Not So Musical Monday: The Ferryman
Spoiler warning: The following contains some potential spoilers for The Ferryman, which is now playing on Broadway.
The Ferryman first played in 2017 in London and won the 2018 Olivier Award for Best Play on the West End. The play has been met with similarly rave reviews since opening on Broadway in October of last year, and it is a favorite to win multiple Tony Awards this summer. The Ferryman tells a complex family story taking place during The Troubles in Northern Ireland in 1981, and it is a brilliantly written and designed play. While The Ferryman is a very good piece of theater, my one lasting question is whether or not I’d feel differently if I actually lived through The Troubles.
The Ferryman was written by Jez Butterworth but was inspired by the real life story of actress Laura Donnelly’s family. Ms. Donnelly, who was in the original cast both on the West End and on Broadway, had an uncle who went missing during The Troubles and was found later murdered in a bog. This is the central conflict in The Ferryman—a man who has been missing for 10 years is found dead in a bog, and his family: brother, widow, son, and more all dealing with that realization and how it fits into the broader conflict within the country while still navigating the ups and downs of family life on a farm. There are human stories in even the toughest of times. Perhaps higher stakes bring out the emotion in the mundane activities, and The Ferryman pumps emotion into every second of the play.
Credit to Mr. Butterworth and director Sam Mendes (who won the 2018 Olivier for Best Director) for making a three act play lasting three hours and fifteen minutes feel like an absolute breeze. At the first intermission, I was convinced it had only been thirty minutes until I checked my watch. Every line of dialogue, every directorial decision feels deliberate and certain. With a cast of 21 actors, there isn’t a character that feels wasted. Each of the eight children who live in the house feel unique and developed, as do all of the adults. I was left thinking that this is just high quality, top notch dramatic theater should look and feel.
I consider myself broadly familiar with The Troubles—I know who Bobby Sands was and did before the play, and I knew the significance of both the hunger strike and Margaret Thatcher’s “crime is crime is crime” comments that fueled the existing fire. I’m also aware that history is written by the victors, and even in situations without an easily recognized winner or loser, the narrative of history tries to paint “good guys” and “bad guys” in situations that are far more complex. Immediately after seeing the play, I remember thinking this play did a somewhat better job than a lot of showing the problems in both sides of a tough struggle. After the play opened in London, one popular article from The Guardian made the rounds that suggested the play didn’t reflect the realities of Northern Ireland and dealt thoroughly in Irish stereotypes. There was push back to the article, for example this article in The Irish Times.
I don’t know who has the better point, and I’m not sure that can be an objectively answered question. History is complicated and difficult, and every person experiences history differently—especially if it is something painful or difficult. Plays written from people who lived through an experience have an air of authority, but there is also the impossibility of writing something objective. This has been discussed in depth throughout American pop culture, and I think there would be a lot deeper analysis of the play both on the West End and on Broadway if The Troubles had been something that happened in London or the United States respectively. That isn’t to say that Mr. Butterworth wrote anything incorrectly, inappropriately, or otherwise. I just wonder how the show would be received in Dublin or more specifically Belfast.
When I think about how it would be received or how it would play in different cultures, it isn’t to take away from how well made of a production it is or how strong the actual writing of the play is. It isn’t even a criticism. Some people who lived through The Troubles might have a lot of conflicting thoughts, as seen in the article linked above, or they might love it, as seen in the other. It’s the difficulty of writing a play about something so fresh and painful for so many people. The Ferryman will likely win awards this summer, and it should. As a piece of theater, it is phenomenally well done.