The Playboy of the Western World

The Playboy of the Western World is a three-act play written by Irish playwright John Millington Synge, first performed at the Abbey Theatre, Dublin, on 26 January 1907.

This time it seems that Old Mahon really is dead, but instead of praising Christy, the townspeople, led by Pegeen, bind and prepare to hang him to avoid being implicated as accessories to his crime.

It was egged on by nationalists, including Sinn Féin leader Arthur Griffith, who believed that the theatre was not sufficiently political and described the play as "a vile and inhuman story told in the foulest language we have ever listened to from a public platform".

Years later, William Butler Yeats declared to rioters against Seán O'Casey's pacifist drama The Plough and the Stars, in reference to the "Playboy Riots": "You have disgraced yourself again.

On opening night in New York, hecklers booed, hissed, and threw vegetables and stink bombs while men scuffled in the aisles.

Set in a suburb of West Dublin, it tells the story of Christopher Malomo, a Nigerian refugee who claims to have killed his father with a pestle.

In 2011, The Old Vic, in London, played host to a classic adaptation directed by John Crowley starring Robert Sheehan, Niamh Cusack and Ruth Negga.

[7] In 1973, the Irish-language national theatre group Taibhdhearc na Gaillimhe produced an adaptation in the Irish language by Seán Ó Carra entitled Buachaill Báire an Domhain Thiar.

[8][9] The play was adapted in 1984 by Trinidadian playwright Mustapha Matura, lifted out of turn-of-the-century Ireland and set down in 1950s Trinidad, and retitled Playboy of the West Indies.

It stars Siobhán McKenna as Pegeen, Gary Raymond as Christy, and Elspeth March as Widow Quin, with music by Seán Ó Riada.

[12] London weekday ITV contractor Associated-Rediffusion made a production of the play for schools, in three parts plus an introduction to the history of the period, which aired in February and March 1964.

Set in rural Saskatchewan, it starred Callum Keith Rennie as Christy Mahon, a young American farmer who arrives in town and claims to have killed his father.

In June 2018, a new feature-length film production entitled Christy Mahon – Playboy of the Western World[14] was registered by Swiss producers on IMDb.

[18] According to Synge, the character of Christy Mahon, the "savage hero" of the play,[18] was at least partially based on a convicted criminal who assaulted a woman on Achill Island in the late 19th century.

[19] This man, James Lynchehaun (c.1864-1937) from Tonregee townland on the Corraun peninsula,[19] brutally assaulted his English employer, Mrs Agnes MacDonnell, at her home on Achill Island on 6 October 1894.