Image: First Night edition, not an official production poster · Art: Angelica Kauffmann, Juno and the Peacock, 1780 · The Art Institute of Chicago · CC0 1.0 · artic.edu
Play
Juno and the Paycock
In a Dublin tenement in 1922, a man who talks up his short time at sea drinks with his friend Joxer while his wife Juno earns the only wage.
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The story
Seán O'Casey's play follows the Boyle family in a working-class tenement just after the Irish Civil War breaks out. Jack claims leg pains keep him from work; daughter Mary is on strike and has broken with Jerry Devine; son Johnny, who lost an arm in the War of Independence, fears punishment for informing on a former comrade. Then Charles Bentham, a schoolteacher courting Mary, reads a will naming Jack as a beneficiary.
In the room
The comedy of Jack's spending and Joxer's mockery sits alongside serious tragedy, a mix its producers describe as tragicomic. First staged at Dublin's Abbey Theatre in 1924, it is the second of O'Casey's three Dublin plays.
Good fit if you like
Irish history, family drama laced with comedy and plays set in working-class communities.
Details
- From 21 Sept 2024
Running time not recorded.
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Cast & crew
No cast or crew recorded yet.