Butterworth hits the bull’s-eye once again
Tickets for the Sloane Square run of The
Ferryman, Jez Butterworth’s keenly anticipated Royal Court main-stage follow-up to that smash of 2009 Jerusalem, sold out in one day last November (a record for the theatre). It’s already lined up for a West End transfer. A rightful testament of popular faith in his exceptional powers, or panic-buying born of cult-like devotion? He was once his generation’s boy-wonder, courtesy of 1995’s Mojo, and then
Jerusalem catapulted him to guru status, British playwriting’s kingpin.
Much as some might like to see the king dethroned, it gives me a mixture of pleasure, relief and a smidgen of envy to report that the advance fuss about this has, largely, been worthwhile. Butterworth has done it again, this time with another rural drama of mighty magnitude set across a single, darkening day.
Jerusalem gave us the “full English” – 14 characters, a sprawling state-ofthe-nation epic. Journeying to Armagh, Northern Ireland and taking us back to the harvest of late August 1981 (time of the Troubles, height of the hunger strikes), The Ferryman serves up the full Irish, with director Sam Mendes bringing it to table with élan and a crack ensemble. This is a three-hour feast populated with an even more ambitious 22 characters, the bulk of them the (Catholic) Carney clan, whose members range from their eighties to a nine-month-old babby and at the centre of which there’s a covert love triangle: with Paddy Considine’s (farmer and father) Quinn pining for his sister-in-law Caitlin while his wife Mary lies sick abed.
At times it’s as if we’re watching the Armagh equivalent of The
Archers: there’s a real-life goose and rabbits. Adding to the doolally tally, there’s “Aunt Maggie Faraway” – a wheelchair-bound biddy (a painstakingly immobile Brid Brennan) with a propensity to spill family secrets.
How much more you really need to know about the suspenseful plot, which hinges on the grisly discovery of Quinn’s 10-years-absent brother, opening the door to sinister overtures from members of the IRA, I’m not sure. What I can observe is that there is a new warmth about Butterworth’s writing, which taps his Irish-Catholic provenance for a vitality that memorably manifests itself in wild Dionysiac outbreaks of dancing.
The company answer the deep-saturated intensity of it: Considine, making his stage debut, and Laura Donnelly are perfect as the unrequited in-laws, Dearbhla Molloy is waspishly entertaining as a diehard Republican aunt, and flamehaired Tom Glynn-Carney makes his libidinal mark as the most unruly of the teen visitors. If you notice the odd contrivance, the hypnotist author casts such a spell that you are barely bothered.
This compelling evening, which derives its title from a classical allusion to Charon, ferryman of the dead, brings to the boil the meat of human life: the anguish of suppressed longing and lives halflived, the distinction between land and homeland, the allure of violence and the need to take a stand against it. Butterworth’s promise? Amply confirmed. As good as Jerusalem? Perhaps not, but that’s beside the point. Miss this and you’ve missed a marvel.
Until May 2 (returns only). Details: royalcourttheatre.com; transfers to Gielgud Theatre June 20-Oct 7. Tickets: 0844 482 5130; TheFerrymanPlay.com