The Playboy of the Western World and Riders to the Sea
by John Millington Synge
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Two lyrical, beautifully crafted dramas set among the folk of the Aran Islands and western Irish coastlands. Reprinted from authoritative editions, complete with Synge's preface to The Playboy of the Western World. New introductory Note.Tags
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I remember having seen a French Canadian adaptation of this play in high school. Boy were we naive back then... not understanding a thing about literature. The play was indeed boring for us.
However, years later, I enjoyed reading this play for its use of comedy, local language and its meta-comment on playing roles (much more subtle than any Shakespeare).
However, years later, I enjoyed reading this play for its use of comedy, local language and its meta-comment on playing roles (much more subtle than any Shakespeare).
I didn't really know what to make of these plays. It probably didn't help that I read The Playboy of the Western World when I was sick. It's strange, and I'm not sure I can say much more than that, even after seeing a performance of it. There are bits that I liked, and there are bits that I didn't. The characters are all well-drawn, and I usually enjoyed their interactions. Which is a bit of an awful review, but there you go. Riders to the Sea, on the other hand, which tells the story of a family on the Aran Islands, is just too over-the-top to be effective. If men really died on the Aran Islands at that rate, there wouldn't be anyone left! Still has some chilling moments and great imagery, though.
I doubt I'd fail to enjoy a good performance of this, but reading it was very tedious. I'm sure it would be different if Irish drama were an area of interest for me. I am interested in the French Canadian adaptation that another reviewer mentioned.
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After graduating from Trinity College, Dublin, Synge left for Europe to write poetry. If W. B. Yeats had not discovered him in Paris and persuaded him to return to Ireland and absorb its native traditions, the Irish renaissance might have lost its best playwright. As it was, Synge's poetry of Celtic romanticism was rather more tempered with a show more European realism than Yeats and his renaissance had anticipated. Yeats sent Synge to the West of Ireland to get to know the peasants there. The result was, in addition to the journal The Aran Islands (1907), two short plays for the Abbey: The Shadow of the Glen (1903), in which a comic resurrection interrupts a widow's marriage bargaining, and Riders to the Sea (1904), about a mother's loss of her last son, a perfect condensed tragedy and probably the finest one-act play. The poorly received The Well of the Saints (1905), whose characters vehemently reject reality for comfortable illusion, offered the Abbey audience a warning of what was to come. This was Synge's masterpiece, The Playboy of the Western World (1907), which touched off rioting at the theater. The playboy is Christy Mahon, a lout who becomes a hero among the Mayo peasantry when he boasts he has murdered his father. Satire on Irish romanticism conceals a parable of the poet's development and estrangement from his public. But Dublin nationalists heard only the people slandered, and Dublin prudery heard only the forbidden word "shifts" on Christy's lips. Playboy was the last play Synge saw staged. He died of cancer at age 37, never having completed Deirdre of the Sorrows (1910), his only work in the Celtic legendary mode. (Bowker Author Biography) show less
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- Canonical title
- The Playboy of the Western World and Riders to the Sea
- Original publication date
- 1907 (Playboy of the Western World) (Playboy of the Western World); 1935 (Riders of the Sea) (Riders of the Sea)
- Disambiguation notice
- This edition includes both Playboy of the Western World and Riders to the Sea. Do not combine it with editions that contain only one of the two plays.
Please do not combine with Playboy of Western World & Other Plays. Do not combine with the individual play Playboy of the Western World. Do not combine with the individual play Riders to the Sea.
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- Paper, Ebook
- ISBNs
- 10
- UPCs
- 2
- ASINs
- 19
