2pm
Captioned, 9 November, 2pm
Signed, 19 October, 2pm
The difficulty with this approach is that it leaves both play and character nowhere to go when the darker shades of O’Casey’s writing and the keening undertow of the Irish Republican movement’s violence begin to rise to the surface. As the play deepens, and the family is torn apart, it’s only the set that breaks – with the arrival of a non-naturalistic pieta striving for the emotion that the production has failed to generate. The ending is also clumsily altered, to suggest something bleaker than Boyle’s final conclusion about a world of chaos.
His version of the feckless Captain Jack is a leering, gurning loafer who bears more than a passing resemblance to Charlie Chaplin’s tramp. Sit near the front of the stalls and you’ll find Rylance constantly trying to catch your eye as he performs yet another double-take. It’s weirdly laboured, and makes the play’s sudden transition from high jinks to grim melodrama all the harder to take.
1926 | Broadway |
Broadway |
1927 | Broadway |
Broadway |
1934 | Broadway |
Broadway |
1937 | Broadway |
Broadway |
1940 | Broadway |
Broadway |
1988 | Broadway |
Broadway |
1995 | Off-Broadway |
Off-Broadway |
2000 | Off-Broadway |
Off-Broadway |
2013 | Off-Broadway |
Off-Broadway |
2019 | Off-Broadway |
Irish Rep O'Casey Cycle Production Off-Broadway |
West End |
West End |
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