The Playboy of the Western World
"excellent high-calibre theatre"
Alan Argue, The Wellington Advertiser
Written by John Millington Synge, featuring Neil Barclay, Ian Deakin, William Fisher,
Melissa Good, Kim Horsman, Krista Jackson, David Kirby, Michael Spencer-Davis, Carolyn
Campbell, Matt Lancaster and Melissa Mae Lloyd in the cast. The production was directed
by Douglas Beattie and designed by Dennis Horn with lighting by Renée Brode. Barbara McLean
Wright was the stage manager, assisted by Merin Smith.
The Playboy of the Western World ran for 9 performances, February 16 - 24, 2001
Synopsis
In a Munster potato field small, timorous Christy Mahon squares off with his father over a
distasteful marriage the father is trying to force on him. He lays the old man out with a blow
of his spade, then flees the farm in a panic and tramps eleven days to the north until he
stumbles exhausted into a mean little pub on “a wild coast of Mayo”. Michael James, the
pub-owner, is about to walk out to a wake with a couple of cronies, leaving his daughter Pegeen
to look after the pub alone (much to her disgust), but first he questions the young man and
draws his story out of him. Christy is surprised to find the tale of his father’s murder
causes his stock to rise. He looks an unlikely fellow, the men reason, but his deed argues for
great spirit and bravery in him, so Christy is offered the job of serving man on the spot, to
assist and protect the daughter of the house, she herself being the chief advocate for this
outrageous arrangement.
Basking in Pegeen’s admiration (she quickly sends her fiancé packing, a priest-ridden
second cousin named Shawn) and later in the attentions of other
fine women (including the Widow Quin, locally renowned for bashing her husband’s head in with a
pick), Christy finds new self-assurance and a silver tongue to aid him in his wooing of Pegeen,
even as he improves on his “single blow” story every time he gets a chance to tell it. Shawn
tries to bribe Christy into leaving for America but to no avail. The widow propositions him, but
Christy will have none of it; he has his heart set on Pegeen. Then, just as he’s riding the
crest of his popularity, winning races on the beach below the pub and winning Pegeen’s promise
afterwards that she’ll wed him without delay, who should turn up looking for him but his
thick-skulled father, alive and seeking vengeance.
Christy is appalled. Will Pegeen find out he’s an imposter? And what will happen
then to “the love-light of the star of knowledge shining from her brow”? Christy enlists the
widow’s aid in sending his father off on the wrong scent, but the old man soon comes weaving
back and unmasks him in front of everyone. Pegeen and the crowd turn on Christy as feared.
In desperation he seizes another spade and lays his father out a second time. But instead of
renewing their adulation now that he’s made an honest murderer of himself, Pegeen and the
crowd turn even uglier. Confronted not with “a gallous story” but “a dirty deed” which they
fear will bring the law down on them all, they prepare to lynch the unfortunate young man.
Christy struggles valiantly but is only saved by yet another entrance into the pub of the
indestructible old man this time on his hands and knees, still very much alive.
The scales have fallen from Christy’s eyes. Scornful of Pegeen and the other “fools of earth”
who first worshipped, then betrayed him, but with his new-found self esteem very much intact, he
turns the tables on his astonished father and drives him out into the world to be his slave.
After the two have left, Shawn voices everyone’s relief that life can now return to normal but
gets a box on the ear from Pegeen for his pains. As the play ends she breaks into wild
lamentations: “Oh, my grief. I’ve lost him surely. I’ve lost the only Playboy of the Western
World.”
From Touchmark's Press Release dated April 26, 2000:
...much of the team that brought Touchmark's Kingdom of Earth to life last year has
been reassembled for the company's season closer, J.M. Synge's 1907 comic masterpiece, The
Playboy of the Western World... Eric Woolfe, who played Lot in Kingdom of Earth,
returns to play the unlikely hero, Christy. He'll be joined in the cast by Krista Jackson
as Pegeen Mike, Kim Horsman as the Widow Quin and William Fisher as Old Mahon.
Elora-based designer Dennis Horn and Stratford-based lighting designer Renée
Brode will also be back to work on this production. Dundas resident Barbara McLean
Wright will be stage manager...
[Note added, November 26, 2000: Eric Woolfe, who was to play Christy in The Playboy
has opted out of the production (with our blessing and good wishes) in order to accept a year's
work as Timon in The Lion King at Toronto's Princess of Wales Theatre.
Fortunately we've been able to engage Michael Spencer-Davis to take his place. Michael
is a graduate of the Acting Program at the University of Alberta, has worked extensively at
various Edmonton theatres including the Citadel and has two "Sterling" awards for Outstanding
Actor in a Lead Role to his credit. He's also played parts for The Neptune Theatre in Halifax,
Theatre New Brunswick, The Blyth Festival and The Canadian Stage Company in Toronto. He's a
fine addition to our acting company. DNB]
From Touchmark's Press Release dated June 12, 2000:
A pair of Shaw Festival veterans, Joyce Campion and Neil Barclay, will take part
in Touchmark Theatre's 2000/2001 season... Mr. Barclay will join the Playboy
of the Western World company as Shawn Keogh...
Mr. Beattie was also pleased to announce that four talented young local actors who took
part in Touchmark's General Auditions in May, have accepted supporting roles in The Playboy
of the Western World. They are Carolyn Campbell of Hamilton, Melissa Good
from St. Jacobs, Guelph resident Matt Lancaster and Melissa Mae Lloyd of Fergus...
Playwright
John Millington Synge (pronounced "sing") was born near Dublin in 1871. His family,
landowners with holdings in several Irish counties, was "Protestant Ascendancy". Synge
developed a fascination and admiration for the Irish peasantry first in Wicklow as a boy and
later in the Aran Islands (part of "The Western World") where he encountered people whose
cultural affinity he sensed to be pre-Christian and fatalistic, who had assimilated Roman
Catholic piety without rejecting their own pantheistic world view. He was struck by their
primitive and wild expressions of joy and grief, intrigued by their stories and inspired by
their speech fed by "a popular imagination that is fiery, and magnificent, and tender". It is
fair to say he was also immensely tickled by their naive simplicity, unconscious humour and
child-like boastfulness, qualities which he exploited masterfully in many of his plays, most
notably in The Playboy. His other "peasant" plays are The Shadow of the Glen,
Riders to the Sea, The Tinker's Wedding and The Well of the Saints. After
writing The Playboy, Synge turned his hand to dramatizing a popular subject from Irish
mythology, but his Deirdre of the Sorrows remained unfinished at his death in 1909.
Director's Note
I have loved the play for years, savouring the strong assortment of characters, revelling in
the extraordinary mix of emotions it elicits, delighting in its mercurial changes of mood, awed
at its mythic resonance and, yes, being shocked and dumb-founded by the way things finally turn
out. As to whether it's a believable story or not, it has always struck me that it has the
character of a fleshed-out and multi-faceted fable. When we read Aesop we don't complain that
hares and tortoises in the natural world aren't interested in racing. Nor do we complain that,
if they were, the hares would certainly win all the races. We realize that what the author is
telling us is not a preposterous lie but a demonstrable truth about ourselves.
Reviews
The production is an evocative interpretation of Synge's classic tragicomedy, beginning
with Dennis Horn's wonderful set, which seems to be carved out of the rocky west Irish
coastline. The play unfolds in that twilight world where history and myth, reality and dream
intersect. Appropriately, Horn's set not so much brings to mind a rural pub at the crossroads
of the 19th and 20th centuries, wherein the action takes place, as much as a symbolic place
where the probable and the improbable meet.
Robert Reid, Kitchener-Waterloo Record
The moment you entered the space, you were drawn to the artistic excellence of Dennis Horn's
set design. From that point onward, each aspect of this production added another reason for
the audience to marvel at the quality of theatre that Touchmark Theatre is offering to Guelph
and area audiences... In a production of strong performances, it is difficult to fully
acknowledge each of the actors... in the space allotted. As an ensemble, they were an
excellent blend of talent who collectively gave an opening night performance with the finesse
one usually expects later in the run of a show. Michael Spencer-Davis in the lead role of
Christy, Krista Jackson as the woman he is smitten by and Kim Horsman as Widow Quin turned in
electrifying performances. Another mention must go to the enthusiastic ball of energy that
lit up the stage whenever the trio of Susan, Sarah and Honour -- the three young village girls
played by Melissa Mae Lloyd, Melissa Good and Carolyn Campbell -- appeared on stage.
Alan Argue, The Wellington Advertiser
The production's strength begins with Michael Spencer-Davis as Christy Mahon... and Krista
Jackson as Pegeen Mike... The key to Christy's character is the spectrum of physical and
emotional colour an actor must express -- from timidity verging on cowardice, through
increasing self-confidence to full-fledged self-assurance and esteem. Spencer-Davis handles
the transformation of Christy with persuasive charm. For her part, Jackson gives us a Pegeen
who is both feisty and vulnerable. As well, she conveys the yearnings of a woman whose life is
strictly circumscribed -- physically, emotionally, socially and spiritually -- but who desires
more... Horsman brilliantly gives us a character with unexpected depth, a woman who has
suffered the slings and arrows of misfortune and is still standing -- proudly and defiantly
with a simmering sexuality ready to boil... Neil Barclay is effective as Shawn Keogh, Pegeen's
hapless suitor... The same goes for Ian Deakin as Pegeen's father... and William Fisher as
Christy's father, Old Mahon.
Robert Reid, Kitchener-Waterloo Record
Douglas Beattie's direction is very sensitive to the flow of both the action and dialogue of
Synge's script. What is also striking about the production is how the combined elements of
theatre -- performance, staging and all design disciplines -- were each significant
contributors to the magic that was created in the Co-operators Hall on opening night.
Alan Argue, The Wellington Advertiser
Southern Ontario is very lucky to have seen three fine productions of... The Playboy of
the Western World in just the past twelve years. In 1990 a touring production by the
Abbey Theatre of Dublin stopped for performances at the Elgin Theatre. In 1996 the Shaw
Festival mounted a production so popular it was brought back in the following year. And now
we have a production by the Touchmark Theatre in Guelph... Anyone who has seen previous
Touchmark shows will not be surprised to learn that of these three this production is the one
that most clearly communicates the meaning of the play. Not only is the text the most clearly
spoken, but the underlying themes of the play are never obscured... Both the Abbey Theatre and
the Shaw Festival productions took an ultra-realistic approach to the play which is fine for
capturing the play's surface activity but misses the many layers of meaning below the surface.
Beattie, however, recognizes, as he states in the programme notes, that the play is "a
fleshed-out and multi-faceted fable"... It's very rare to find a director who knows how to
make the archetypal substrate of a play shine through its naturalistic surface with such
clarity. Dennis Horn's imaginative set and costumes support Beattie's approach... Renée
Brode's lighting, primarily a realistic reflection of the various times of day in the action,
will suddenly shift to highlight significant events. Michael Spencer-Davis is the best Christy
Mahon I have seen... Having no whiff of a dashing air about him and making sure that none
appears, Spencer-Davis makes clear what is so often lost in other productions that Christy is
a neutral template onto which the townspeople of this village in County Mayo have projected
their desire for adventure and their longing for the extraordinary... Kim Horsman's is the
most sympathetic portrayal of Widow Quin I have seen. She shuns all caricature of the widow
as a scheming, licentious woman, and instead gives her a desperation and intensity to match
Christy's... When she sees he can't be turned from his love for Pegeen, her sorrow is
devastating. Neil Barclay also shuns caricature in the role of Shawn Keogh, Pegeen's
cowardly cousin who so desperately wants to marry her. He makes Keogh a young man, aware of
his various flaws, who doesn't want his one chance at happiness to escape... Ian Deakin and
William Fisher turn in richly comic performances as the play's two fathers... Melissa Mae Lloyd,
Melissa Good and Carolyn Campbell, as girls from a neighbouring village, give the finest group
performance I've seen in a long time, functioning... as a kind of comic Greek chorus. Looking
back at Touchmark's first two seasons, all three plays presented have been characterized by the
kind of meticulous productions and intelligent, insightful direction we might expect to see in
the best work at Canada's major theatre festivals. Thanks to Touchmark, we don't have to wait
until summer for fine theatre in Southern Ontario.
Christopher Hoile, Stage Door
Congratulations for the magnificent production of Playboy that you mounted!! Annie
and I plus all our invitees thoroughly enjoyed ourselves in the company of your superb players.
Chandler Kirwin, Guelph
Photos by Doug Marr. Top: (from left)
Stephanie Belding (standby for Melissa Good), Melissa Mae Lloyd, Carolyn Campbell, Kim Horsman,
Michael Spencer-Davis. Bottom: Michael Spencer-Davis & Krista Jackson
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