It is audacious to anoint Jez Butterworth’s The Ferryman the best play of the century, as we are not quite 19 percent of the way through. Even so, The Ferryman is the best play of the century thus far, setting a high mark to match. Not since Angels in America: Millennium Approaches first appeared in 1992 has a new play been so thrillingly, enthrallingly breathtaking. You emerge onto 45th Street stunned, as if you’ve been off in an altogether different world. Because you have, courtesy of Butterworth and his spellbinding director, Sam Mendes.
Butterworth, who caused a stir on the world stage in 2009 with Jerusalem, is working on a large canvas here. An enormous canvas. Following a brief prologue, he takes us to a farmhouse in Northern Ireland. Within moments, one of the characters sets a lamp on fire. No phony-looking lighting effect, here; the prop goes up in flames, for real. Soon enough, on pours a parade of children—there will be ten in all, aged 7 to 16 (although some of the eldest actors appear to be a tad older).
[Read Melissa Rose Bernardo’s ★★★★★ review here.]
To heighten the point, one of the daughters walks on holding a baby; not one of those realistic-looking and properly weighted baby props, but an actual infant with legs a-kicking. (This role is essayed by four alternating infants; the one I caught was thoroughly intent on his performance, although in his second scene he clearly seemed to indicate that he expected someone to come along and play with him.) The Ferryman is, among other things, about family: “a man who takes care of his family,” says Quinn Carney, the father of the brood and the central character, “is a man who can look himself in the eye in the morning.” Quinn manages to do so, but not without undergoing unendurably brutal trials.
The play is set in 1981, during the Irish hunger strike; within the course of the action, we hear Margaret Thatcher’s address rejecting the idea that the strikers be treated as political prisoners: “Crime is crime is crime,” she blares out over the kitchen radio, “there can be no question of granting political status.” Yes, we have seen numerous plays over the years about the Irish Troubles. The Ferryman, though, makes it immediate and altogether comprehensible; it also shows how the chain of violence—starting with the Easter Rising in 1916—has consumed this Carney family over four generations and up past the final curtain.
Speaking of generations, 14 of the characters are family members, all named Carney. Butterworth and Mendes, and their abundantly talented cast, manage things so that each and every Carney—from youngsters to octogenarians—is distinct and memorable. Which, in itself, is notable.
Much of the cast (all, it seems, except the preteens) has traveled with the play from London, where it opened at the Royal Court and transferred to the Gielgud. Central to the proceedings are Paddy Considine, in a knockout performance as Quinn; Laura Donnelly as Caitlin, the widow of Quinn’s brother who’s been “disappeared” for over ten years; Genevieve O’Reilly as Mary, Quinn’s withdrawn wife and mother of all the brood; and Stuart Graham as Muldoon, the IRA chief.
(A recent and most-informative article in the New York Times explained that the plot was suggested by the family history of Butterworth’s long-time partner Donnelly, whose uncle was one of the disappeared. She won an Olivier for playing Caitlin, and also appeared on Broadway opposite Hugh Jackman and Cush Jumbo in Butterworth’s The River.)
To give proper credit to the large cast is impractical; just about everyone is superb. We shall suffice by mentioning the three elderly Carneys: Mark Lambert as the loquacious Uncle Patrick; Dearbhla Molloy, who received a Tony nomination for Dancing at Lughnasa and was seen in the recent Outside Mullingar, as the ornery Aunt Pat; and Fionnula Flanagan, who on her local visits starred opposite Art Carney in Brian Friel’s Lovers and earned a Tony nomination as a most sensuous Molly Bloom, opposite Zero Mostel, in Ulysses in Nighttown. (The actress was altogether striking, but the production was an unfathomable mess). Flanagan here plays a distant character in a wheelchair known to the children as “Aunt Maggie Far Away.” Her performance is stunning, with surprises plus an altogether astonishing scene she plays with the four Carney daughters.
Rob Malone, as the tortured and fatherless Oisin Carney; Niall Wright and Fra Fee as the eldest Carney sons; Tom Glynn-Carney, Conor MacNeill, and Michael Quinton McArthur as teenage cousins who come on late in the action and propel the plot to its conclusion: All are giving assured performances. (Young Mr. McArthur gets to deliver my new favorite line from the Irish-flavored drama, befitting O’Casey or O’Neill: “As the saying goes, there’s only so much whiskey a 13-year-old boy can drink.”) It is impossible not to equally salute the Carney daughters, played by Carla Langley, Brooklyn Shuck, Willow McCarthy, and the pert Matilda Lawler. The last is 7-year old Honor, who calls herself Cleopatra and at one point refers to her father, Quinn, as Julius. Butterworth gives her a couple of adult-size laugh lines, and she demolishes them.
Mendes has pulled marvelous performances from them all, and protean contributions from his production team. The scenery by Rob Howell—of Matilda—is almost overpowering, with the farmhouse kitchen monopolized by a staircase which seems to go up into infinity. Howell’s costumes are equally impressive, with eons of Irish dirt, mud and bog baked in. The exceptional lighting comes courtesy of Peter Mumford, while sound and incidental music are provided by Nick Powell.
Most impressive, though, is the text. Butterworth goes on at length, but with never a line or word that doesn’t contribute to the whole. (Occasional phrases might be lost, due to the poetry or the accents; but no matter, the essence comes through.) What’s more, he gives every one of his 21 actors—except two subsidiary IRA thugs, who serve as understudies to the leading men—important exchanges and sometimes critical scenes. Nothing is wasted, everything is fundamental, and the evening flies by so swiftly that you don’t realize you’ve been sitting there a tad over three hours. It’s hard to be restless when you’re breathlessly engaged.
Butterworth’s The Ferryman, from start to finish, is a masterwork. Today’s theatergoers have been favored with excellent revivals of classics by O’Neill, Miller, Williams, and Albee. Here’s your chance to see a new, instant and monumental classic fresh off the author’s computer screen.
The Ferryman opened October 21, 2018, at the Bernard B. Jacobs Theatre and runs through July 7, 2019. Tickets and information: theferrymanbroadway.com
