The Playboy of the Western World and Other Plays by j.m. synge

29 reviews All reviews

ailuo

★ ★ ★ ★ ★

July 15,2025

In August 2012, I had the opportunity to read "Riders to the Sea."

This play by J.M. Synge is a powerful and poignant exploration of life and death in a small fishing community.

The story follows Maurya, an elderly woman who has lost many of her sons to the sea.

As the play unfolds, we see her struggle to come to terms with her losses and find meaning in her life.

The language in "Riders to the Sea" is beautiful and evocative, painting a vivid picture of the harsh but beautiful landscape of the west of Ireland.

The characters are well-developed and complex, and we feel a deep sense of empathy for Maurya and her family.

Overall, reading "Riders to the Sea" was a moving and thought-provoking experience that left a lasting impression on me.

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BreathOfFire3

★ ★ ★ ★ ★

July 15,2025

I don't enjoy reading plays, and this is probably the reason why I gave this book a rating of only 2 stars. However, putting aside my personal reading preferences, the plays themselves are actually quite entertaining.

If you read this book in a class setting, as I did, you will find that there is a wealth of wonderful material here to analyze and discuss. The plays offer various themes, characters, and storylines that can spark interesting conversations and interpretations.

Although I may not have had a great personal experience with reading the plays, I can still recognize the value and potential they hold for those who are interested in the genre or are studying it in an academic context.

Overall, while this book may not be for everyone, it does have its merits and can provide an enjoyable and educational experience for those who approach it with an open mind.

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Capnskart

★ ★ ★ ★ ★

July 15,2025

Once, when midnight smote the air,

Eunuchs ran through Hell and met

On every crowded street to stare

Upon great Juan riding by:

Even like these to rail and sweat

Staring upon his sinewy thigh.

So Yeats says "On Those that hated 'The Playboy of the Western World,' 1907," by which it appears that if we don't want to be damned eunuchs, in Yeats's opinion, we need to try to appreciate Synge.

Synge is, then, interesting. He is a playwright who deals unapologetically with the supernatural, and intensely with the unlovable. In these little plays, there are a bunch of nasty human beings and a veritably Greek amount of miracles (miracles which don't seem to do much good for anybody).

The language is interesting too. The syntax is a sort of hyper-Irish that even the early actors couldn't read without lots of practice. It's as if Synge is stretching the language to its limits to convey the fullness of his vision.

The psychology is like a Shakespearian magnifying glass. It seems to say, "Here is what you'd look like if you had no restrictions." It peels back the layers of our personalities and shows us the raw, unfiltered truth.

Here, perhaps, is life, with all its sinewy thighs and imperfections. Synge's plays are a window into a world that is both strange and familiar, a world that challenges us to look beyond the surface and see the deeper meaning of things.

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ricots08

★ ★ ★ ★ ★

July 15,2025

Six plays that truly merit greater recognition!

All of them are relatively concise, with a couple being just one act long, yet they are intense dramas that have immediately found a place in my memory.

Synge's characters are predominantly the rural and peasant people of Ireland. Many of them are outcasts or dissenters of various kinds, such as tinkers, tramps, and fugitives. However, they are blessed with glorious and vivid imaginations, and a musical idiom to complement.

By presenting the world through their observant and often subversive eyes (!), Synge not only entertains but also exposes and challenges the forces of domination and repression, like the Church or the English.

This is a must-read for anyone interested in Irish literary or cultural history, as well as for those interested in the history of drama or the stage.

It offers a unique perspective and a rich exploration of the human condition within the context of Irish society.

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maxinedn

★ ★ ★ ★ ★

July 15,2025

In 'Deirdre of the Sorrows', Synge presents the eponymous Deirdre making a rather interesting claim. She states that 'It is not a small thing to be rid of grey hairs and the loosening of the teeth'. Clearly, for Synge, this is regarded as a huge asset. In fact, after finishing reading his collection of plays, I almost felt relieved for his sake that he died young. He has an absolutely morbid disgust for ageing, and this is especially ramped up when it comes to ageing in women.

As for the plays themselves, I liked 'Deirdre of the Sorrows' the best. It's probably no coincidence that it's the play with the least of the Irish 'cant', as the characters aren't supposed to be peasants. Unlike the (annoyingly) English annotator, I had no difficulty with the rhythm or comprehension of the dialogue. However, Synge does seem to overplay his hand with it at times. 'Do be' is used as an emphasiser, and 'I do be going to Mass' has a different meaning from 'I'm going to Mass' or 'I go to Mass a lot'. Sean O'Casey and Maeve Binchy understand this much better. Still, I can appreciate that at the time of writing, no one was transcribing Hiberno-English, so fair play to him for having a go.

Throughout 'The Well of the Saints', I was constantly distracted from The Moral by the fact that, based on modern research, congenitally blind people would not be able to resolve a face from a wall of colours and shapes, nor would they have any real concept of the 'beauty/ugliness' dichotomy.

I completely failed to understand The Moral of 'Playboy of the Western World'. I do, however, note that Synge is as fond of insta-love as any cheap romance writer.

From 'Riders to the Sea':

\"There was Patch after was drowned out of a curagh that turned over. I was sitting here with Bartley, and he a baby, lying on my two knees, and I seen two women, and three women, and four women coming in, and they crossing themselves, and not saying a word. I looked out then, and there were men coming after them, and they holding a thing in the half of a red sail, and water dripping out of it - it was a dry day, Nora - and leaving a track to the door.\"

That is really good, indeed.

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bfay

★ ★ ★ ★ ★

July 15,2025

A rather strange play.

It is a play that defies easy comprehension and perhaps requires one to read it not just once, but twice or even three times.

The plot seems to twist and turn in unexpected ways, leaving the reader constantly on their toes.

The characters are complex and multi-faceted, their motives and actions not always clear at first glance.

The language used is rich and vivid, yet at times it can be quite challenging to decipher.

Overall, this play is a unique and thought-provoking piece of work that demands the reader's full attention and engagement.

It is not a play that can be simply skimmed over or easily forgotten.

Rather, it is one that will stay with the reader long after they have finished reading it, leaving them with a sense of wonder and a desire to explore its mysteries further.

So, if you are looking for a play that is different from the norm, one that will challenge your intellect and expand your imagination, then this is the play for you.

Just be prepared to read it more than once!

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KurtisAA

★ ★ ★ ★ ★

July 15,2025

What Synge managed to achieve was to 'translate' the Gaelic spoken in Western Ireland during his era into a unique and poetic medium for drama.

However, he failed to pen great plays. The early works, like the eponymous piece, possess an austere beauty, similar to a medieval mystery play, yet they lack sufficient development – they are little more than static tableaux.

The later, lengthier pieces, despite the time he dedicated to writing and rewriting, contain numerous tiresome passages (alongside some good ones). He has the medium but not powerful or beautiful enough content to convey through it; a 'poetic' feel but not actual poetry.

Perhaps he is burdening the simple folk tales on which they are based with more significance than they can bear.

_Deirdre of the Sorrows_, his final work, is somewhat different. Based on an ancient tale of mythic resonance, Synge is striving for something of Shakespearean grandeur and greatness in it. It's a worthy endeavor, but, for me, both his ideas and his language fall slightly short.

And I can't help but feel there's something faintly ludicrous about the climactic scene, where Naisi stands chatting with Deirdre while his brothers are being slaughtered. Wait a minute!

I still believe the finest thing he wrote is his travelogue, _The Aran Islands_. That is genuine and captivating. Try as he may, there is something a bit artificial about these plays.

But they are still interesting as they offer the closest approximation to experiencing the old Irish speech without actually speaking Irish. And perhaps they are better to watch than to read: I don't know, not having seen any of them staged.

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Louis_The_Luis

★ ★ ★ ★ ★

July 15,2025

Oh, the wonderful world of wordplay!

Read these lively passages and you'll understand why Synge's work is still in print and why he continues to be regarded as a great Irish playwright. He didn't have a long life and he didn't write a great deal, but he left behind these remarkable works. Synge was an educated man from a bourgeois home, yet he traveled around rural Ireland and fell in love with the colorful language and characters he encountered.

"In the Shadow of the Glen" and "Riders to the Sea" are one-act plays. The first one is quite funny, revolving around a tramp who shows up at a rural home just as the man of the house is about to be buried - only it turns out he's not dead after all, but faking it. The second piece is considerably darker, focusing on a rural family whose sons keep drowning in various mishaps. The sea seems to symbolize the inescapable fate that awaits us all.

The real masterpiece here is "The Playboy of the Western World", and this play truly deserves a 5-star rating. In it, the playwright returns to the theme of a tramp arriving in a remote area and getting involved with the locals. In this case, it's Christy Mahon, a young and seemingly foolish fellow who is fleeing his home after killing his father. (SPOILER ALERT) Strangely enough, the locals respond to him with awe and protect him. Attractive young ladies and a wily widow pursue him with romance in mind. Apparently, some audience members in 1907 were offended by this, and there was a fair amount of controversy. However, all is not as it seems, and his father eventually shows up with a big bandage on his head (Christy had only succeeded in knocking him unconscious, not killing him as he thought) looking to thrash his son and drag him home. The real star of the show is Synge's language, drawn from the slang of rural Ireland, which is full of wit and poetic energy. I would love to see a great production of this play someday.

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The Playboy of the Western World and Other Plays

j.m. synge robert welch edna o/brien

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