The Playboy of the Western World

About

Synge's 1907 masterpiece follows Christy Mahon, who arrives at a County Mayo pub claiming to have killed his father and finds himself lionized as a hero — the play's satirical insight being that the act of violence, rather than its victim, is what the community desires. The Abbey Theatre premiere caused riots — audiences objected to the portrayal of Irish rural life and to the word 'shift' (a woman's undershirt) — one of theater history's great audience overreactions. The play is simultaneously a comedy, a romance, a critique of Irish romantic nationalism, and a meditation on the power of storytelling. Synge's synthesis of Hiberno-English dialect with literary ambition has never been equaled.