THE FERRYMAN on Broadway

From London comes last year's West End hit, The Ferryman, Jezz Butterworth's titanic play about the Troubles in Northern Ireland during the decade of the 1980's, around the time Bobby Sands and other incarcerated members of the IRA died in Maze Prison after a long hunger strike that divided a nation.

The well-preserved body of Seamus Carney, killed because he was believed to be an informer for the British, has been discovered buried in a bog, and now the kingpin of the IRA, Mr. Muldoon (Stuart Graham), must make sure that the surviving members of the Carney family do not accuse him and his cohorts of the murder. This threat is especially directed at the surviving brother of the deceased, Quinn Carney (Paddy Considine), the patriarch of a large rural Northern Ireland family. And what an incredible family Mr. Butterworth has created! All of them played with beautiful nuances and expert craft by a company of Irish actors under the direction of the spectacular Sam Mendes, a director who has proven again and again that he is both adept crafting films (from American Beauty to Skyfall and Spectre) to both musicals (the recent revival of Gypsy) and this masterpiece by the author of the monumental Jerusalem, one of the most exciting plays in recent days, which had a monumental Tony award winning performance by Mark Rylance.

Whereas Mr. Butterworth attempted to write an ensemble piece in Jerusalem, the outcome was mostly a vehicle for the talents of Mr. Rylance. With The Ferryman he has achieved this quest. With 21 speaking parts, the writing is able to create 21 fully-rounded characters which range from angry young men who dance furiously to a punk rock song by The Undertones, to a wheelchair-bound aunt, played beautifully by that great Irish actress Fionnula Flanagan, who remembers her unrequited love which left her childless. There is also a simple-minded British handyman named Tom Kettle (Justin Edwards) who works for the Carney family, and who brings the children apples, and who wrings the neck of a goose for the family harvest feast, an eerie act-ender harbinger of the violence that's bubbling under the surface of this work.

With a rousing version of the Irish fighting song "A Row in the Town," the mention of the feared legendary creatures called the Banshees, and an ending that you will never forget The Ferryman is most definitely an Irish play crafted out of ancient mythology and the violence of the times it portrays. Yet, the themes that it presents are as universal as those of the great playwrights of the English language. With this spectacular work, Mr. Butterworth joins that prestigious list.