“The Playboy of the Western World” at Shadow Lawn Summer Stage

The Playboy of the Western World is Synge's finest play. It is based on a story he heard in 1898 of a man named Lynchenaun, "who killed his father with the blow of a spade when he was in a passion" and eluded the police and escaped to America. In Synge's comedy/tragedy, Lynchenaun becomes Christy Mahon, a timid boy who, through each farfetched retelling of the murder of his father, becomes a hero to the town where he has taken refuge‑that is, until the "dead" father reappears. "Playboy" is a wry comedy of Irish peasant life filled with absurd situations and rich with Celtic imagery.