View from the Green Room: This Juno is a gem!
Juno and the Paycock was performed at Dunhill Community Centre.
Dunhill Players production of Seán O Casey’s ‘Juno and the Paycock’ says everything about the quality and inclusiveness of amateur drama in rural Ireland. A quality production, a big local cast, firm direction and a packed hall makes for a first-class evening’s entertainment. And mighty welcomes for everyone in the hall from everyone in the hall.
Juno isn’t easy theatre. It’s dated and the drama has to invoke the context of a violent Ireland in the dying months of the Civil War where brother fought brother and everyone was afraid. The struggle to steer clear of the idealism of Regulars and Irregulars, divided by the Treaty, and live some kind of normal life was difficult – especially when strikes and lockouts were common.
The Boyle family lives through the turbulence of Civil War Ireland and experiences the deprivation that poverty, rooted in a dysfunctional father, brings.
There’s laughter and tears here, along with heartbreak and reality. Capt. Boyle may be everyone’s favourite as he fantasises himself as the captain of a schooner, a republican in 1916, a mandarin of finance and a philosopher. All good… provided he’s not your Dad! Jonathan Whelan’s Jackie Boyle brings it all to the table and more as he engages our attention from curtain to curtain.
Johnny Ryan brings great fun to the role of drinking butty and social parasite Joxer Daly as he cadges drink and scraps from the Boyles. His verbal gymnastics and shape-shifting quixotic character facilitates much of Boyle’s fantasies as a mariner and a philosopher, despite knowing that Boyle was never on a boat in his life. Joxer is one of the great survivors.
Louise Walsh’s courageous and much-suffering Juno is the true heroine of the drama. Married to ne’er-do-well Captain Boyle, her daughter Mary (sympathetically understated by Tara Murray) is on strike and son Johnny (the excellent Martin Harney) is reduced to a tetchy, walking one-armed cripple. Juno is the only breadwinner as bills continue to mount and Capt. Boyle spends all he has on drink.
The family’s fortunes are offered a lifeline when Boyle’s first cousin dies and leaves him almost £2,000 (worth €170,000 today) in his will. Sadly, it’s a windfall that also brings down the family with it. Full-time national school teacher and part-time Mickey Dazzler Charlie Bentham (suitably aloof David Walsh), who is walking out with Mary, "writ the will wrong" and banjaxes the family’s affairs.
Tenement neighbours play important roles in the drama. Anne Marie Queally could reminisce for Ireland as Maisie Tancred, Micheál Casey brings great fun to the role of Needle Nugent, Peter Casey is a very convincing Jerry Devine, former boyfriend to Mary, while Clodagh Feehan is a very sympathetic Mrs Tancred, mother of murdered son Robbie Tancred.
Other roles were filled by Eoin Casey, David Casey, Cormac Daniels, Darragh Veale and Samantha Doyle.
Although the set is far too clean for a 1920s tenement and the lighting gives a very pale hue to the characters, Mary Harney’s direction is spot on. A large cast of characters are all well-defined, lines are spot on, cueing is just right and the pace of the production is tight.
Another quality production from Dunhill Players.
