Shaughraun Review – Comedic antics and sinister magic in a divided Ireland | stage

DIon Boucicault’s comic melodrama from 1874 holds a place in the history of theater for its playful upending of national stereotypes and expectations. Finding a delicious balance between whimsy and sincerity, Garry Hynes’s innovative production for Druid Theater Company celebrates Boucicault’s gifts as a playwright and master of the theatrical spectacle, whose creativity dazzled 19th-century audiences in New York and London.

This show takes the style of miniature, with Sligo landscapes, clifftops and Gothic spiers depicted as picture book illustrations that can be seen from a distance. She descends stairs and furniture and slides with the help of the agile cast of 10, made even more deft by “Shagrawn” Con (Aaron Monaghan), a hunter and con man. Here, Cone also serves as master of ceremonies and stage manager, as if standing in for Boucicault himself.

The complex tale of land-grabbing, kidnapping and English redcoats pursuing fleeing Fenians unfolds against Francis O’Connor’s design of the pages of an Ordnance Survey map of western Ireland. Placing the play’s antics in its colonial context also points to Boucicault’s influence on Brian Friel’s translations. As in Friel’s play, a farcical misunderstanding complicates the romantic relationship between wide-eyed English Captain Molyneux (Fintan Kinsella) and intelligent local young woman Claire Folliot (Megan Cusack).

When Claire’s brother, Robert Ffoliot (Marty Rea), secretly returns from Australia after being deported by devious judge Kinchella (Rory Nolan), Molyneux becomes increasingly bewildered by this “exceptional” country. Kinchella, played by a sinister Nolan, closes in on his prize of the Foliot estate – and his fiancée (Eileen Walsh) – as Connor Linehan’s live piano score pays it all off with a Victorian music hall flourish.

Always a strategist, the scheming Kun applies zero gravity while plotting to break Robert out of prison. Monaghan is perfectly cast, deceptively charming without being adolescent, and his performance echoes his previous portrayal of Christy Mahon in Synge’s The Playboy of the Western World, as does Mary Mullen, who plays Cone’s sniveling mother who mischievously takes advantage of the many widows Synge has played.

Layering references to earlier Druid productions, this underscores Boucicault’s influence on many later Irish playwrights, while allowing everyone in the beautifully cohesive ensemble to have contagious enjoyment.