About the Show

Directed by Caitríona McLaughlin, starring Nicola Coughlan, Éanna Hardwicke, Siobhán McSweeney.

In a quiet coastal village, Pegeen Flaherty runs a small pub where life moves with dependable rhythm—until the day a disheveled young man stumbles in, claiming to have murdered his father. Rather than reacting with fear, the townspeople embrace the stranger, Christy Mahon, treating him as a daring hero. His story ignites imaginations and stirs hidden desires, but as his myth grows, so does the danger of its unraveling—especially when another visitor arrives, casting doubt on everything the community has come to believe.

This new staging of The Playboy of the Western World is directed by Caitríona McLaughlin, Artistic Director of the Abbey Theatre, Dublin. The production features a high-profile cast led by Nicola Coughlan (Bridgerton), Éanna Hardwicke (The Sixth Commandment), and Siobhán McSweeney (Derry Girls), bringing renewed vitality to John Millington Synge’s iconic work.

Originally premiered in 1907, Synge’s play remains one of the most provocative works in the Irish theatrical canon. With its layered portrayal of mythmaking, identity, and communal fantasy, this production offers a focused return to the tensions that made the play so controversial—and enduring.

Critic Reviews (7)

"McLaughlin’s production takes a scene to settle into. Accents are thick and conversation is heavily localised."
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"The play is full of rich and elegant imagery...Often, you end up chasing through looping digressions and musical subordinate clauses to get to the point of a sentence."
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"Staged in its original, melodic Hiberno-English dialect, it is authentic but hard to follow at times, at least for this critic."
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“Director Caitriona McLaughlin still gives this revival an appealingly edgy, unsettling treatment.”
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"McLaughlin doesn’t really do enough to make this undeniably powerful aesthetic speak to this play. Instead, the tone feels disconcertingly uneven"
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"It is a tough play to know how to handle. Perhaps it is better left in the history books."
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"This is a sumptuous production, rich in detail, craft and spectacle. It’s impressive but dramatically inert, ultimately not really proving why Synge’s tale... is worthy of a major revival at the present time."
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