'Juno and The Paycock' Review

On the 19th of October all Ty's were brought to see the play 'Juno and the Paycock' written by the Irish writer Sean O Casey, in the Abbey Theatre. It was a brilliant day and I think everyone enjoyed it.
When we were first showed to our seats there were a few people who were sceptical to see the play. I personally have to say that for me, to actually see the plays production really outshone reading it in class. It was a very different experience to see 'Juno and the Paycock' acted out live rather than just reading it. We had read the book previously to seeing it and I personally didn't actually like it. I found the way the play was written in the Dublin dialect to be very difficult to understand and because of this I found the characters to be completely unrelateable.
After viewing the play I was able to look on it from a very differennt perspective.
By the end of the play my favourite characyers were Mrs Boyle [Juno], Mary, Johnny and Ms Masie Madigan. In the book Mrs Boyle and Mary are both main characters, but what surprized me were the very strong performances by the actors who portrayed the characters of Johnny and Ms Masie Madigan. All the actors truly gave five star performances and made the whole play very realistic and believable.
As I found it difficult to understand what was happening in the book at times, going to see it live definantly brought the whole thing to life and the tricky Dublin dialect became easier to comprehend. All the actors delivered lines both strongly and clearly which really helped strenghthen the play.
Another great contributing factor of the play was the stage setting. The entire stage was done to resemble a room in one of the tenaments around the 1920s. This was made very realistic by the peeling wall paper to mismatched furniture in the family room to show the poverty in which the Boyle family were living. The lighting also made the performances believable as throughout the play the lighting was dim to help reflect the unhappiness and financial state in Ireland at that time. I especially liked the way when something upsetting occurred, you were made to believe that it was raining outside with sound affects and the lights diming even further so it seemed very dreary and sad. During the play I noticed something unusual that you dont normally get in a play. When Mr Boyle was smoking a pipe and when Mrs Boyle [Juno] was cooking sausages, the smells drifted into the audience and made the viewer actually believe that they were experiencing the drama first hand and not only watching in on stage.
In my opinion, Sean O Casey raised many themes in this play. The theme that I believe was shown most prominantly was war. This was clearly shown by the death of Ms Tancreds' son and later in the play by the death of Johnny, also by the ongoing sounds outside on the street which created the constant sounds of war and violence. This was a main issue during the play as well. We saw how traumatised Johnny was from the battle where he had lost his arm and we continued to see his depression and his paranoia throughout the play.
Another main theme that was clearly seen during the play was the economic state of dublin around the 1920s. This was shown by the families living in the tenaments and by the dirty and ragged clothes that they wore. O Casey showed the strain of the Boyle family by Mrs Boyle urging her husband to get a job and the way the family were forced to borrow money from the neighbours.
Overall I thoroughly enjoyed seeing 'Juno and the Paycock' and I think Sean O Casey did a fantastic job in bringing the story to life with the very real issues and also the raw emotions of the characters [ mainly Mrs Boyle's speech after Johnny is killed]. Although I didnt enjoy reading the play in class, I would reccomend it to everyone, as I think that the Abbey Theatres production is a must see.