"It's a monster of a play," director Andrew Flynn says of Juno and the Paycock, which will be performed in theatres across Northern Ireland in the coming weeks.
“So much happens and there’s a big cast – there are so many challenges that come along with it.
“You become a detective in a sense, but it’s a very creative discovery as you find the best ways of delivering the work.”
The Association of Regiona
l Theatres NI production of this Irish classic continues at the Millennium Forum in Londonderry tonight, at the beginning of a Province-wide tour.
Juno and the Paycock by Sean O’Casey is set in poverty-stricken Dublin in 1922 during the Irish Civil War and tells the story of a family living in a tenement in the city.
Head of the family Jack Boyle is a proud and arrogant man but, unfortunately, he’s incredibly lazy, preferring to spend his days drinking with friend and side-kick Joxer Daly.
It’s down to his wife, Juno, to keep things together as the only wage earner in a household which also includes daughter Mary and son Johnny.
Johnny was wounded in the Easter Rising of 1916, and he believes the IRA are out to get him.
As the family struggle to survive in a two-room apartment, a story that combines tragedy and comedy unfolds.
“The family is in dire straits and it’s down to the woman of the house, Juno, to keep things together,” Andrew said.
They have borrowed money to make ends meet and are worryingly close to being destitute.
During the play, the family are told they inherited a large sum from a relative of Jack’s, and they begin spending it in earnest.
“We’re having a great time exploring the play,” Andrew said.
“What O’Casey has done is capture the spirit of Ireland at the time.”
And, with the work’s references to the civil war, it was a courageous and timely piece of drama.
Juno and the Paycock was first staged at the Abbey Theatre, Dublin, in 1924 and has come to be regarded as an Irish classic.
“It was very brave to put this on back then because it attacks the institutions of Ireland and the Church, and the hold they had on Irish society,” Andrew said.
“And it still works today because, at its heart, it’s a human story about real people and the audiences have always identified with the characters.”
This new production is taking a fresh approach to the text.
“We’re performing it like it’s never been done before, and making our own decisions on how the drama works best,” Andrew said.
“I feel very strongly that it’s a history play and it has to be set in 1922 – there’s no point in trying to modernise it, I’ve seen productions that have changed the setting purely for the sake of being different and that’s often been to the detriment of the play.
“We want to make it as authentic and real as possible so that the audience feel they’ve been dragged back to tenement Dublin.
“It’s a time when there was absolute poverty, and brother was fighting brother, yet was only 80 years ago, it’s important not to forget that.”
But it’s in the text itself, that this work shines.
The full article contains 576 words and appears in News Letter newspaper.
