Theatre
The Playboy of the Western World
John Millington Synge · 1907
Synopsis
In a tavern in Mayo kept by Michael James Flaherty, Pegeen, his daughter, is to marry her cousin Shawn Keogh, who is waiting for a dispensation from the Church. A worn-out young man arrives, Christy Mahon, who ends up admitting that he has killed his father. Far from handing him over, the local people admire him, the landlord hires him, Pegeen falls in love with him and breaks with Shawn, while the Widow Quin also tries to win him.
Context
The play premiered at the Abbey Theatre in Dublin on 26 January 1907. The first week turned into a riot: part of one performance had to be played in dumb show, the police intervened and spectators were arrested every night. The author took the subject from an anecdote collected on the Aran Islands, that of a young man from Connacht who had killed his father with a blow of a spade. The language is an Irish English nourished by the syntax of Irish. The text was published in Dublin by Maunsel.
Who it is for
A comedy in three acts, in colourful language steeped in Gaelic turns of phrase; several French translations exist.
Prizes and reception
Famous for the riots at its premiere, the play has been retranslated into French several times since the 1970s.
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