Remember August: Osage County, Tracey Lett’s Pulitzer Prize winning three act masterpiece with a large cast centering around the Weston family in Oklahoma? For those who relish enormously satisfying plays stuffed with full-blooded characters, the successor to the throne has arrived. The Ferryman, written by the extremely talented playwright Jez Butterworth (Jerusalem, The River), should be on your must-see list.
After a brief ominous prologue, the play opens with a man and a woman playing Connect Four, drinking whiskey and debating which rock band they would want on a desert island: The Beatles, The Rolling Stones or Led Zeppelin. Hearing her answer is incorrect, she clarifies that the question was who she wanted to be with on the island not whose music she wanted to hear. This play is filled with conversational detail. The action takes place in the home of the large Carney family who are rural famers in Northern Ireland. The time is 1981 as the Maze prison hunger strikes are occurring during The Troubles. The family is readying the household for Harvest Day. The goose has been fattened up but goes missing. Everyone seem to adore whiskey and relish storytelling. Monologues, from comedic to tragic, occasionally mystical and often jarringly intense, are riveting throughout.
Themes pour out of this play nearly as often as the whisky flows. It is possible that the only family member not to drop back a shot or a beer is the infant child. The Ferryman is a celebration of Irish family, home and their famed culture of storytelling. The Ferryman is also a commentary on The Troubles and how they impacted the Irish people generally and this family specifically. Centuries of conflict between Northern Ireland and England. Centuries of conflict between Catholics and Protestants. How do everyday people live their lives? Must we hate the opposite side? Should we? Is there even a side that is completely in the right?
For thousands of years our world has been engulfed in wars that never seem to end. Somehow religion seems to be a key factor but we know that money and power are the bigger draws. Mr. Butterworth has written a play that takes an intimate look at a political conflict within a much larger family drama. The scope grows as the play ends and you realize that stories such as these can probably be similarly concocted for many cultures and their conflicts. Being Ireland, however, the tale here is rich with words, imagery, gregariousness and alcohol.
Directed by Sam Mendes, the production is first-rate. The acting is uniformly superb, notably by the children. All of the creative elements work in support of the piece. The Ferryman is always alive. The nearly two dozen characters breathe, sigh, laugh and cry. A vividly real and very colorful family is celebrating a holiday with serious political drama swirling in the air. Aunt Pat (an excellent Dearbhla Molloy) stirs and stirs the pot. Sound like an upcoming Thanksgiving dinner in America?
I visited Northern Ireland about a decade ago. A driver took us down the street which was ground zero for The Troubles. The protests were painted curbs rather than bombs. In a pub near Galway, we met a group of young men who were on their way to an overnight bachelor party on the Aran Islands. They befriended us for a few hours and stories were shared. They bought so many rounds that there were four pints in front of me at one point. That is the richness of a warmhearted people. Go see The Ferryman. It will touch your heart, stimulate your brain and maybe even provide a mirror for societal reflection. That is how great a play Jez Butterworth has written.
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