From Virgil's epic poem to Jez Butterworth's political drama.
There’s a lot of storytelling in the Ferryman, and as is often the case, the best storytellers in the Carney family are the aunts and uncles, now in their 70s and 80s. Aunt Maggie, lost in her own world most of the time, occasionally comes back from faraway with stories and songs full of Irish myth and folklore, as well as a first hand account of the Easter Rising of 1916, as told to her by her sister Pat.
Uncle Pat (like many Irish families there’s a Patrick as well as a Patricia in the same generation) is the repository of family memories. It’s harvest time, and he’s full of tales of long ago Harvest Days, with Harvest Kites and a goose for the feast, just as there are now. Like many Irishmen of his time, Uncle Pat is an avid reader of the classics, fond of “staying up in the wee hours, sharing a drop of Bushmills with the Ancients” - in particular Virgil’s Aeneid, which contains the story of Charon the Ferryman.
Charon is charged with ferrying the souls of the dead from the Underworld across the River Styx, to the land where they may be at peace. Many clamour to make the trip, but they may only cross if their earthly bodies have received a proper burial. Otherwise, they are condemned to roam the Underworld for a thousand years, longing for the peace of the far shore.
As the play opens, the body of Seamus, a family member who “disappeared” ten years previously, has been discovered – face down in a bog just across the border with the Irish Republic. Seamus’s soul may not be at peace – certainly his family have known no peace during the long years during which his fate was unknown to them. He was known to have been a member of the IRA – but are the rumours, that he was an informer, true?
The Ferryman
by Jez Butterworth
Tue 28 April - Sat 02 May, 7.30PM & Sat 02 May, 2PM
ADC Theatre
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