"Playboy of the Western World"

Friday, April 28 and Saturday, April 29 at 8 p.m.; Sunday, April 30, Wednesday, May 3, and Thursday, May 4 at 7:30 p.m.; Friday, May 5 and Saturday, May 6 at 8 p.m. Loeb Drama Center. Tickets available through the Harvard Box Office, (617) 496-2222 and the Loeb Drama Center Box Office, (617) 547-3800. $12 general admission; $8 students, Harvard affiliates, and seniors.

The production team of “The Playboy of the Western World” wants you to consider playwright John Millington Synge to be the Irish Shakespeare. Sure, he may have lived and written some 300 years after the Bard himself, but never mind that. According to director Aoife E. Spillane-Hinks ’06, Synge’s “Playboy” overcomes its heavy use of dialect and antiquated setting—early 20th-century Ireland—to achieve a certain universality and applicability, even for modern audiences.

This particular iteration of “Playboy” seems riddled with contradictions. Although the language, setting, costumes and music are all appropriate representations of a bygone Ireland, the pop-art posters advertising the production suggest a garishly modern piece.

Actor Liam R. Martin ’06 addresses this multifarious character: “It’s a totally different language from a different time in a different accent, … [and] it’s spectacular in every sense of the word,” he says. “It’s almost a musical theater-type show without the music, not just in the lilting quality of the language, but also in the enormity of the story.”

These elements cohere under Spillane-Hinks’ skilled direction: “She’s an amazing visionary,” says Martin. “She works very intensively with every cast member to create an entire picture.”

Spillane-Hinks—who grew up with a knowledge and appreciation of Synge and Irish culture more generally—sought to preserve the play’s deeply Irish roots. A Folklore and Mythology concentrator, she incorporated the historical elements of Irish culture and storytelling—specifically pertaining to “Playboy”—into her senior thesis. She has also arranged for musicians from the campus Celtic Club to orchestrate the production

Musical director Molly J. Hester ’08, along with Lindsay K. Turner ’07, has organized a small musical ensemble to bookend “Playboy” and to punctuate its action. The instrumentation is traditionally Irish, and certainly unique to the production. The accordion, fiddle, Uilleann (dubbed “indoor bagpipes” by Hester) and bodhran (an Irish percussion instrument) will accompany a vocal musician who, according to Spillane-Hinks, spans the gap between music and theater, and who will introduce the performance in a manner reminiscent of a Shakespearian prologue.

The cast expects this eclectic mix to resonate deeply with the Harvard audience.

“The words are foreign, but the humor in it is completely accessible,” says Spillane-Hinks. “[The action] could take place in Iowa; it could take place on the stage of Jerry Springer. The fundamental desires of human pettiness and beauty are universal. Not specific to one place.”

Martin echoes her sentiments: “There’s never a boring moment in the show,” he says. “There are so many ambiguous little elements to the play…the show lends itself to a different production every night.”