The Ferryman

I couldn’t have been more excited about seeing The Ferryman at The Gielgud this week.

Earlier this year the play became the fastest selling production in Royal Court history. The causes of this clamour were three-fold: firstly, it’s written by Jez Butterworth. No modern playwright has enjoyed a comparable level of box-office and critical success in recent years. His calling card, Jerusalem, was a huge success on both sides of the pond, confirming the writer's place in the canon. Secondly, it’s directed by Sam Mendes. Mendes, of course, is now known for his work on the James Bond franchise, but those directorial skills were very much honed in the West End. Aged just 24 he directed Judi Dench in Chekov’s The Cherry Orchard, illustrating his preternatural talent. Thirdly, it features Paddy Considine. For me, Considine is one of Britain’s finest actors. Brought up on a council estate, Considine studied performing arts at Burton College. Young and distracted, he never completed the course. Here though, he met Shane Meadows, a kindred spirit, that knew the best form of learning comes from doing. Meadows cast Considine in A Room For Romeo Brass; they then co-wrote Dead Man Shoes, where Considine does a De Niro, delivering a bravura performance of scintillating, emotional intensity. From here, he would go on to star in comedies Hot Fuzz, Submarine and World’s End. There are few actors capable of creepiness and capers: Considine is one of them. The opportunity to see what this triptych could fashion then was salivating: I had missed the performance at The Court, I couldn’t miss its transference to The Gielgud. I asked The Girl if she could get me a ticket for my birthday, and the good lady duly obliged. I couldn’t wait.

Sam Mendes

The play opens in Derry, 1981. A priest has been called to meet some scowl-and-threats down a back alley. It turns out a body has risen to the surface on the border betwixt north and south. The cadaver belongs to one Seamus Carney, formerly of the Father’s parish. They want information. What secrets did he hold? Who is he related to? Where do they live? In this time of Trouble, the dog collar is a chokehold: a Father can hear confessions he’d rather not hear. The two men pulling on the priest are members of the IRA; they’re concerned that the victim’s rise to the surface may lead to questions about their past operations. (Butterworth’s former partner Laura Donnelly gave him the inspiration for this story. She discovered a few years ago that her uncle was one of ‘the disappeared.’ A small collection of unfortunates that the IRA sank without a trace. When they went missing their families were told that there had been sightings to throw them off the scent; all along, they were at the bottom of a bog: their price for being disloyal– or seemingly disloyal.) The Father knows that he’s God’s vessel, his duty is to protect his parish, serve his children. To do otherwise is to do the Devil’s work. But what happens if an IRA man holds a picture up of your sister, giving you the “I know where she lives” eyes. Well, you put family before work, prioritise your own body and blood over the flock who take it. They’re coming. The IRA are coming to the Carney home.

Laura Donnelley, inspiration and star of The Ferryman. 

After blackout, the curtains reveal a county Armagh kitchen. A man trades drunk talk with a woman; they play blindfold Connect 4; they dance to a record. There is intimacy. There is affection in this relationship. A boy comes down and startles them. It is the woman’s son. He informs them that it’s morning. The man and woman reset their leisure for work. Harvest is here. An occasion that demands celebration, but one that necessitates preparation. The family is called. Young children come bounding down the stairs. Bleary-eyed teenagers enter rubbing sleep from their eyes. Time-worn relatives are wheeled out. This is a big family. Only one woman remains asleep upstairs, unwell she is, nursing a virus.  

In the rural world, the harvest is a blessed portent, a sign that lips won’t go dry, that bellies won’t starve. Consequently, the kitchen is singing with merriment. There are squabbles between the children, but they’re the cause of earthy humour – the my big brother showed me his hole kind of thing. The graveyard-dodgers have a spring in their step too, bantering over how boring the other is. In the middle is Quinn Cairney, the previous paragraph’s dancing man, ebulliently bathing the whole household in joy, in light. He’s setting the scene for a Cratcht-style Christmas. They have a goose to bring in. The plumpest, most succulent goose a family can wish for. The competition to ring its neck is fierce amongst the children. For the unselected, the competition to be in attendance is as fierce. This family is unfazed by death, but death of an animal mind- not the human kind.

Considine (centre-right)

Joining the frolics, an Englishman walks in. Tom Kettle is his name. An Englishman living in Catholic quarters doesn’t seem sensible, but the Carney and the Kettle don’t just co-exist - they reside in affection too. Kettle is a Lennie character, pulling rabbits from his pocket and talking in slow sentences. The children love him for his kindness. The adults for the labour he provides. Only fire and brimstone Aunt Pat questions why this Irish family would accept a Cromwell on their land. Other than Pat railing against Thatcher’s treatment of the hunger strikers, all is well in the Carney house. The Troubles are over there; here, in this kitchen, is contentment.

This 1^st Act of The Ferryman had me grinning from ear to ear. Layering poetic prose on mellifluous Irish accents creates a sound that’s utterly beguiling. Butterworth’s first movement is Vaughan Williams’ Lark Ascending, an idyll to nature, a hymn to the land.

Jez Butterworth.

Valkyries are descending though, and when Act Two and Three shifts to something altogether darker and oppressive, the spell remains strong. Just as a body came to the surface, secrets do too. The woman Quinn was dancing with at the beginning might not be whom you thought. The lady who sits senile shouldn’t be discounted. The firebrand in the corner may have just cause to spit the name Oliver Cromwell. Just as Considine’s friend Shane Meadows deals in light and shade, Butterworth does too.

Under Sam Mendes’ direction, The Ferryman is a masterpiece. The Ferryman’s title comes from Charon, the carrier of souls, who in the Greek myth eased the passage of the deceased into the afterlife. Butterworth’s story of modern history is allied with ancient Gods then; it’s also a psychodrama and ghost story; a family comedy and damning satire; a fiction rooted in fact. In Mendes he’s found a man that’s pieced together these elements to form a profound mosaic on Ireland’s past. 

Concluding, I urge you to go to the gallery and feast your eyes on what these labouring men have produced - it's harvest after all.

The Ferryman is on until January.