Peter Viney's Blog

The Ferryman

By Jez Butterworth

Directed by Sam Mendes
Designed by Rob Howell
Composer & Sound Designer Nick Powell

Royal Court Theatre, Chelsea, London
Saturday 29th April 2017, afternoon

CAST IN ORDER OF APPEARNCE
Turlough Convery – Lawrence Malone, IRA man
Eugene O’Hare – Frank Magennis, IRA man
Gerard Horan – Father Corrigan
Stuart Graham – Muldoon, an IRA officer
Paddy Considine – Quinn Carney, an Armargh farmer
Laura Donnelly – Caitlin Carney, Quinn’s sister-in-law
Elise Alexandra or Darcey Conway – Mercy Carney, Quinn’s daughter, age 9
Angel O’Callaghan or Clara Mercy – Nunu Carney,  Quinn’s daughter, age 11
Brid Brennan – Aunt Maggie Far Away
Carla Langley- Sheena Carney,  Quinn’s daughter, age 14
Des McAleer – Uncle Pat Carney, Quinn’s uncle
Niall Wright – J.J. Carney, Quinn’s eldest son, age 16
Sophia Ally or Grace Doherty – Honor Carney, Quinn’s daughter, age 7
Rob Malone – Oisin Carney. age 14. Caitlin’s only son
Dearbhla Molloy – Aunt Pat Carney, Quinn’s aunt
John Hodgkinson – Tom Kettle, an English factotum
Far Free – Michael Carney, Quinn’s son
Genevieve O’Reilly- Mary Carney, Quinn’s wife
(5 different children) – Bobby Carney, age 9 months
Tom Glynn-Carney – Shane Corcoran, age 17
Conor MacNeill – Diarmaid Corcoran, age 16
Michael McCarthy or Xavier Moras, Declan Corcoran, age 13

A PREAMBLE (skip if you want)

We saw it on Saturday. I’ve held this back to Wednesday, press night, because the theatre seem keen on releasing only minimal plot information in advance. I’ve avoided plot spoilers too.

My ticket

A strange review … we missed the one hour of Act One, but saw the two hour Act Two and Three. The first thing is, we followed the plot perfectly even so and we loved the play. Our tickets said 2.30. We must be at fault in some way, because the rest of the audience all  knew it had been changed back to 1.30 because of its three hours running time. We had stayed in a hotel overnight so as to see it. We were outside the theatre at 1.35 buying our Tube tickets back to Hammersmith where the car was parked (at double the cost of a year ago). We’d been killing an hour before looking vaguely in shops around Sloane Square. We went in at 2 pm and sat downstairs in the café. There were a few people in there, it was not empty. We went upstairs at 2.15 which is when we discovered why there was no one around … they were all in the theatre … we’d heard no noise. Hats off to the Royal Court staff who were sympathetic and kind, and offers to refund our ticket money, and gave us a play text each. What happened? Well, I’d been on the website of the Royal Court on Friday and again on Saturday morning to check the running time and do the cast list (partly) above this, as I often do in advance to save time in reviews. I knew it ran 3 hours plus a 15 minute interval. I saw no note of changed times, though just checking again, 1.30 is indeed there in pale grey as the matinee. I’d been outside the theatre and saw no signs. They said they had sent e-mails. Probably. My junk filter is on “highest” and I miss bulk mailings. They said they had sent a reminder that morning. Maybe … we had an intensive eight days of theatre, as we do once or twice a year. I had had messages about “my forthcoming visit” from the Watermill Newbury, the Nuffield Southampton, the Barbican, and the Garrick. All were much the same, reminding me of their restaurant and bar facilities. I always get them and rarely read them before deleting. Maybe the Royal Court went the same way. The rest of the audience knew, but maybe it wasn’t their fifth play in a week. They said they had sent replacement tickets … so put it with the several deliveries since Christmas that hadn’t arrived. I don’t think it’s the Royal Court’s fault, but the Royal Mail has long deserved to lose its charter. I trust our local office, but stuff from London so often fails to arrive.

REVIEW

So should I review it at all? We were shown a synopsis of Act One in the interval. We both found the basic information sufficient. I got home and have read the Prologue and Act One twice. It is magnificent. I desperately hope they do a Live broadcast to cinemas so I can catch it. The synopsis worked. We both felt we knew enough and were instantly drawn into the story and had no problems following it for two hours. Act One sets up the situation in the short Prologue (which we had time to read in the interval, as advised by the staff), then establishes and enriches the characters of the Carney family in Act One … but really, if you’ve read the prologue and know a couple of basic facts, then Act Two and Three make perfect sense … which might be a tip if they want to find a way of cutting 30 minutes. They don’t need to, I guess, as everyone was transfixed in the audience, and it got the rare “instant standing ovation” and deservedly so.

What we needed to know …

Act One opens with Caitlin (Laura Donnelly) and Quinn (Paddy Considine) playing Connect 4. We missed it.

It’s 1981 in rural County Armargh. The IRA hunger strikers are in prison … I’m going to have to use the word IRA, possibly erroneously to cover what might be other Republican splinter groups. Ten years earlier, Quinn’s brother, Seamus Carney disappeared. In the prologue, Father Horrigan is summoned to Derry to meet Muldoon, a high-ranking IRA official, who informs him that peat cutters have discovered Seamus’s perfectly preserved body in a peat bog. His hands are tied round his rosary, and he has a bullet hole in the back of his head … he had been executed, in the style of the troubles, by his own side. He left his wife, Caitlin, and a three year old son, Oisin. They have been taken in by Seamus’s farmer brother Quinn to live with his family. Quinn had been in the IRA and in prison with Muldoon and had left four weeks before Seamus’s death. At the end of Act One, Father Horrigan tells Quinn about the body, who then tells Caitlin. It’s the day before the big Harvest Festival dinner, a family tradition stretching back sixty years. They decide to withhold the news from everyone else until after the festival. Unknown to them, Caitlin’s son, Oisin, has overheard them. OK, you’re where we were at the start of Act 2 (and like us, you’ve missed some wonderful banter and the realisation that Caitlin and Quinn act more like husband and wife, what with Mary spending most of her time ill upstairs (having had seven children!).

Also Act One: L to R: Caitlin (Laura Donnelly), Aunt Pat (Dearbhla Molloy), Mary (Genevieve O’Reilly)

Apart from that, let’s not tell you the plot. It is a very powerful and bold tale. It is NOT a comedy, like Jerusalem and Mojo though we laughed out loud many times. The territory is Martin McDonagh’s The Lieutenant of Inishmoor, but that told its tale through absurd humour. This is a full serious play. Jez Butterworth was only thirteen when the events around the Northern Ireland hunger strikes unfolded. He is an Englishman too, but according to Wikipedia he was inspired to read English at university because of Brien Friel’s Translations, and Friel’s plays are set in Donegal, just over the border from Armagh. Both counties were in Ulster until 1922, when six of the nine Ulster counties became Northern Ireland, and three joined the Irish Free State. Whatever, the language sounded absolutely real to us. So.

Bobby Sands memorial, Belfast. My photo 2015.

The main characters are Quinn (Paddy Considine ), Caitlin (Laura Donnely), Muldoon (Stuart Graham) and Shane, the Corcoran’s eldest boy, who is already flirting with involvement with the IRA. The Englishman, Tom Kettle, soft in the head, is the other main figure. Quinn and Caitlin are very close.

The story resonates with us. Karen, my wife and co-aithor, was brought up in Belfast. Two years ago we did the Belfast “Political Tour.” These take place with guides in old London taxis. The guide was brilliant at appearing neutral, listing atrocities on both sides, and only showed his own sympathies when tears came into his eyes at the Bobby Sands memorial outside the Sinn Fein headquarters. Bobby Sands is mentioned a great deal in the play.  Our guide also explained that one of his uncles had spent many years in jail. I ventured to ask why, and he said “The usual. The bombings.” Butterworth’s play also shows that all sides committed evils. The fierce, staunchly Republican Aunt Pat lists British deeds, with much emphasis on 1916. Later when the Corcoran cousins appear to help with the harvest, Shane Corcoran tells of current British army atrocities, But we also know that his own side executed Seamus and that Shane has been drawn in to give information for bombing, and to witness a punishment beating. And Shane likes it.

Muldoon (Stuart Graham)

Muldoon is terrifying.  Muldoon is the hard man. He uses calm, careful deliberate language. This is a terrorist with an eye on future image. He wants Quinn to promise there will no fuss, no talking to the press about Seamus’s execution. His calm language, is of course, backed up by the silent presence of two heavy bodyguards. This is a man who sees a future political solution. He has a grey pointed beard, a black leather jacket and one of his bodyguards is called Frank Magennis. No reference to an Irish politician with calm reassuring language and a grey beard then, nor to his recently-deceased associate with a similar sounding name. Like Tony Blair, moving forward is his catchphrase. Muldoon tells Caitlin:

I cannot fathom how the years of uncertainty must have taken their toll on you … That’s why I wanted to come here personally to assure you that whatever happened to Seamus all those years ago, whatever went on, that the IRA had absolutely nothing to do with to. I know there have been rumours, allegations …

What eats into them is summed up by Uncle Pat, an old man with a bad knee and an encyclopaedic knowledge of classical literature.

Uncle Pat (Des McAleer) reads from The Aenid

He quotes The Aenid on the River Styx and gives the play its title:

All this crowd you see, they are the unburied. The ferryman is Charon. He may not carry them from the fearful shore on the harsh waters before their bones are at rest in the earth. They roam for a thousand years, lost on these shores. Their souls abandoned. (Virgil, The Aenid)

That’s the thing about Seamus. He is the unburied.  See this news clip, from The Independent in 1999:

THE IRA LAST night attempted to win a tactical advantage in the crucial Belfast political talks by announcing that it had identified the graves of nine people killed and buried secretly by the organisation in the Seventies. The news came as a huge relief to the families of missing people, known as “the disappeared”, who have said they have not been able to grieve properly because of the absence of the bodies of their relatives … The next step may be for the IRA to say it will reveal the bodies’ locations in exchange for legal assurances that new evidence would not be used in criminal proceedings. (David McKittrick, 29 March 1999)

The BBC did a documentary on “The disappeared” in 2013, and indeed peat bogs just across the border were a favourite grave site.  The TV programme included the story of the priest who gave last rites to a man about to be executed, and whose body was eventually found in 1999. A priest is a key character in this play. Then there’s Jean McConville, a mother of ten, whose body was found in 2003. The BBC article has a picture of a real grey bearded politician with the caption “Gerry Adams denies he was involved in Jean McConville’s disappearance.” I guess this was part of what Jez Butterworth researched.

Caitlin (Laura Donnelly)

It’s even worse for Caitlin in the play. Caitlin has been fed deliberate misinformation about false sightings of Seamus by so-called “friends” for years too, so she could not move forward herself.

Graffiti: Belfast … still seeking truths about the past. In this case about 1971. My photo 2015.

Shane (Tom Glynn-Carney) has a great role in Act 3, he is the would be terrorist, the one who wants to be part of it. The contrast between the tough Corcoran lads, there for the harvest, and the milder, more gentle farm lads, the Carneys, is dramatic.  Shane’s discussion with Michael is masterly writing. Congratulations on avoiding the screamingly obvious The Patriot Game, a song which bookends the Lieutenant of Inishmoor and I was expecting any minute here. Mind you, I was humming it going home.

Tom Kettle (the always marvellous John Hodgkinson) as the only English voice in the play is a moving, sweetly funny performance … he does magic tricks, and he has loved Caitlin from afar.  He is simple-minded, and was found abandoned age 12 and taken in by the Carneys. The section where he reads “The Silent Lover” aloud is memorable.

Quinn (Paddy Considine) with his wife Mary (Genevieve O’Reilly)

Paddy Considine as Quinn is the centre of the story. He knows Muldoon of old. When they argue in Act 2, I watch and think, ‘I’d put my money on Quinn when push comes to shove.” A truly superb performance.

This is Jez Butterworth. Jerusalem had live chickens on stage. This has a first … a live goose (in Act One sadly). We have live rabbits. Maybe it’s something about Irish plays about The Troubles … The Lieutenant of Inishmoor featured a real cat. We have a real 9 month old baby being changed on stage. We have lots of children. We have humour in many many lines.

Quinn (Paddy Considine) with his kids

The joyous Irish cross-generational dance which breaks into a rock dance is simply the very best scene I have seen on a stage this year.

We get magical storytelling from Aunt Maggie Far Away (Brid Brennan) as she tells the children myths and tales … like other very old people, her mind is drifting and bouncing between 1916 and 1981, but when se comes alert it’s at opportune moments with opportune comments. She also sings She Moved Through The Fair touchingly. For much of Act Two she has to remain motionless … quite a task.

I wondered about the choice of the name Muldoon for the villain of the piece. Is it a little in-joke? I immediately thought of Spotty Muldoon, a man Peter Cook often talked about in his E.L. Wisty monologues. Spotty Muldoon wore a bag over his head, rather than a balaclava.

The Peace Wall, 2015. My photo.

Belfast is a great city, and has more murals than anywhere in Europe. The people are proud that the army checkpoints have gone from the shopping centre, though the shops have kept the steel shutters at night, which were to protect the shops against bomb blasts. The Cathedral district is friendly, cosmopolitan and thriving. However, the high Peace Wall still divides the two communities in West Belfast, and the Catholic area still has steel shuttered gates at night for its own protection. The rows of neat modern terraced houses are replacements for the originals which were burnt out. If you visit Northern Ireland (I highly recommend it), do take a Political Tour.

Above all, The Ferryman is a story about the search for truth, the need to put the past to bed perhaps, but you can’t do that without acknowledging it. It also to mourn the fallen.This play is subtle, genuine, and hard-hitting material, and the best play I have seen in a very long time. Probably since Martin McDonagh’s The Hangmen … at the Royal Court, also with John Hodgkinson. And that was the best since Birthday which was at the Royal Court. I guess I’ll have to forgive them the time switch.

It is moving to the West End after the Royal Court, I hope to see it in full next time. Gielgud Theatre, 20 June to 7 October.

We only saw two-thirds of it, but that’s enough to rate it as 5 star.

*****

LITTLE STAGE QUIBBLE

The lids on the cooking range are up throughout. You lose heat very fast. In Act 2 there’s a small saucepan on one … it would boil dry in 5 minutes.  The set designer does not have an Aga. In Act 3 there’s nothing on the hotplates but the lids are up. My companion says it may be to heat the room … at harvest time in Armagh? You’d also lose so much heat that the ovens would be too cool to operate … and a cooked goose is brought out.

I’m surprised that the simple Tom Kettle, living with an Irish family from age 12 with no English people within miles, retained his English accent.

Other quibble – it’s written as a three act play. Why only one interval? Also, 33% of the way in, is an odd place for a break as the three acts appear of equal length.

WHAT THE CRITICS SAID

I can’t remember such a near unanimous “five”
5
Michael Billington, The Guardian *****
Domenic Cavendish, The Telegraph, *****
Paul Taylor, The Independent, *****
Henry Hitchings, Evening Standard, *****
Quentin Lets, The Daily Mail *****
Natasha Tripney, The Stage *****
4
David Jays, Sunday Times, ****
(The Sunday Times consistently marks lower than anyone else.)

LINKS ON THIS BLOG:

JEZ BUTTERWORTH
Jerusalem by Jez Butterworth, West End
Mojo by Jez Butterworth, West End

SAM MENDES
Richard III – Kevin Spacey, Old Vic, 2011
King Lear – Simon Russell-Beale, National Theatre, 2014

JOHN HODGKINSON
Love’s Labour’s Won (Much Ado) RSC 2014 RSC Don Pedro
Love’s Labour’s, RSC 2016 Don Armado
Hangmen, by Martin McDonagh, Royal Court, London 2015 (Albert Pierrepointe)

DES McALEER
Platonov, by Anton Chekhov, version by David Hare, Chichester Festival Theatre
Ivanov, by Anton Chekhov, version by David Hare, Chichester Festival Theatre
The Seagull, by Anton Chekhov, version by David Hare, Chichester Festival Theatre