The Plough And The Stars

Abbey Theatre, Dublin Until Sep 25 7.30pm 115-138
01-8787222 abbeytheatre.ie

THEATRE:

Ten years after the Easter Rising, the words of Patrick Pearse rang out on the Abbey stage - “Bloodshed is a cleansing and sanctifying thing” - while the audience, which contained relatives of martyred revolutionaries, watched a prostitute seeking clients in a Dublin pub. That juxtaposition was the flashpoint for the Abbey’s other famous riot, and a clear sign that Sean O’Casey’s play would never treat the foundations of the nation with a sliver of sentimentality.

Strangely, though, the play itself has too often been sentimentalised. Becoming the most successful play in the Abbey’s repertoire, its depiction of characters alternately seduced or repulsed by republican rhetoric could stagnate into a cheery revue of merry poverty, alcoholism and muted domestic abuse. So much so, in fact, that Garry Hynes’s stripped-down version for the Abbey in 1991 caused another outcry while urging audiences to take a fresh perspective.

Now Wayne Jordan, a director with great visual sensibility, takes on

The Plough and the Stars

at a time of both national cynicism and desire for new directions. Assembling a fine cast, his version may not provoke unrest, but it should ask O’Casey’s original question. Can we take a fresh look at our nation?

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