A volley of gunshots at the start signifies the violent backdrop to Seán O’Casey’s 1924 tragicomedy, which takes place during the Irish civil war of 1922-23. But it is a distant sound, and musical hall-style comedy and drunken shenanigans take prominence in this production.
The second in O’Casey’s Dublin trilogy, Juno and the Paycock dramatises tenement life for the Boyles, whose breadwinner, Jack (Mark Rylance), prefers drink to work while his wife, Juno (J Smith-Cameron), is left to earn their keep.
Crotchety comedy takes the lead. Jack is irked by Juno’s bossiness; Juno is peeved with their daughter, Mary (Aisling Kearns), for striking from work and with Jack for his malingering. Their son Johnny (Eimhin Fitzgerald Doherty) watches on twitchily until the plotline involving republican vengeance snaps into play.
Director Matthew Warchus has gathered a talented cast, from Smith-Cameron as a formidably watchable presence to Rylance as her peacocking husband. They are never less than entertaining but the show does not stretch them, and the drama of the first two acts is a little too ambling and creaky, with the broad Irish accents and comic dissolution.
Jack, who proclaims to have been a sea captain, is as much a fantasist and self-mythologiser as Jerusalem’s Rooster, it seems, and Rylance is delightfully Chaplinesque in the comic physicality of his drunkenness. He makes an entertaining double-act with Paul Hilton as Jack’s wastrel friend Joxer, but even when the latter is not around, he seems like a comic duo in one, staggering more than walking and playing glintingly to the audience for laughs.
O’Casey’s trilogy contains strong women and Juno is one of them, although she is not romanticised. Smith-Cameron really is the heart and soul of this production, for all of Rylance’s charisma. Juno is the foil to Jack’s clownishness and when the tone flips to tragedy, Smith-Cameron is tremendous. Kearns does wonders with her part as Mary too, although Johnny feels rather insignificant.
There are songs and music when the Boyles begin their carousing after the promise of money from a relative’s will. Beneath the bonhomie are O’Casey’s poetry, and the family’s craving to be somewhere they are not known, but this production does not dwell too long on these.
The war outside enters the home through Rob Howell’s set, which looks as if a strip has been torn out of it, and has blood-soaked red light above a sketched house below. The family’s poverty is conveyed through the sparseness of their furnishing at the start, with a table, fire grate and, importantly, a dangling crucifix to which characters speak beseechingly or in accusation over their terrible losses.
When the plot turns dark, the stage cracks open to an expressionistic setting and it is a magnificent moment. The tragedy feels late but it is impressive in the impact of its turning point. “Take away this murdering hate,” Juno says in front of the crucifix when the war reaches her home, and her prayer sounds all the more tragic for the decades of Ireland’s sectarian hate yet to come.
• At Gielgud theatre, London, until 23 November
