The Ferryman
Written by Jez Butterworth
Directed by Sam Mendes
Bernard B. Jacobs Theatre
June 9, 2019
Production website
💉💉💉 out of 5.

Ferryman

I love Irish theatre.  I love the grit and passion they bring to the story.  I love good ghost stories and the Irish know some pretty amazing ghost stories.  I love how so many of these Irish tales are about trying to make amends for an often unimaginable harm done in the past or an intense interest in passing family history on to the next generation.  This is what makes Irish literature such fun in the theatre.

The Ferryman had this and more – and more – and more.  It was just too much.  Too many characters – too many storylines – too much stuff on stage.  All of it was good and delivered in a first rate performance.  But to me it was like a Thanksgiving meal in which every member of your large family decided to bring their favorite dish to the meal.  There was no room on the table for the food.  They started to use night stages and TV trays to hold the food.  Some of the dishes had to even be left on the floor.  The meal was almost spoiled by too many options.

Ferryman suffered from this access.  I wished they had untangled this story into a few smaller pieces so I could have savored each one.  

I did find the overall concept of letting all of these stores build upon each other to produce a bloody, gun shooting climax a bit much.  The build just didn’t justify the chaos at the end.  It was as if the best way to end all the stories was just to unleash exploding guns – then we know we are done.