<b>JUNO AND THE PAYCOCK</b> Shaw Festival/Royal George Theatre SpeakupWNY | Buffalo NY and Buffalo News

Shaw Festival
Through October 12
JUNO AND THE PAYCOCK Shaw Festival/Royal George Theatre

By Augustine Warner

The enduring symbol of Sean O’Casey’s “Juno and the Paycock” is Juno Boyle (Mary Haney), alone on stage at the end announcing she will survive.
She can survive drunken husband Captain Jack Boyle (Jim Mezon) and his flamboyant, histrionic buddy Joxer Daly (Benedict Campbell) and their Irish revolutionary son Johnny (Charlie Gallant), who has already lost one arm to the civil war raging in Ireland and Dublin in 1922.
There is blood in the streets and there will be more, as the struggle over the future of the island goes on nearly endlessly.
This doesn’t deal with the economic situation and the housing situation.
The Boyles, Joxer, Maisie Maddigan (Donna Belleville the night I saw the show) and Mrs. Tancred (Jennifer Phipps), along with a crowd of other tenants live in slum housing at a time when Dublin might have had the worst in Europe, a competition with a lot of other nominees.
Daughter Mary (Marla McLean) works, a rarity in this family and she’s being courted by labor leader Jerry Devine (Andrew Bunker).
Jack has a line of blarney, aided and abetted by Joxer and a sea of alcohol…often Guinness.
Juno is a standard Irish woman of the day, holding on to her marriage, no matter what.
All of this changes when lawyer Charles Bentham (Gord Rand) surfaces with a will from a distant cousin which would bring a large sum of money into the Boyle family and Mary hooks up with him.
Juno and Captain Jack start spending the money, from new furniture to lots of alcohol, while waiting for the bequest to arrive.
That’s the good times.
Suddenly, Bentham disappears and the money doesn’t surface.
All the merchandise starts getting hauled away when the removal men take away the furniture they delivered and tailor Needle Nugent (Lorne Kennedy) takes back the suit he made for Jack.
That’s bad and it gets worse as Mary is pregnant and Johnny is found shot dead, casualty of the Republican politics he’s mixed up in.
If that isn’t enough, there is more but Juno and Mary decide they are getting out, leaving the empty apartment to Jack and Joxer.
“Juno and the Paycock” was controversial in its time, leading to riots because of its devastating portrayal of Jack and Joxer and the way Irish women are used and abused.
Only in recent years, has some of this changed.
Irish President Mary Robinson would suggest some essential changes.
Director Jackie Maxwell is originally from Northern Ireland and brings some unique understanding of the play and its environment to the production.
She also has three very strong performances at its heart, Mezon, Haney and Campbell.
There’s also Peter Hartwell’s dominating set of the tenement main room and Paul Sportelli’s music.
Mezon is wonderful in these blowhard roles, backed by his long experience as an actor and director.
Campbell delivers a controlled performance, shifting from the defeated peasant to the drunken, dancing Joxer.
Haney manages to balance strength with submission to the impossible Captain Jack, until she’s pushed too far.
Maxwell also has the Shaw’s bench strength, McLean, Kennedy, Rand, Phipps and even Jay Turvey’s removal man.
And, she has the essential framework of “Juno and the Paycock,” a look at the past and the present worth seeing by everyone.
It’s that good.