London’s National Theatre finds itself in Easter Rising-era Ireland for Sean O’Casey’s tragicomedy “The Plough and the Stars,” which is showing at the Lyttelton Theatre from July 28 through October 22.The word “tragicomedy” goes a long way in describing the main problem with this play. Sean O’Casey’s aim in this work — and in other plays such as “Juno and the Paycock” — was to bring to the stage, for the first time, the Irish working classes, with the delightful cadences and poetry of their unique sayings and idioms.This is admirable on paper, and does lead to some fascinating exchanges, but in trying to capture the full range of Irish working class language, the play goes through some major tonal shifts — from one of the hammiest displays of comedy drunkenness ever to infant death, insanity and senseless slaughter — and is not quite able to take us with it. Sure, some of the greatest plays from Shakespeare onwards have managed to combine comedy and tragedy to great effect, but unlike O’Casey, the Bard never had Falstaff and Ophelia sharing the same scene. Here, what is meant to be a deeply upsetting ending does not quite land, despite the hard work of all the actors involved (even if some of the dialects do slip from time to time).Despite these problems with the text, the National Theatre manages to expertly stage what is actually an incredibly confined story, taking place in three rooms and outside the third room in a way that is far more pleasing to modern playgoers than the early 20th century source material. Little touches like staging all of the main political action off stage, just about visible through windows, is a simple but effective approach. Another scene that stood out is the juxtaposition of one character holding her husband, begging him not to go fight with a soldier who is holding his dying comrade; the two groups are divided by a bloodied step.Hopefully it won't feel like damning with faint praise to say that their pyrotechnics and makeup teams deserve major respect for some really excellent work with the bangs, bleeding, and wounds of this battle-based play, including a pyrotechnic effect so unexpected that the theater was warning people in the front row before the play began. But despite the strong acting and occasional funny and dramatically effective moments, one can only wish there had been a few more bangs than just the sound effects.“The Plough and the Stars” runs from July 28 through October 22 at the National Theatre.
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