Review Roundup: Did Mark Rylance and J. Smith-Cameron Impress in JUNO AND THE PAYCOCK?

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?

Tony award-nominee J. Smith-Cameron 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.

So what did the critics think?

Juno and the Paycock runs at the Gielgud Theatre until 23 November 

Photo Credit: Manuel Harlan

Aliya Al-Hassan, BroadwayWorld: It's an impressive performance from Rylance and some of the audience seemed to love this interpretation, but I found it interrupted the flow of the production and made his portrayal, at least in the first half of the show, almost pantomime in tone. It also did not fit with the register of the rest of the cast, creating a feeling of disconnection and  awkwardness.

Clive Davis, The Times: 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.

Sarah Crompton, WhatsOnStage: 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.

Dave Fargnoli, The Stage: Warchus sets a stiff, strained tone, leaning hard into the play’s comic potential, but smoothing off the sharp edges of its social commentary. Here, the piece becomes a kind of anti-farce, full of lurching contrivances and characters bursting in through doors and windows, their sudden arrivals marking hairpin tonal swerves. While there are some hilarious set pieces and some compelling moments of pathos, the production never recovers from its uneven energy and slack pace.

Fiona Mountford, iNews: The role of the Captain contains the faintest echoes of Johnny “Rooster” Byron, the iconic part in Jerusalem that made Rylance a star, and he consciously plays to the audience, raising his eyebrows for comic effect and addressing various lines directly to us. He sails dangerously close to giving a “turn” instead of acting a part; his blustering innocent shtick and bent-kneed waddle of a walk is overdone, leaving the series of sucker punch revelations of the third act to land with too much of a discordant jolt.

Marianka Swain, London Theatre: There are good individual performances. Smith-Cameron (aka Gerri from Succession), playing Juno for the second time in her career, supplies an effective weary yet steely stoicism. Aisling Kearns and Eimhin Fitzgerald Doherty give vivid turns as the two children – one gutsy, one haunted, both eventually ground down by an inescapable cycle of poverty and violence.

Arifa Akbar, The Guardian: Director Matthew Warchus has gathered a talented cast, from Smith-Cameron as a formidably watchable presence to Rylance as her peacocking husband. They are never less than entertaining but the show does not stretch them, and the drama of the first two acts is a little too ambling and creaky, with the broad Irish accents and comic dissolution.

Average Rating: 51.4%