Past and present mingle in exquisite discomfort in this production of Juno and the Paycock: it seems impossible to imagine a more recognisable paradigm to our current economic and societal situation than Seán O’Casey’s 1924 play. Seen perhaps as few as five years ago, a staging of this text might not have resonated as thunderingly as it does in 2011; staged by this particular team, the impressive production is practically a template for the importance of the sum being made of flawless parts.
Long black curtains sweep to the side to reveal a peeling, decrepit, nearly bare living space. Bob Crowley’s simple yet evocative design allows for the main source of light to fall in through the once-majestic windows, now patched with newspaper, and poorly fitting shutters. Walls have been jury-rigged to provide more space within an area that already has little to spare, and the significance of every set piece is only underscored by the paucity of such pieces. They don’t have much, but Juno, her paycock Captain Jack Boyle, and their children Mary and Johnny manage to abide in this one room, and the bid to create space within its cramped confines is an effort to carve room out of the tenement building itself, and by extension, the world.
Yet, the door is open to all and sundry, and a knock on any door in the building is the best indicator of a stranger, to be avoided at all costs, for who knows what sort of business will be brought into the house? In the case of the Boyles, the business takes the form of a legacy, the news brought by a posh suitor of Mary’s; in both cases, what looks bright and shiny on the exterior is hollow at the core. While both the ultimate lack of largesse and Mary’s eventual shame are the crux of the familial drama, there is so much else going on in the text that is elucidated through direction and performance, on a global level, it felt like one was seeing the play for the first time.
The pacing is pitch perfect, and director Howard Davies conducts the proceedings as though he were conducting an orchestra. Everything is important, without taking away from the whole: the relationship between Jack (Ciarán Hinds) and Joxer (Risteárd Cooper) runs through its own inexorably dark arc; Johnny (Ronan Raftery) drifts in and out like a wraith; Mary (Clare Dunne) stands by her principles even in the face of total disgrace. It is only through the sheer grit and practicality of Juno herself (Sinéad Cusack), that one feels there’s any hope left in their world — and by, extension, ours.
O’Casey’s words ring down the years, as he, through his characters, castigates the institution of the Church, the machinations of war, the fecklessness of men who are waiting for an ideal world that has no hope of being built on a rotten foundation, and lionizes the women who are left to pick up the slack. His words are given the best possible voice, as the cast as an entirety speak them as well as O’Casey has been spoken in recent memory. Davies directs his actors to play with high energy, but not ‘hi doh’, and the difference is that they play as an ensemble, rather than an assortment of characters with grievances. Juno, for all her right to the latter, can often come across as a hectoring termagant; in Cusack’s beautifully tuned performance, she is a steadily burning flame as opposed to a conflagration of rage.
Against such a Juno, Hinds’ Captain can only be exposed for all his fecklessness, but in the actor’s hands, Jack is never a figure of fun. Oh, he’s charming to be sure, and his endless assortment of excuses, and the bottomless pit of his bluster raise the laughs they are meant to, but he is clearly not a beleaguered hero. This is not pathetic, but it is poignant, and this poignancy is signaled by one of those superb details in which this production excels. Early on in the production, the Captain removes his coat, in the midst of one of those blustering tirades. He turns, and we see that the leather on the back of his waistcoat is shredded to bits. This is so subtle, yet so overwhelming: sure, there’s evidence that things are completely destroyed, but what he can’t see can’t hurt him. It will in the end, and this is perhaps the cautionary note that resounds so well with 21st century Dublin: what’s happening inside and outside our houses is essentially the same thing, and shutting the door to reality isn’t going to improve our lot.
Susan Conley is a cultural journalist and author