PCS Past Productions

	The Playboy of the Western World by J.M. Synge Director: George Mulford Performance Dates: January 4, 5, 6, 7 , 2001 January 11,12, 13, 14, 2001 January 18, 19, 20, 2001 Performances start at 8:00 PM except on Sundays, when they begin at 2:00 PM. Running time is approximately 2 hours.
Show Synopsis: Christy Mahon, persecuted beyond endurance, hits his old father with a spade and flees. As the play begins, he has been walking eleven days, speaking to nobody, until finally he dares enter Michael James’ public-house and ask for a glass of porter. The locals, and in particular the fine-looking daughter of the house, sharp-tongued Pegeen Mike, tease his story out of him, and to his astonishment, they think him a likely bold fellow. Michael James hires him on the spot to work in the tavern and keep his daughter safe while he goes over the hill to a wake.
	Pegeen’s suitor, scandalized, brings the redoubtable Widow Quin to separate the pair, and the two women quarrel over the privilege of housing Christy for the night. As the first act closes, Christy soliloquizes, “Well it’s a clean bed and soft with it, and it’s great luck and company I’ve won me in the end of time—two fine women fighting for the likes of me—till I’m thinking this night wasn’t I a foolish fellow not to kill my father in the years gone by.”
The next day Christy is the wonder of the village, winning all the games of luck and skill at the village fair, while the widow Quin entertains—you guessed it—Christy’s father who has been hard on his heels. The meeting of the Playboy of the Western World with his father who expects him to take his licking and come home peaceably is memorable, and the plot then takes two energetic closing twists of the sort only the greatest and boldest of comic writers could imagine.
	For more information see the Etext version of Playboy of the Western World at the Project Gutenberg archives: http://sailor.gutenberg.org/etext98/potww10.txt.