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The Playboy of the Western World by J The Playboy of the Western World by J. M. Synge Know-the-Show Audience Guide compiled and written by Meredith Keffer for the Education Department of The Shakespeare Theatre of New Jersey Cover art by Scott McKowen. art by Cover The Shakespeare Theatre of New Jersey The Playboy of the Western World: Know-the-Show Guide In This Guide – The Life of J. M. Synge....................................................................................2 – Playboy of the Western World: An Introduction..............................................4 – Who’s Who: The Characters in Playboy..........................................................6 – Quotable: W. B. Yeats on Synge.....................................................................7 – Sources in Irish Folklore................................................................................8 – Synge’s Language........................................................................................10 – Quotable: J. M. Synge’s The Aran Islands.....................................................11 – Explore Online: Links..................................................................................12 – Commentary and Criticism..........................................................................13 – The Playboy Riots........................................................................................15 – Terms & Phrases in Playboy.........................................................................16 – Sources and Further Reading.......................................................................17 1 The Shakespeare Theatre of New Jersey The Playboy of the Western World: Know-the-Show Guide on the grounds of religion. Soon after AN abandoning God, Synge took up “EMO KID”? The Life Synge took a while to music, his ‘gateway drug’ to find his voice as a writer. romanticism, and he developed He penned what we might call a profound interest in all things angst-ridden teenage poetry well J. M. Synge into his twenties. For example: “I Irish. curse my bearing, childhood, youth John Millington Synge was born / I curse the sea, sun, mountains, of moon, / I curse my learning, in 1871, in a suburb of Dublin, Synge entered Trinity College but search for truth, / I curse the to a family of devout Protestants. barely scraped by with a second- dawning, night, and His father died during Synge’s class degree. He was so focused on noon.” infancy, but his mother would his musical studies at the Royal Irish end up supporting her son Academy of Music, however, that he received scholarships financially for the rest of his life. and considered a career as a music teacher. After college, he As a sickly child, Synge spent spent much of 1893 and 1894 in Germany studying music but a good deal of time excused eventually decided it wasn’t for him. He moved to Paris where from school and able to indulge he would spend the next seven years studying literature, though an interest in natural history his early attempts at writing were floundering, awkward, and by playing outside and bird- self-conscious. J. M. Synge (Source: Creighton watching with a cousin. University). In Paris, Synge met W. B. Yeats and other rising members of the Despite Synge’s close-knit family, he often felt like an outsider. Irish literary revival. Yeats claimed that on their very first meeting An early encounter with Darwin’s theories of evolution he told Synge to “give up Paris” and go to the Aran Islands, three eventually led him to a crisis of faith – a difficult experience for windswept barren islands off the west coast of Ireland. Although a child whose grandfather was a rector and whose older brother scholars doubt the chronology of Yeats’s story, what is true is and uncle were missionaries. His atheism created problems not that Synge went to Aran, where he lived among the peasants only for his family life but also for his love life. A proposal to observing their customs and listening to their stories, soaking Cherrie Matheson in 1895 (and another in 1896) was rejected up the rhythms and imagery of their language, and learning 2 The Shakespeare Theatre of New Jersey The Playboy of the Western World: Know-the-Show Guide to appreciate the harsh existence of a people whose life is a engaged. Many constant struggle for survival against the elements. Also true, have wondered whether or not Yeats foresaw it, is that after Synge’s series of visits how the salt to the islands he soon became a much better writer – a writer, in and fervor of fact, whose plays would become staples of the renowned Abbey Synge’s plays Theatre in Dublin, and, eventually, revered classic works. emerged from this quiet, Between 1903 and 1908 Synge published the plays In the melancholy, Shadow of the Glen, Riders to the Sea, The Well of the Saints, and respectable The Playboy of the Western World, and The Tinker’s Wedding, as man. As Yeats well as The Aran Islands, an account of his time on the islands. wrote of Synge: Molly Allgood, Synge’s fiancée, as Pegeen in the All of his plays except the posthumously published Deirdre of “He loves all original 1907 production of The Playboy. (Source: The the Sorrows are peasant plays, and three are directly inspired that has edge, Abbey Theatre). by stories Synge heard on Aran. Distinctive features of Synge’s all that is salt writing include a preoccupation with folk beliefs, especially how in the mouth, all that is rough to the hand, all that heightens the they conflict with conventional Christianity; a deep vein emotions by contest, all that stings into life the sense of tragedy.” of irony and the tragic dimensions IRISH of life; the agency and primacy Having endured several bouts of unrequited love in his life, NATIONALISM of nature; and an acute sense Synge finally found a woman who reciprocated his affections: The Irish long bridled under the yoke of English colonial of the lyrical and musical in Molly Allgood, the actress who played Pegeen in the premiere rule. Their resistance took various language. Although Synge of The Playboy. Their relationship was sometimes tempestuous forms, including violent rebellions, but by the late 1800s the revival was a key member of the – not to mention disapproved of by family and friends – but the of Irish Gaelic culture became an Irish National Theatre two became engaged. Unfortunately, Synge’s Hodgkin’s disease, important aspect of nationalism. Society and the Abbey which had plagued him since 1897, finally got the best of him. Invoking Ireland’s historic and mythic past presented Irish cultural Theatre, he generally steered Synge died on March 24, 1909, in Dublin, before he could identity as distinct from English clear of the politics in which finish his last play or marry the love of his life. He was only and helped make the case other literary nationalists thirty-seven years old. for independence. 3 The Shakespeare Theatre of New Jersey The Playboy of the Western World: Know-the-Show Guide hearing that their surprise visitor is on the run from the law, the curious onlookers, including Flaherty’s daughter Pegeen Mike, try to guess his crime. When it eventually comes out that Christy murdered his father with the blow of a loy (a heavy spade used Playboy:An Introduction to dig potatoes), the locals stand in awe of him. A man who kills his father, they reason, must be strong, brave, and dangerous. Written in 1907 by the great Irish playwright J. M. Synge, The Against the protests of Pegeen’s meek and God-fearing fiancé, Playboy of the Western World is now one of the all-time classic Shawn Keogh, Flaherty engages Christy as a pot-boy to help plays of a nation that at first resoundingly rejected it. Its first around the place and keep Pegeen safe on dark, lonely nights. performances were greeted by such massive rioting that the authorities dispatched hundreds of police Now left alone together, Christy and Pegeen officers to keep order in the streets. Viewing start talking and fall in love with each other. the colorful language as blasphemous and the They are interrupted, however, by the Widow vibrant characters as caricature, the audience Quin who has been sent by Shawn and the took the play as an affront to the honor and priest to take Christy away. She is unable to dignity of the Irish and missed Synge’s subtle persuade him to leave and Pegeen kicks her ironies, masterful interweaving of tone and out of the house. Pegeen then puts the tired plot, and beautiful re-workings of traditional Christy to bed and retires to her own room. imagery. With language as rich and poetic in its A scene from the Druid Theatre Company’s 2005 production of The Playboy, part of their way as Shakespeare’s, Synge and his playboy CT 8.5-hour presentation of Synge’s oeuvre. Photo A II: Christy, overjoyed to find himself with a gradually weave a romantic dream out of the by Keith Pattison. job and a girl and a roof over his head, draws impoverished surroundings that have contrived the attention of the local lasses, who trek over to stifle such aspiration. Whether to follow the playboy or turn from town to marvel at the man who killed his father. Returning against him is as much a choice for us the audience as it is for to the house, Pegeen angrily sends the girls away and frightens the characters on stage. Christy with the story of a man hanged that morning. They reconcile until they are again interrupted, this time by Shawn ACT I: A bedraggled young man, Christy Mahon, stumbles into and the Widow, who try to bribe Christy with nice clothes Michael Flaherty’s pub in rural County Mayo, Ireland. Upon and a ticket to the States. When this ploy to get rid of 4 The Shakespeare Theatre of New Jersey The Playboy of the Western World: Know-the-Show Guide Christy also fails, Shawn leaves the Widow to attempt to seduce Christy herself. Unexpectedly, Christy’s father, Old Mahon, approaches the pub. Christy hides and the Widow questions the old man. It turns out that not only did Old Mahon not die of the blow, but he claims that Christy is lazy, shy, and incompetent.
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