Juno and the Paycock at The Lyttleton

Another day, another play, actually another Irish play – Juno and the Paycock at The Lyttleton.  Playboy of the Western World may have got the good reviews, but, for me this co-production with the Abbey Theatre, Dublin is better, mainly because there are no weak links in the acting department. 

With the Irish Civil War as a backdrop, Juno and the Paycock, set in a Dublin tenement in 1922, concerns the Boyle family;  the father “Captain” Jack Boyle, mother Juno, daughter, Mary and son Johnny.  Jack, excellently portrayed by Ciaran Hinds would rather tell “tall” sea stories than do a job of work.  The work ethic is only instilled in Juno, the stunningly effective Sinead Cusack, as Mary is on strike and Johnny, having lost an arm in the War of Independence, now lives his life in fear of being executed as a punishment for betraying a fellow IRA comrade.  The play brilliantly illustrates the family’s difficulties, celebrations when luck comes calling and heartache when they realise the luck was false.

The physical timing in some of the scenes is superb, testament to the fact that the cast are already immersed in their characters having been playing them in Dublin.  Janet Moran as neighbour Mrs. Maisie Madigan and Risteard Cooper playing Jack’s rogue of a drinking buddy, Joxer, lighten the whole proceedings really well and the duet with Juno and Mary is wonderfully touching.  In fact under Howard Davies’ direction and Bob Crowley’s design, Sean O’Casey’s devastating portrait of wasted potential in a Dublin torn apart by the chaos of War, is perfectly brought to life.  Finally, when the tragedy ultimately strikes Sinead Cusack is intensely moving.

My only reservation is that it took a little while for me to tune into the Dublin dialect, but once there I was hooked.

Collaborators at The Cottesloe

It’s always an enormous pleasure watching Simon Russell-Beale in a production, especially when Nicholas Hytner is the Director, and last night was no exception.  Collaborators, a new play by John Hodge is previewing at The Cottesloe, opening on the 1^st November.  The play is inspired by historical fact and centres on the Russian playwright, Mikhail Bulgakov, who in 1938 was commissioned to write a play about Stalin.

The play enters the surreal world of Bulgakov, played by the excellent  Alex Jennings, as he leaves the impoverished apartment he shares with his wife and three dissidents to have meetings with the murderous dictator.  Their relationship turns out to be macabre and disturbingly funny and causes those back home to question the whole exercise.

Although the play is funny, there are moments of tension,  especially when Stalin, the wonderful Simon Russell Beale and Vladimir, a member of the Secret Police, expertly portrayed by Mark Addy, play their tactical games of uncertainty.  As John Hodge writes in the programme:  a subtle alteration in job description might lead to arrest weeks later, or, just possibly, it might not.

The surrealist moments in the production weren’t always immediately clear, but having to think is often a good thing and Bob Crowley’s staging, although complicated, worked well.  Mind you, the slope dividing the apartment’s bedroom from the living area, needs careful negotiating;  one actor obviously misjudged it and did an awkward “soft shoe shuffle”.

I thoroughly enjoyed this thought provoking insight into life in Moscow under Stalin’s reign of terror and the chemistry between Simon Russell Beale and Alex Jennings was a joy.