Interludes

THE HANGOVER REPORT – THE PLOUGH AND THE STARS caps off Irish Rep’s altogether triumphant O’Casey Cycle

• By drediman
• June 22, 2019
• No Comments

Úna Clancy and Maryann Plunkett in Sean O’Casey’s “The Plough and the Stars” at the Irish Repertory Theatre. Photo by Carol Rosegg.

This past week, I finally caught up with the Off-Broadway revival of Sean O’Casey’s The Plough and the Stars, the final installment of the Irish Repertory Theatre’s altogether triumphant O’Casey Cycle. Over the past several months, Irish Rep has played host to a trio of sensationally realized O’Casey plays – The Shadow of a Gunman, Juno and the Paycock, and, most recently, The Plough and the Stars. Although they’re three separate plays, there’s a strong connective tissue that binds them. Indeed, each is set (mostly) in a shabby Dublin tenement – conceivably the same one – during three Irish uprisings in the early twentieth century (The Plough and the Stars, which is set during the Easter Rising of 1916, is actually chronologically the first of the lot).

Mr. O’Casey’s plays are populated with boisterous near-caricatures. Despite their humble existence, these Irishmen and Irishwomen live intensely present lives, as manifested by the rough but gloriously poetic language the playwright provides them with. As a result, there’s an unruliness to O’Casey’s plays that, in the right hands, makes for seductive, engrossing theater. Of the three, The Plough and the Stars is perhaps the most untidy and grim, but it also benefits from being given the most vibrant and technically impressive staging of the cycle.

Indeed, director Charlotte Moore’s production, which is intimate (immersive, even) yet muscular, does full justice to O’Casey’s play. It’s only upon seeing this third installment that I became fully aware of the immense care and thought that has gone into mounting these plays in repertory on the narrow stage of the theater company’s cozy home in Chelsea. All in all, Irish Rep’s accomplishment ranks among the superlative achievements of the Off-Broadway season.

As with the the other productions, the acting in The Plough and the Stars is detailed and vibrant. Best of all is Tony-winner Maryanne Plunkett as the spunky Bessie Burgess, in my opinion one of the great New York stage actresses, who’s astonishingly just as good here – in a vastly different performance – as she was as Juno in Juno and the Paycock (one of the finest pieces of acting of the season, both on and Off-Broadway). You have only a few more chances to catch any one of these stunning productions. The cycle ends its collective run this weekend.

HIGHLY RECOMMENDED

THE PLOUGH AND THE STARS
Off-Broadway, Play
The Irish Repertory Theatre
2 hours, 15 minutes (with one intermission)
Through June 22