THE PLAYBOY OF THE WESTERN WORLD
IN ASSOCIATION WITH THE BELFAST INTERNATIONAL ARTS FESTIVAL
BY J.M.SYNGE DIRECTED BY OONAGH MURPHY
MAIN
STAGE
19 NOV 2019 - 4 JAN 2020
DRIVING
WELCOME TO THE LYRIC THEATRE
HOME FOR
CHRISTMAS BY GRIMES & McKEE
Welcome to our co-production with the Dublin Theatre Festival of J.M. Synge’s The Playboy of the Western World.
29 NOV 2019 - 4 JAN 2020
PETER
PAN THE MUSICAL
ADAPTED FROM THE PLAY BY JM BARRIE BOOK, MUSIC & LYRICS BY PAUL BOYD
BY ARRANGEMENT WITH GREAT ORMOND STREET HOSPITAL CHILDREN’S CHARITY AND SAMUEL FRENCH LTD. A CONCORD THEATRICALS COMPANY.
In these strange times of opportunistic politics, we have come to rely on a sort of hero to see us out of what looks like a messy labyrinth. A sort of hero with a story. When we look to great theatre, we can claim that the English have Hamlet as a sort of hero even though he is Danish, and the Irish have Christy Mahon, a sort of hero and also from somewhere northern. Hamlet is weighted down by indecision and guilt. Christy flies in the face of a story that inspires desire and dread. Both protagonists must confront the ghosts of their fathers to find their true worth. Hamlet eventually makes a decision that collapses the existing state around his dying body. Christy confronts his worst fear but finds his true voice and spirit. Both heroes lose their lovers in the course of their quest. The difference is that Ophelia is driven mad and to her grave by Hamlet’s provocations; and Pegeen, who is more forthright than Ophelia, more vibrant, more independent - but also, like Christy (like Hamlet), with father issues is driven to violence and action by what she feels was a lie. The story she believed was in fact untrue. She seeks to destroy this problem but could be destroying herself. One reading of the play is that Pegeen is more proactive than the Playboy, confronting all manner of furies flying at her from the three village girl sirens to the most dangerous enchantress of them all, the Widow Quin. The Playboy of the Western World, like Hamlet, is one of world theatre’s undying classics. It contains in its story multitudes that every society has found an echo of itself in. There have been versions set in the Caribbean, the Soviet Union, India and inner-city Dublin with a Nigerian immigrant as Christy. Synge has influenced all of the great writers in the theatre of the past hundred years - Bertolt Brecht, Sam Beckett, Lorca, Caryl Churchill, Marina Carr, etc. He was always the outsider. A friend with W.B. Yeats, Synge’s first love was French literature - he was a graduate of the Sorbonne. It was Yeats who recommended he take himself to the west of Ireland and discover his voice. In the late 19th and early 20th century, there was
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massive interest in the folkloric narratives because they contained the mythic and archetypal views of our past. Those who say Synge transcribed the voice of the Aran islands onto his manuscript diminish the genius of extraordinary writing. Writing is not documentary, it is not about being true to an idea of a people, it is about, and only about, itself. Synge found liberation in the voices of the west and his brilliance dances across the stages that bring life to his world. Like Shakespeare, Synge is capable of taking any intriguing concept so long as the quality of this provocation is a response based on love and respect. There is no point in dressing a well-loved classic in modern clothes unless you have those qualities in abundance. Likewise, there is no point re-dressing it in peat and tweed unless you can liberate it from the trappings of a museum piece. I feel Oonagh and her brilliant team of actors are allowing us to hear the play fresh again. In 1907, many theatregoers exclaimed The Playboy was a thundering disgrace and should never have been staged at the national theatre. They were like the later folk traditionalists who tried to bring an axe to the cable that allowed Bob Dylan to go electric. In a way, it was Synge who was Dylan in this by going electric on the Irish blues. It’s easy to forget that The Playboy of the Western World was one of the great acts of the Irish Revolution. Not just because it scared the “bejaysus” out of those most committed nationalists who saw the peasants as a noble race blighted by English control. The forces of the crown remain on the fringes of this story. These folk are not a community planning revolution against an outsider oppressor, but instead beginning to tear at the bounds they have put on themselves. The story is the thing. It can make you a hero or bring retribution on your head. I hope you enjoy our production of it. Thank you for coming along. Jimmy Fay Executive Producer Lyric Theatre
DIRECTOR’S NOTE
FROM THE REHEARSAL ROOM And so you’ll hear that we’ve situated our shebeen, a little further north than Mayo, it's a failing pub in a small town at the edge of somewhere, on the border of one place and another. We’ve talked about places like Ballyshannon, and other town in Donegal, previously prosperous towns, cut off after partition, and facing huge fears about further marginalisation through a Brexit-imposed hard border.
How do you take on Playboy? An urtext of the Irish theatrical canon, and arguably, a foundational myth of the Irish Free State; a play, it seems with countless seminal productions in its past, is it even possible to approach the play afresh? There are the many interpretations of the Playboy, of what sort of allegory it is, and what it seeks to say, beyond its comedy. If we are to take the playwright at his own word, when writing in the Irish Times after its premiere, Synge remarked: ‘a great deal more that is behind it, is perfectly serious, when looked at in a certain light’. He observes that Patrick D. Kenny’s review of the play had noted that ‘there were several sides of “The Playboy”’ and Synge suggests cryptically that ‘there may be still be others, if anyone cares to look for them’. Declan Kiberd famously examined the play in the light of the hero Cuchulain, and the Ulster Cycle. Turning the heroism of Cuchulain on his head, Synge uses the mockhero Christy in an iconoclastic sense, warning against the exaltation of graven images at a moment in Irish society when ancient myth was being used to stoke the fervour of nationalist sentiment. This idea has propelled our work on the play, in one sense a caution about the manipulation of images around masculinity, violence, and martyrdom. And what does it mean to do this play right now? The play was written in 1904, when Ireland was still under British rule. So my thoughts have been on what this text will mean to a contemporary audience in Belfast and in Dublin, as we live through this current moment in Anglo-Irish relations, and explore what it means for a contemporary audience in both Belfast and Dublin. During the process of auditioning, I was struck by how many Northern Irish actors told me how good it felt to say these words in their own accent, and how there is a general sense that Synge has somehow always belonged to the south, to Dublin and Galway. But these stories ultimately belong to the whole island, to whoever connects to them, and what they say about our past and our present identity.
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In transposing it to here, it brings into sharp focus how the play is an exploration of the loneliness and disenfranchisement that comes from living in a place that lies far away from where the power lies. We meet young people growing up in the middle of nowhere with no real possibility of leaving, older people with little to no means of supporting themselves, numbing their lostness with alcohol. The spectre of addiction and suicide, throws a shadow across the reality of these characters’ psychological terrain. In 2019 we live in an alternate reality to the world about which Synge was writing. And yet in many ways we’re still dealing with the same power structures, ones that could be seen as foundational to Irish society. It’s in that light that we see Pegeen’s plight, a young woman, taking on the work of her alcoholic father, and yet still somehow feeling the limits of her personal freedoms in a world structured to view her as something to be bartered between two men. Our production takes the pulse of the young women of the town, their hopes and ambitions, their amusements and their desires. In pushing them centre-stage, the aim is to foreground, perhaps what it was that upset the audiences at the Abbey in 1904, who cried ‘Shame’ from the auditorium. Back then, the mere mention of the underwear of the female characters, and their representation ‘contending in their lusts for the possession’ of Christy Mahon upset the piety of the middle class cultural nationalists. This respectability politics, and fear of women having real agency in their lives, set the tone for the decades after the establishment of the Irish Free State, a systematic project by government to limit the citizenship rights of Irish women between 1922 and 1937. By ’37, women’s rights were bound in a tight knot constitutionally, which we have been unpicking ever since. All of this pours light on our revival of Synge’s work, and poses the question – might anything be considered so incendiary to Irish society ever again? There may no longer be a strong policing of certain themes from a moral perspective in our societies mainstream, but artists are far from unshackled from the threat of censorship. With Playboy, Synge was presenting, not a realistic view of Irish life, but a topsy-turvy ‘mirror up to society’. In 2019, are we able to look into that mirror and see ourselves, once and for all, or are there still aspects in that fragmented reflection which make us wince? Oonagh Murphy Director
#THEPLAYBOY
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BELFAST INTERNATIONAL ARTS FESTIVAL
SHOWS COMING UP AT THE FESTIVAL
A warm welcome to this new production of The Playboy of the Western World at the Lyric Theatre and supported by Belfast International Arts Festival.
IRELAND’S CALL
Although John Millington’s Synge’s The Playboy of the Western World is rightly regarded as a classic of Irish theatre, it rarely gets an outing in Northern Ireland. So, it’s a great pleasure for us to partner once again with the Lyric Theatre to bring this new production to Festival audiences from home and abroad. Most commentators remark on the play’s folk comedy roots and its controversial premiere at the Abbey Theatre in 1907. However, the play continues to resonate with our contemporary world in sometimes unexpected ways. When Synge wrote the play, Playboy did not have the meaning it has today. Rather, it meant hoaxer or trickster. The Widow Quin calls Christy Mahon “the playboy of the western world" after discovering that his father is still alive. In doing so, she is in effect calling him a fraud or indeed liar in her belief that he conconcted the entire story. Audiences may recognise a similar approach to deceive through spinning tales by accomplished tricksters in our world today.
Written and performed by John Connors. Follow the lives and family histories of three young men as they grow up in Coolock on Dublin’s northside. What shapes them and entices them to a life of crime? Examining issues of class, religion and identity, this new play is an unflinching exploration of the Irish psyche, bringing our collective guilts, secrets and flaws to the surface.
This production of The Playboy of the Western World features as part of our 57th festival edition and sits alongside a wonderful range of stage productions from home and abroad that can be seen right across our city. The MAC plays host to Forced Entertainment’s Real Magic, pitched somewhere between Beckett and trash television and described by The Guardian as “hellishly entertaining and a tour de force” and Pat Kinevane’s latest solo success, Before (winner of the Herald Archangel Award at the 2019 Edinburgh Fringe Festival). Meanwhile, the spectacular To Da Bone, a fusion of street dance and hip hop sounds driven by a social media sensibility can be seen at the Grand Opera House whilst down the road at An Cultúrlann, Timmy Creed gives a virtuoso performance in his heartfelt plea for a broader, more inclusive conception of masculinity in the tremendous Spliced. To find out more about these and other events in our 2019 programme, simply go to belfastinternationalartsfestival.com Richard Wakely Artistic Director & Chief Executive Belfast International Arts Festival
23 - 26 OCT
THE LYRIC THEATRE NEW PLAYWRIGHTS SHOWCASE “THE PLAY CONTINUES TO RESONATE WITH OUR CONTEMPORARY WORLD IN SOMETIMES UNEXPECTED WAYS”
The Lyric is delighted to present readings of six new plays developed through the New Playwrights Programme 2019.
SHOWCASE 1 31 OCT, 7PM
THE GAP YEAR by Clare McMahon
BODYSNATCHING by Annie Keegan
SHOWCASE 2 1 NOV, 7PM
BIAF TEAM
FUNNY STORY by Clare Monnelly
BUG-EYED
ARTISTIC DIRECTOR & CHIEF EXECUTIVE RICHARD WAKELY
by Ross Wylie
GENERAL MANAGER NAOMI CONWAY
SHOWCASE 3 2 NOV, 7PM
MARKETING MANAGER SARAH KELLY
ROAD
by Sarah Gordon TECHNICAL DIRECTOR PHIL MCCANDLISH
BROKEN LIGHT by Rían Smith
MARKETING OFFICER ANDREW MOORE
NEW PLAYWRIGHTS PROGRAMME 2020
EVENT MANAGEMENT & OPERATIONS SERVICE GEORGIA SIMPSON REBECCA BOYD
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Submissions will open in December 2019 - keep an eye on our website for the next call for scripts! #THEPLAYBOY
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NEW
WRITING
MOLLY O’CATHAIN, COSTUME DESIGNER TALKS US THROUGH HER PROCESS I’VE LOVED DESIGNING PEGEEN’S BEDROOM, AS FAR AS I KNOW, SHE’S NEVER HAD ONE BEFORE (IN ANY OTHER PRODUCTION). PLUS IT’S AN HOMAGE TO ALL THE BAD B’N’B DECOR OF IRELAND.
Can you describe the creative process between Director and Designer?
Has having an all-female creative team had an impact on your decision-making process?
It's a balancing act between what the play practically needs and what the director and I want to say. Design is always a response to the text, and I think embracing this fact leads to more interesting results. It can frictionlessly bolster, but why not be a source of dissonance, sour notes, sly critique that ultimately makes the whole stronger? This was the question at the forefront of the genesis of our design process for Playboy.
No, - but having a team of dynamic early/midcareer creatives with a strong work ethic, excellent communication skills and a shared frame of artistic reference has made everything about this production flow more fluidly. These qualities supersede gender - but in my experience, they’re never in short supply in a strong female creative team.
Oonagh and I work very closely together - we hold similar political viewpoints and aesthetic taste and know from previous collaboration that we have a shared language and dynamic. And we’re both detail-obsessed!
Not allowing anything cutesy or “pub-tat”-y to sneak into the design. It's easy, but generally simplistic for the past to appear sweet, nostalgic or wholesome.
What was your starting point in the design process?
What are the benefits of designing both the set and costume for a show?
What comes through when you return to the play is the real poverty and hardship that shapes these characters lives and so we started to think about where the play would sit in a more recent Ireland, perhaps in a place on a border. Somewhere coastal, perhaps previously prosperous, and now bypassed and forgotten, leaving Pegeen stuck and its inhabitants pushed to violence through boredom and disillusionment. The aesthetic we have landed on references broadly, from the 1950s to the 1990s, rural Ireland in the era post electrification but premodernisation/digitalisation. This is true of anywhere, very few places contain only objects and aesthetics from the current decade. Where did your inspiration come from? The work of photographers such as Lise Sarfati, Martin Parr and Richard Billingham were on heavy rotation. Lise Safarti’s striking series documenting 1990’s Russia became our strongest palette and tonal reference. For more practical details I also gathered hundreds of references of bars and pubs; mainly from present-day Irish property listings and photographs of the flat roof pubs of post-war Britain.
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#THEPLAYBOY
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What is the biggest challenge you faced?
To me, they always go hand-in-hand as they are part of the same world. My job is to define the material culture of an imaginary world and then design according to the constraints I’ve created. For me, I find that that works best within one vision and allows for close collaboration with the director. Which piece was your favorite to design? I’ve loved designing Pegeen’s bedroom. As far as I know, she’s never had one before (in any other production). Plus it’s an homage to all the bad B’n’B decor of Ireland.
DUBLIN THEATRE FESTIVAL
Established in 1957, Dublin Theatre Festival is Europe’s longest running theatre festival and takes place for 3 weeks each Autumn. Dublin Theatre Festival brings world-class theatre to Dublin, supports artists in creating outstanding work and provides a platform to showcase the best of Irish and international theatre to the world. At the heart of the festival is the city of Dublin – its people and its stories – and a commitment to contributing to the vibrant social and cultural life of the capital. Our mission is to present a programme of exceptional theatrical experiences that will appeal to the diverse communities that make up our city. Dublin Theatre Festival has a rich history, with much to celebrate, but what we are most excited about is what is yet to come. Our mission is to have more people participating in culture as well as more artists creating bold new work that challenges and inspires.
FROM THE REHEARSAL ROOM
Recent festival editions have featured international projects by TR Warszawa, Toneelgroup Amsterdam, The National Theatre, The Wooster Group, Donmar Warehouse, Royal Lyceum Theatre, Elevator Repair Service and Royal Shakespeare Company. In addition to the excellent Irish and International theatre presented each year, Dublin Theatre Festival and The Ark cultural centre for children collaborate to present a programme of fresh and engaging shows created for children that adults also delight in. An In Development programme that runs during the festival offers theatre-makers an opportunity to try out new ideas in front of an audience, giving the public an insight into the artistic process. Previous work in progress presentations have premiered to acclaim at subsequent festivals and gone on to tour internationally.
Irish work premiered at the festival regularly goes on to tour internationally, including its coproduction of Teaċ Damsa’s Swan Lake/Loch na hEala, which was named by The Guardian as the #2 production in the best dance of the 21st century. In 2015 Dublin Theatre Festival co-produced the Irish premier of Conor McPherson’s The Night Alive.
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8 OCT - 2 NOV 2019 A LYRIC THEATRE & DUBLIN THEATRE FESTIVAL CO-PRODUCTION
THE PLAYBOY WESTERN WORLD
IN ASSOCIATION WITH THE BELFAST INTERNATIONAL ARTS FESTIVAL
CREDITS CAST MICHAEL JAMES FLAHERTY HONOR BLAKE SHAWN KEOGH PHILLY CULLEN JIMMY FARRELL SUSAN BRADY OLD MAHON WIDOW QUIN SARA TANSEY CHRISTY MAHON PEGEEN MIKE
CHARLIE BONNER HAZEL CLIFFORD MICHAEL CONDRON JO DONNELLY TONY FLYNN HOLLY HANNAWAY FRANKIE McCAFFERTY AOIBHÉANN McCANN MEGAN McDONNELL MICHAEL SHEA ELOÏSE STEVENSON
CREATIVES & PRODUCTION TEAM DIRECTOR SET & COSTUME DESIGN LIGHTING DESIGN COMPOSER & SOUND DESIGN MOVEMENT DIRECTOR FIGHT DIRECTOR DIALECT COACH EXECUTIVE PRODUCER PRODUCER CASTING DIRECTOR
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OONAGH MURPHY MOLLY O’CATHAIN AMY MAE JANE DEASY PAULA O’REILLY IAN McCRACKEN GAVIN O’DONAGHUE JIMMY FAY WILLIE WHITE BRONAGH McFEELY CLARE GAULT
PRODUCTION MANAGER ASSISTANT PRODUCTION MANAGER COMPANY STAGE MANAGER DEPUTY STAGE MANAGER ASSISTANT STAGE MANAGER COSTUME SUPERVISOR COSTUME ASSISTANT PRODUCTION INTERN SENIOR TECHNICIAN TECHNICIANS PRODUCTION LX PROP MAKER LAUNDRY MEN’S HAIR MAKE UP ARTIST & WIG STYLING BREAKDOWN ARTISTS SET BUILD SCENIC ARTIST TRANSPORT SET ELECTRICS
ADRIAN MULLAN KATE MILLER AIMEE YATES MEGAN MAGILL LOUISE BRYANS SOPHIE THOMPSON TRACEY LINDSAY GILLIAN LENNOX ERIN CHARTERIS SARAH CAREY IAN VENNARD ADRIAN WALL CORENTIN WEST TIGHERNAN O’NEILL GARETH WEAVER MICHAEL EDGAR LAURA McALEENAN KELLY McLEAN NUALA CAMPBELL ENDA KENNY UNA HICKEY MADE FOR STAGE LTD. PHILLIP GOSS STEPHEN BAMFORD STUART MARSHALL PHILLIP GOSS LIAM CLANCY
#THEPLAYBOY
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JOHN MILLINGTON SYNGE John Millington Synge (born April 16, 1871, Rathfarnham—died March 24, 1909, Dublin) was an Irish playwright, poet, prose writer, travel writer and collector of folklore. He was also a leading figure in the Irish Literary Revival and instrumental in the founding of the Abbey Theatre. After studying at Trinity College and at the Royal Irish Academy of Music in Dublin, Synge pursued further studies from 1893 to 1897 in Germany, Italy and France. In 1894 he abandoned his plan to become a musician and instead concentrated on languages and literature. He met William Butler Yeats while studying at the Sorbonne in Paris in 1896. Yeats inspired him with enthusiasm for the Irish Literary Revival and advised him to stop writing critical essays and instead to go to the Aran Islands and draw material from life. Already struggling against the progression of a lymphatic sarcoma that was to cause his death, Synge lived in the islands during part of each year (1898–1902), observing the people and learning their language, recording his impressions in The Aran Islands (1907) and basing his one-act plays In the Shadow of the Glen (first performed in 1903) and Riders to the Sea (1904) on islanders’ stories. In 1905 his first three-act play, The Well of the Saints, was produced.
“SYNGE’S TRAVELS ON THE IRISH WEST COAST INSPIRED HIS MOST FAMOUS PLAY, THE PLAYBOY OF THE WESTERN WORLD (1907). THE AUDIENCE RIOTED AT ITS OPENING AT THE ABBEY THEATRE”
Synge’s travels on the Irish west coast inspired his most famous play, The Playboy of the Western World (1907). The audience rioted at its opening at the Abbey Theatre. Riots of Irish Americans accompanied its opening in New York (1911), and there were further riots in Boston and Philadelphia. Synge remained associated with the Abbey Theatre, where his plays gradually won acceptance, until his death. His unfinished Deirdre of the Sorrows, a poetic dramatisation of one of the great love stories of Celtic mythology, was performed there in 1910.
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CAST
CAST
Charlie Bonner Michael James Flaherty
Hazel Clifford Honor Blake
Michael Condron Shawn Keogh
Jo Donnelly Philly Cullen
Tony Flynn Jimmy Farrell
Holly Hannaway Susan Brady
Charlie last appeared at the Lyric Theatre in Brian Friel’s Lovers: Winners & Losers (2018). Previous Lyric credits: Sinners, Dancing At Lughnasa and Volunteers.
Hazel Clifford is from Dublin and trained at The Lir Academy. This is her Lyric debut.
Lyric Theatre credits include: Santa, Bah Humbug, What the Reindeer Saw, Christmas Eve Can Kill You, Charlotte’s Web, Macbeth, Much Ado About Nothing, Sinners, Smiley, Here Comes the Night, To Be Sure, Forget Turkey, The 39 Steps.
Jo Donnelly graduated from the Royal Academy of Dramatic Arts.
Lyric Theatre credits include: Saint Joan, The Seafarer, Much Ado About Nothing, Miss Julie.
He has worked with all the theatre companies in Northern Ireland, and has worked at Manchester Royal Exchange and Lyric Hammersmith.
Other theatre credits: Cooking with Elvis, Playhouse Creatures (Bruiser Theatre Co.); Can’t Pay Won’t Pay (Derby Playhouse); A Station Once Again (Brassneck Theatre Co.); Ubu (Tinderbox); Rhinoceros, This is what we sang (Kabosh); Chronicles of Long Kesh, Baby it’s Cold Outside (GBL).
Holly Hannaway is an actor and comedian from Newry, based in Belfast. She graduated from Queen’s University Belfast with a BA in English and Drama and trained at the Lyric Theatre. Theatre credits include: The Heresy of Love (Lyric Theatre Belfast); Lessons in Love and Violence (Royal Opera House); Peter Pan (Courtyard Theatre); Tactics for Time Travel in a Toilet.
Other theatre credits: Every Day I Wake Up Hopeful, Prime Cut; Rathmines Road, Philadelphia Here I Come, Good Evening Mr Collins, Monkey, Melonfarmer, Macbeth, Observatory, Living Quarters, The Shaughraun, Toupees & Snare Drums, Portia Coughlan: Abbey and Peacock theatres, Dublin. He has worked with companies throughout Ireland including the Gate Theatre, Everyman Cork, Verdant Productions, Field Day, Bedrock, Livin Dred, Pan Pan, Red Kettle, Guna Nua, Corcadorca and Second Age.
Other theatre credits: The Snapper (The Gate Theatre); La Ronde, The Winter’s Tale, The Caucasian Chalk Circle, Silence is Requested, Cripple Of Innishmaan, Thyestes, Love’s Labour’s Lost (The Lir Academy); I’ve to Mind Her, This is What Makes us Girls (Dublin Youth Theatre). Film and TV: Colour Blind (Picture Mode Studios); Starry Night (IADT). Nominated for Best Young Talent, Renaissance Film Festival, London, 2019. Nominated for Best Actress Irish Times Irish Theatre Awards, 2018.
Other theatre credits: The Boat Factory (Off Broadway, King’s Head Theatre, Edinburgh Fringe). TV: Game of Thrones, Soft Border Patrol (BBC1), Doing Money, Number 2s, Tudors. Nominated for Best Ensemble Cast at the 2016 Screen Actors Guild Awards in Hollywood.
Lyric Theatre credits: Colleen Bawn, What the Reindeer Saw, Ladykillers, Smiley, Demented, Forget Turkey, Reenergize.
Film and TV: Ups and Downs, Flatmates, Line of Duty, A good woman is hard to find, Grace and Goliath. Jo has just returned from LA where she was filming Forty Shades O’ Greene.
Film & TV: Zoo, Maze, The Devil’s Doorway, Childer, Rebellion, Red Rock, Omagh, The Tudors, The Race, Proof, Fair City, The Crush.
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Other theatre includes: Ubu the King, Lally the Scut (Tinderbox); Lives in Translation, What Where (Kabosh); Witness for the Prosecution (Dundee Rep); and numerous appearances at the Abbey Theatre including Alice in Funderland and The Plough and the Stars. Tony is a member of The Belfast Ensemble and recently appeared in The Fall of the House of Usher, The Pirates of Penzance and Lunaria as part of BASH at the Lyric. He will also appear in their upcoming coproduction with Outburst Queer Arts Festival, Abomination, A DUP Opera, in November.
(Theatre of Pluck); The Quiet Woman, Pr!ck (Black Box Theatre). Film and TV: Storyland (RTÉ); The Secret Life of Balloons (BBC); her own one-woman comedy show, Jingle Belle. Holly was Artist in Residence with Amadan, a Belfast-based clown and bouffon theatre company, in mid-2019.
CAST
CREATIVE TEAM
CAST
Frankie McCafferty Old Mahon
Aoibhéann McCann Widow Quin
Megan McDonnell Sara Tansey
Michael Shea Christy Mahon
Eloïse Stevenson Pegeen Mike
Oonagh Murphy Director
Frankie McCafferty has worked extensively as an actor in theatre, film and television. His most recent theatre role was in the Decadent Theatre adaptation of the Donal Ryan novel The Thing About December at the Town Hall Theatre, Galway.
Lyric Theatre credits: A Streetcar Named Desire.
Megan McDonnell was born in Dublin and grew up in Mayo. She trained at The Lir Academy, graduating in 2018.
Michael Shea is a graduate of LAMDA and comes from Northern Ireland.
Eloïse Stevenson is from Holywood, County Down, but grew up in Austria.
Theatre credits include: All Mod Cons (Lyric Theatre); Peter and the Starcatcher (Royal & Derngate); Desire Under The Elms (Sheffield Crucible); Half a Glass of Water (Theatre 503).
She is a recent graduate of The Lir National Academy of Dramatic Art in Dublin, where she trained for three years. During her time there, she worked with many of Ireland’s leading theatre makers, such as Annabelle Comyn (as Gina in The Wild Duck), Conall Morrison (as Dionyza in Pericles and Maggie Cooney in Temporal Powers), Annie Ryan (as Annie in Dubliners), Oonagh Murphy (as Scilla Todd in Serious Money), Louise Lowe (in a devised piece as Catherine in The Black Church), Ronan Phelan (as Electra in Electra) and Hilary Wood (as Lady Anne in Shakespeare’s Richard III).
Previous theatre includes: The Children, Tribes (Gate Theatre); Serious Money (The Lir); Shelter (Druid, Galway International Arts Festival); Drip Feed (Soho Theatre and Fishamble, Edinburgh Fringe and Dublin Fringe Festival); The Mouth of a Shark (Where We Live, THISISPOPBABY); Give Me Your Skin (Battersea Arts Centre); Mojo (The Lir); Creaking (Bealtaine Festival national tour); The Poor Little Boy With No Arms (Project Arts Centre and national tour); Foxy, I am a Home Bird (It’s Very Hard) (Project Arts Centre); Be Infants in Evil (Druid Theatre Company); Ribbons, Love in a Glass Jar (Peacock Stage, Abbey Theatre).
Lyric Theatre credits include: Conversations on a Homecoming, Observe the Sons of Ulster Marching Towards the Somme (Irish Times Irish Theatre Award), Molly Sweeney. Other theatre credits: The Seafarer, The Weir (Decadent Theatre); Endgame, Dealer’s Choice (Prime Cut); Sharon’s Grave, Wild Harvest, At the Black Pig’s Dyke (Druid); The Numbered (Corcadorca). He trained at the Conservatoire National Supérieur d’Art Dramatique in Paris.
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Other theatre credits: The Great Gatsby, Assassins (Gate Theatre); A Midsummer Night’s Dream, A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man (Rough Magic); Coast, Harder Faster More, Wrapped (Red Bear Productions); Stars in the Morning Sky (Belgrade Theatre, Coventry); Ourselves Alone (Just Theatre, Camden); Much Ado About Nothing, Taming of the Shrew (Fortune’s Fool / Iveagh Gardens); Holes (Company of Angels); The Folk Contraption (Vault Festival, Old Vic). Film, TV and radio: Vikings (MGM, History); Can’t Cope, Won’t Cope and A Terrible Beauty (RTÉ); The Midnight Court, Cumann na mBan 100 (TG4). Best Ensemble, Irish Times Irish Theatre Award 2019.
Lir Academy credits: The Caucasian Chalk Circle (dir. Tom Creed), Dalliance (dir. Hilary Wood), The Winter’s Tale (dir. Nona Shepphard), Merrily We Roll Along (dir. Ronan Phelan). Other theatre credits include: One Fish, Two Fish, Bella Fish, Killian (Home Theatre Ireland, Draíocht / DTF); Fighting Words (Abbey Theatre). TV: Normal People (BBC / Element Pictures); Miss Scarlet and the Duke (Element8 / ShinAwil).
Film and TV: Derry Girls, Doctors, Two Angry Men, The Last Letter, Marcella. Radio: The Trials of Saint Patrick.
Having grown up in Erris, Co. Mayo, The Playboy of the Western World holds a special place in Megan’s heart and she is delighted to make her Lyric Theatre debut with this production.
#THEPLAYBOY
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Oonagh is a co-founder of Change of Address Collective, which works with refugees and asylum seekers.
CREATIVE TEAM
CREATIVE TEAM
SUPPORTING CAST PRINCIPAL FUNDER:
ALSO FUNDED BY:
Molly O’Cathain Set & Costume Designer
Amy Mae Lighting Designer
Jane Deasy Composer & Sound Designer
Paula O’Reilly Movement Director
Previous set and costume design includes: It Was Easy (in the end) (Abbey Theatre); Ask Too Much of Me, La liberazione di Ruggiero, A Holy Show (Peacock Theatre); Serious Money, The Ash Fire (The Lir); Mr Burns (Rough Magic); Everything Not Saved, Jericho, BlackCatfishMusketeer, LOVE+ (Malaprop Theatre).
Theatre credits include: Two Trains Running (Royal & Derngate / ETT / RTST); Noises Off (Lyric Hammersmith); [Un]Leashed: Sense of Time (Birmingham Royal Ballet); The Memory of Water (Nottingham Playhouse); The Trick (Bush Theatre, UK tour); Wild East (Young Vic, Genesis Directors Award); Hansel and Gretel (Rose Theatre, Kingston); The Fishermen (Edinburgh Fringe, Arcola Theatre, Trafalgar Studios, UK tour); Three Sat Under the Banyan Tree (Polka Theatre, Coventry Belgrade, UK tour); About Leo (Jermyn Street); Mountains: The Dreams of Lily Kwok (Royal Exchange, UK tour); Exploding Circus (Pavilion Theatre, Worthing, UK Tour); Br’er Cotton (Theatre 503); Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street (Harrington’s Pie and Mash Shop, West.
Jane Deasy is a composer and sound designer based in Dublin and Glasgow. She is a recent graduate of the Glasgow School of Art.
Theatre credits include: The Snapper (World Premiere 2018, Gate Theatre); The Odd Couple (The Everyman); Bigger People (The Local Group / Pentabus); In Our Veins (Bitter Like A Lemon / The Abbey Theatre); Girls Like This (TU Dublin); The Tales of Hoffmann (Irish National Opera); Pulse (Primecut Productions); Hansel & Gretel, SINNEAD, One Night Only for Two Nights (The MAC); Harder, Faster, More (Red Bear Productions); Acis & Galetea (Irish National Opera); The Fairy Queen (RIAM); Herculaneum (Wexford Festival Opera); Cristina, Regina di Svezia, Le roi malgré lui (Wexford Festival Opera); Orfeo ed Euridice (Buxton Opera Series); The Rubberbandits (Electric Picnic, The Olympia).
Costume design includes: Danse, Morob (The Emergency Room); Recovery (One Two One Two). Associate and assistant design includes: The Snapper (Gate Theatre / Paul Wills); Road (Royal Court / Chloe Lamford); Assassins, Way to Heaven (Rough Magic / Zia Holly). Production design includes: Everything Not Saved (RTÉ / Storyland); Tinman (Saint Sister / Bob Gallagher), Rituals (Body& Soul/Kevin Freeney).
The Playboy of the Western World is her debut at the Lyric Theatre. Her most recent work includes performing in The Patient Gloria by Gina Moxley at The Traverse (Abbey Theatre, Gina Moxley and Pan Pan). She is currently Artist in Residence at Dublin City Council’s Albert Cottages.
Film and TV: Ponydance: The Movie (TG4), The Savage Eye (RTÉ 2).
Molly is a co-founder of Malaprop Theatre.
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TECHNICIANS TIGHEARNAN O’NEILL ADRIAN WALL CORENTIN WEST COSTUME SUPERVISOR GILLIAN LENNOX COSTUME ASSISTANT ERIN CHARTERIS HEAD OF FINANCE & HR MICHEÁL MEEGAN FINANCE OFFICER TONI HARRIS PATTON FINANCE ASSISTANTS SINEAD GLYMOND RACHAEL TRAINOR HEAD OF CREATIVE LEARNING PHILIP CRAWFORD CREATIVE LEARNING MANAGER PAULINE McKAY CREATIVE LEARNING SCHOOLS CO-ORDINATOR ERIN HOEY HEAD OF CUSTOMER SERVICE JULIE McKEGNEY CUSTOMER SERVICE MANAGERS MARINA HAMPTON ASHLENE McGURK
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Programme: darraghneely.com
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