Following the Globe giving
The Taming of the Shrew a new setting, the National
Theatre has its own production to mark the centenary of Ireland's Easter Rising,
with
The Plough and the Stars. Sean O’Casey's play, long controversial for
being seen as pro-IRA, looks at a group of characters in a Dublin tenement in scenes
six months apart: The first two acts take place in November 1915, with them going
about their daily lives: Nora (Judith Roddy) is trying to get her new husband Jack
(Fionn Walton) away from the Irish Citizen Army, her uncle Peter (Lloyd Hutchinson)
is constantly arguing with his Communist nephew The Young Covey (Tom
Vaughan-Lawlor,) and Mrs Gogan (Josie Walker,) recently widowed and whose daughter
has Period Drama Cough, doesn't get on with her Protestant neighbour Bessie (Justine
Mitchell,) whose son is fighting in World War I, and who likes to lean out of her
windows shouting into the street like Trekkie Monster.
