Being knocked down and knocked out by The Ferryman

Joan Marcus

I spent a miserable week at The Ferryman one night.   

Here is a play about which I knew nothing until people around town started talking about it. The first thing I heard was that it was A-MAAAAAZING. Love that. The next thing I heard was that the iconic and incomparable Fionnula Flanagan was acting in it. LOVE that. And then I heard that the play was THREE HOURS AND FIFTEEN MINUTES long. I have strong feelings about this. No play should be 3 hours and 15 minutes long. I’m one of those. I can make it to two and half, if the play is good. I MIGHT make it to 3 hours. But more than that, I’ll be miserable. The seats in Broadway theatres are too small now. They are too close together. There is no leg room. Nearly every theatre on Broadway is uncomfortable to sit in for protracted periods of time. I have issues with my back and cannot sit comfortably for that long. Also consider that I work 70 hours a week and if you put me in a dark room for a long time I will fall asleep. And I snore. This is a trip to the theatre designed to make me miserable.

But.

Fionnula Flanagan.

So I went.

And I was miserable.

Let us begin with what is good and what is true. The Ferryman is brilliant writing by Jez Butterworth. The structure of the play is accurate, in spite of the overly lengthy first act. The dialog is conversational while being informative, it moves the play along while giving the audience a look into the lives and personalities of the Carney family, particularly focusing on the terrible and tragic that seems to permeate the air around them. Well, why not? After all the play is set in 1981 Northern Ireland during The Troubles, a lengthy period of years when Ireland fought for independence from England. The Carney family consists of 14 people of varying extremities living in one farmhouse, trying to survive from day to day during a time of turmoil when the activities of the IRA and the discovery of the body of a long missing Carney family member intersect, bringing all to their feet, and then to their knees, in distress. In spite of the troublesome course of events that befall the Carneys during a brief bit of time, there is more than sorrow and worry in the farmhouse. There is laughter, singing, dancing, jovial joke telling, food and drink, storytelling and familial communing. This is a family with great love flowing between them … also great secrets, suspicions and subterfuge. Add to the mix a sinister, moustache-twisting villain (played by acting company weak link Stuart Graham) and by the time you reach the third hour of the play it is a steady descent into a hellish unhappiness from which it is impossible to escape, culminating in a horrifying final few minutes of the play that explodes like a mushroom cloud, ending abruptly, leaving a stunned audience to replay those final moments in their minds, if only to catch up with what just happened.

The Captain leading the charge here is the venerable Sam Mendes who, in this writer’s opinion, can basically do no wrong in his creative work. All of the artisans and technicians working on the play do so with breathtaking artistry. Note the detail in the costumes, the color scheme of which keeps them from becoming a shade of poverty drab, and the set that is art directed within an inch of its life, both designs created by Rob Howell. There is lighting, both bright and happy and dark and gloomy, by Peter Mumford, as well as original music and sound design by Nick Powell that sets tones either sinister or playful. The play, from a visual standpoint, is actually very becoming and pleasing to the eye. Nothing here appears false or pretentious to the naked eye, perhaps not even to the trained eye, particularly when gathering together the company for examination.

The Lead Player in The Ferryman when I saw it was recent Tony Award nominee Paddy Considine, who was wonderful. In the meantime he has departed the show and has been replaced by one of Broadway’s greatest actors, Brian d’Arcy James. Not having seen Mr. d’Arcy James, I cannot comment on his performance in the play, though I can remark that I have seen 80% of his performances on Broadway and he has never done anything less than thrill me. It should be said that I saw the play just before almost all of the original cast departed and were replaced by actors whom I have seen on stage many times, so even though I have not seen the current cast, the reputations of Emily Bergl, Fred Applegate and Shuler Hensley are enough to put New York theatre aficionados’ bums in seats, Luv. I have seen all of the replacements mentioned here several times and I can wholeheartedly endorse spending money to watch them act. And even though most of them have left the play I want to say out loud that when I saw the play I remarked that the child actors might be the best I have ever seen on Broadway.

Joan Marcus

Miraculously, there is one actor from the original company who has stayed with the play: Fionnula Flanagan, the reason I wanted to see the show in the first place. I would sit through all of it once more to see her Act Two scene. Her characterization as Aunt Maggie Faraway is one of the great performances I have seen on Broadway, possibly anywhere. This is an artist of such caliber that I would expect nothing less than the committed and carefully crafted performance that she gives, one that has made her a nominee for the coveted Tony Award for Supporting Actress. I am no longer one to predict award show winners so I will confine myself to saying that I will be wishing the accolade on this actress whom I have respected for many a year.

So what have we got here? Brilliant writing, expert direction, beautiful design work, fully realized acting, all tied up in a play that conquered London’s West End and that has been conquering New York’s Broadway for the last seven months, garnering a total of nine Tony nominations, each and every one of them well deserved – even if I did not personally have a good time at the play. And, dear reader, I want to tell you why I didn’t, because it isn’t the quality of the storytelling, as I gather you may have guessed. I respect and admire these artists. I am, however, not a person who handles bleak well, at all. This play runs the gamut when it comes to the emotions you will experience, but when the curtain fell on the show, I was furious for having to sit for three hours in uncomfortable seats to experience a play so bleak as to offer no redemption, not for one person in the story. And I am a positive energy guy. Bleak, no redemption tragedies will always get a thumbs down from me. But not this one. Let’s call this a thumbs sideways; because even though I left the theatre asking my husband ‘Why was I taken on this journey? Why was I told this story? What is the point?’, other people will leave the theatre transported and satisfied. So, if you like brilliant, biting, bleak storytelling, The Ferryman is here for you. There is no reason whatsoever that you shouldn’t buy your ticket, settle in to your seat and go on this journey, because it is a journey worth taking. The artistry being displayed on the stage at the Jacobs Theatre will thrill you and leave you spent with emotions that devastate and captivate, something a lot of people seem to enjoy.

So feel free to ignore what I feel about The Ferryman and pay attention to what I say.

Go.

The Ferryman runs about 3 Hours 15 minutes with one intermission. The show’s run has been extended through July 7. A US tour is planned for the 2020-2021 season.

The Ferryman has been nominated for nine Tony Awards including Best Play, Best Lead Actor and Actress in a Play, Best Featured Actress in a Play, and Best Direction of a Play.

Sonia Friedman Productions