I honestly didn’t know what to expect from USF's production of The Shaughraun. When the lights dimmed and a fairly traditional Irish song started, I expected to see something like a thatched cottage on the stage. When the curtain opened to reveal a huge cow, I couldn’t believe my eyes. But that’s the way the whole play goes. The traditional script is mixed with contemporary music and abstract devices to add to the surreal and comic effect.
The Shaughraun (pronounced shock-run) premiered in New York in 1874, where it enjoyed enormous popularity. It recounts the story of a wealthy Irishman wrongfully convicted as an Irish freedom fighter and his shaughraun (vagabond) friend’s efforts to help him. A little research told me that Boucicault was Irish theater’s first international superstar. Quite political in his day, he used the play as a vehicle to lobby for the pardoning of Fenian prisoners. Basically a romantic comedy, the play has a Shakespearean feel to it, particularly in mistaken identities, and plot twists that keep pairs of lovers apart but eventually
This article appears in Feb 24 – Mar 2, 2010.