Two by Synge

Sarah Casey, the Beauty of Ballinacree, has aspirations to be married by a priest to the tinker Michael Byrne in The Tinker’s Wedding. But his mother, the “old flagrant heathen” Mary Byrne, has other ideas. The boisterous Mary steals Sarah’s hard-earned savings to spend on a pint, and the two scuffle as the wedding day dawns. When the priest can’t be paid the shilling and tin can he has been promised, Sarah turns her wrath on Mary, and we begin to wonder if the pagan rituals of peasants aren’t perhaps more honorable than the behavior of a corrupt priest.

In the Shadow of the Glen opens in the midst of a storm as a Tramp seeking lodging for the night finds the downtrodden young Nora Burke preparing an impromptu wake. Her layabout husband Dan has died suddenly, but not without cursing Nora that none should touch his body. Nora and the Tramp share supernatural tales and dream of what life could be, but when Nora leaves to call for the young neighbor Micheal, we learn that there is more to the story. Is all as it seems?

Two by Synge pairs early masterpieces by JM Synge, inspired by the stories he heard and witnessed while living among poor Irish peasants (at the behest of none other than WB Yeats) at the turn of the twentieth century. Synge celebrates the hardscrabble lives of country people, especially the headstrong and powerful women.