The Ferryman
New Village Arts’ production of Jez Butterworth’s celebrated Tale of the Troubles is stuffed to bursting and as subtle as a punch in the on-the-nose, right down to the soundtrack’s inclusion of The Cranberries’ “Zombie,” a song written in the aftermath of an IRA bombing that killed two children in 1993. Nearly the whole thing takes place in the downstairs of the Carney family farmhouse, but it feels more like an epic filmthan a single-setting play, in part because of all the stories that get told, in mellifluous brogue, of action taking place elsewhere —very often, violent action.
We open with the finding of a body: Quinn Carney’s brother Seamus, dead lo these many years, with a bullet hole in his head. Seamus was once in the IRA (and what do you know, so was Quinn), and the details surrounding his death are as murky as the bog in which he was found. It’s bad timing, what with the attention on Irishmen starving themselves to death in prison to protest their status as criminals as opposed to political activists. (It's a precient scenario, given that the play won a Tony in 2019, before the destruction that followed in the wake of George Floyd.) Quinn will need talking to, as will Seamus’ wife Caitlin, who’s been living with him ever since her husband’s disappearance.
But that talk is a long way off: first, there’s the life of the Carney farm to share in: the Ireland that isn’t at war, that’s content to ship its grain to Poland as pig feed, because that’s all it's allowed to do. It’s harvest day, and the clamorous clan is all abuzz — all except wife Mary, who is upstairs (and offstage) with a virus. But it's hard to miss her, given the crowd that is present: this is a huge show, generous with its characters, indulgent in its scenes (the post-harvest dance is a production unto itself), and ambitious in its mounting.
Thomas Edward Daugherty’s Quinn has the charisma to not only carry the actionbut also serve as its center of gravity. Still,the play makes it tough for him to show his evolution as a character. The viewer must be content with his many interactions with others, and the tales told by those in the generations above and below him, to help understand the nature and effect of the gradually mounting tension within his breast.
When
Ongoing until Sunday, March 5, 2023
Hours
| Sundays, 7:30pm |
| Saturdays, 7:30pm |