“The Abbey cast of The Playboy of the Western World arrested in Philadelphia for performing “immoral or indecent” plays”.
Here is their story… in song.
Lady Gregory in America is a delightful short opera by Colm Tóibín with a score by Alberto Caruso.
It tells the funny, alarming, historic tale of Lady Gregory leading The Abbey Theatre Players’ tour of the United States in 1911 when they performed JM Synge’s The Playboy of the Western World. At the play’s opening in Dublin four years earlier, there had been audience uproar; riots and police on hand to quell moral hysterics and protect the actors. In Philadelphia, as Toibin’s and Caruso’s work musically recounts, the entire cast is arrested for immorality!
This short work (80 minutes approx.) premiered in Wexford at the Opera Festival last October to great acclaim.
Yeats Thoor Ballylee Society, in association with Yeats Autumn Gathering and The Abbey Theatre is delighted to bring this work back to the home of Lady Gregory.
Supported by The Wild Swans Theatre Co., with soprano Helen Hancock leading matters as Pegeen/Molly, Dean Power as JM Kerrigan/Christy and a blended cast of professional Irish singers from the West of Ireland and new Irish singers/performers.
