The Ferryman
Playwright: Jez Butterworth Director: Sam Mendes
Royal Court Theatre, Sloane Square, London SW1 (020-7565 5000) Until 20 May, then transferring to the Gielgud Theatre (20 June-7 October) Running time: 3hrs 15mins (including interval)
Tickets for The Ferryman sold out within a day of going on sale, instantly earning the play a West End transfer – and it’s not hard to see why, said Ann Treneman in The Times. The latest work by Jez Butterworth, the man who wrote the brilliant Jerusalem, it’s directed by James Bond director Sam Mendes and stars the brilliant Paddy Considine in his stage debut. Is the hype justified? For once, it is – this really is “something special”. Set in rural Northern Ireland in 1981, “at the height of the Troubles”, The Ferryman is a tense family drama centred around Quinn Carney (Considine), an IRA activist-turned-farmer. As three generations of Carneys gather at his farmhouse to celebrate harvest day, they learn that Quinn’s long-missing brother has finally been discovered – with a bullet hole in the back of his head.
Butterworth has crafted another epic, said Paul Taylor in The Independent. Every member of the 21-strong cast – joined on stage by a reallife goose, rabbits and a baby – plays a vital part in the story. There’s a “suppressed mutual passion” between Quinn and his brother’s widow (Laura Donnelly); tension-filled latenight boozing bouts between teenage cousins; and “disquieting visits” to the farmhouse by an IRA boss and his henchmen. Quinn – played terrifically by Considine – “isn’t the kind of roister-doister, all-engulfing” patriarch we saw in Jerusalem, said David Jays in The Sunday Times. It’s a part that “depends on culpability pushed down, on passion pushed back”. And Butterworth’s female characters are far better written than in his previous work. Particularly “wonderful” are the two aunts: Pat, the militant republican (Dearbhla Molloy), and taciturn Auntie Maggie Far Away (Brid Brennan), who from time to time judders into “moments of truth-telling lucidity”.
One does notice “the odd contrivance”, said Dominic Cavendish in The Daily Telegraph. But Butterworth’s hypnotic writing “casts such a spell that you are barely bothered”. The Ferryman “brings to the boil the meat of human life”, from suppressed love to the “allure of violence”. It’s not quite as superlative as Jerusalem, but it’s still magnificent.