Theater Review: Gamble on ‘Juno’ Pays Off for B Street

By Marcus Crowder, The Sacramento Bee, Calif.

Apr. 4–A seamless melding of personal and political themes personified through comic and tragic actions makes Sean O’Casey’s “Juno and the Paycock” a 20th century masterpiece. In an ambitious and risky new production, the B Street Theatre has stepped out of its successful new-works comfort zone with a convincing production of the Irish classic.

Sunday night’s opening performance showcased the versatile range of several B Street acting company regulars while spotlighting a number of actors new to the theater.

Mary-Pat Green makes a strong debut here as Juno, the earthy center of the struggling Boyle family, living in a cracker box 1922 Dublin tenement. Juno is the sober (literally) voice of reality in a strained family that includes her comically self-important husband, Captain Jack (Paul Vincent O’Connor, also making an assured debut appearance here), her dissolute, physically and emotionally damaged son, Johnny (John Lamb), and her dreamy, socially conscious daughter, Mary (Elisabeth Nunziato).

Though O’Casey started writing plays as a teenager, it wasn’t until he was 43 that the Abbey Theatre of Dublin produced one of his works, “The Shadow of a Gunman,” in 1923. “Juno” was subsequently produced in 1924 and then “The Plough and the Stars” in 1926. Those three masterworks established him as one of Ireland’s most significant dramatists.

O’Casey based much of his work on his youthful poverty in Dublin and his political involvements as a young man. He eventually left Ireland, having become increasingly dissatisfied with both Irish nationalism and the factionalism of groups such as the Free Staters, who accepted partial independence for Ireland from Britain, and the Diehards, who resolutely wanted total sovereignty.

This political conflict of the Irish essentially at war with themselves forms the backdrop of “Juno.” Lamb’s symbolically shattered Johnny, a former Diehard who lost an arm in an explosion, can only sit blankly at the little front-room stove. Johnny weakly defends his actions with “a principle’s a principle” while his mother bitterly responds, “You lost your best principle, me boy, when you lost your arm; them’s the only sort of principles that’s any good to a workin’ man.”

Juno similarly mocks Mary for going out on strike for her “principles” while the family owes money all around the neighborhood. All the while her husband, the blustery Captain Jack, expertly avoids work by spending his time at the local pubs with his neighbor Joxer (the deft Greg Alexander).

O’Casey’s facile switching from the naturalistic drama of the family’s grim poverty and the sagging prospects of the children, in particular, to the buffoonish slapstick antics of Captain Jack and Joxer creates a tricky but ultimately successful balancing act for director Buck Busfield.

O’Casey adds other significant juxtapositions with the frivolous gaiety of neighbor Maisie Madigan (a spirited Stephanie McVay) contrasted by the moving cautionary prayer from the grieving neighbor Mrs. Tancred (powerful Tamara Walters).

The large cast also features strong supporting performances from Tim Heath as Jerry Devine, a former beau of Mary’s who’s been thrown over for the dandy schoolteacher Charlie Bentham (a lively Jason Kuykendall); and Dan Harlan, as a local tailor trying to get paid by Captain Jack.

The family’s dire finances take a seeming providential turn when a will drafted by Bentham grants Captain Jack a relatively significant inheritance.

However, there are no silver linings in O’Casey’s bleak world, and he creates a beautifully simple comic tragic ending, encapsulating the complexity of this vigorous, captivating work.

Juno and the Paycock *** 1/2

WHAT: B Street Theatre production

WHEN: 6:30 p.m. Tuesdays and Wednesdays, 8 p.m. Thursdays and Fridays, 5 and 9 p.m. Saturdays and 2 p.m. Sundays, through May 21

WHERE: B Street Theatre, 2711 B St.

TICKETS: $23, $28

TIME: 2 hours, 25 minutes, including two intermissions

INFORMATION: (916) 443-5300

—–

Copyright (c) 2006, The Sacramento Bee, Calif.

Distributed by Knight Ridder/Tribune Business News.

For information on republishing this content, contact us at (800) 661-2511 (U.S.), (213) 237-4914 (worldwide), fax (213) 237-6515, or e-mail reprints@krtinfo.com.