Juno and the Paycock premièred at the Abbey Theatre in Dublin in 1924, only two years after when it is set, shortly after the creation of the Irish Free State when there was civil war between those who supported the treaty which established it and its opponents. On the one hand, it is a tragic tale of desperate times; on the other, riotous comedy.
The audience is greeted by an act drop of swagged red curtains and a row of old-fashioned seashell footlights, and in the middle of the proscenium arch hangs a small, shiny crucifix. It is a hint of what is to come.
The curtain rises on a room in a sparsely furnished working-class tenement. Rob Howell’s design presents realistic doors set in to monochrome walls, patches bare to the brickwork and broken off above with a montage of buildings and scaffolding rising above them that, lit red, looks menacing.
Here, a young woman is reading an account of a recent killing of a neighbour by Free State supporters to her brother. She is Mary Boyle (Aisling Kearns), who is on strike so not working. Brother Johnny (Eimhin Fitzgerald Doherty) isn’t working either; he lost an arm in the War of Independence and is keeping a low profile afraid he’s been thought an informer. Their father, “Captain” Jack Boyle (Mark Rylance), whom his wife calls a peacock from the way he struts about, claims his legs hurt and he can’t work; the pains come on whenever there is any sign of a job being available: he is just work-shy. The job his wife Juno (J Smith-Cameron) has is currently supporting the whole family.
Juno comes home ready to cook breakfast, annoyed that Jack isn’t there, especially when Mary’s ex-boyfriend Jerry (Leo Hanna) turns up with news of a job going. As they suspect, he’s out with his bosom pal “Joxer” Daly (Paul Hilton).
The dark tragedy of the civil war and loss is usurped by comic confrontation between Juno and "Captain” Jack with Jack and sidekick Joxer sometimes resembling a music hall double act. Juno is protective and understanding as she tries to hold the family together, but she can boil over too. Jack is feckless and full of fancy. The contrast between Smith-Cameron’s performance and that of Rylance matches their characters perfectly: while she addresses a soliloquy to the crucifix now hanging about the downstage fireplace, he speaks out front engaging the audience.
When schoolteacher Charles Bentham (Chris Walley) arrives to tell Jack a relative has died leaving him a good sum of money (he knows because he helped write the will), Jack goes on a spending spree on tick: a smart suit, a new bed, a dresser, even a gramophone. It’s the peacock on parade, and he tries to keep up the pretence even as he knows that things are crashing down.
Matthew Warchus’s production negotiates the changes of mood to excellent effect, as when after terrified Johnny thinks he has seen a ghost they start singing Irish songs with Anna Healey hitting the high notes as neighbour Maisie Madigan to be followed by Ingrid Craigie’s Mrs Tancred passionately lamenting her son’s murder. As things get darker, there is a sense of disintegration that Warchus reflects in the staging.
Comedy in such a setting can be difficult to pull off, especially when it is contemporaneous with real life. I couldn’t help wondering how you could handle it set in Ukraine or the Middle East. Then I remembered Sami Ibrahim’s Two Palestinians Go Dogging (and it is just one example). Theatre can do remarkable things.