Get tickets now to "the most critically acclaimed play of the season" (Rolling Stone). The Chicago Tribune calls THE FERRYMAN "a sprawling, Shakespearean masterpiece and the best new play of the year." Written by Jez Butterworth and directed Sam Mendes, this "new, instant and monumental classic" (HuffPost) has been ranked on more "Top 10" lists than any other show. New York Times critic Ben Brantley says, "It's the Broadway production of the year."
It's 1981 in Northern Ireland, and the Carney farmhouse is a hive of activity with preparations for the annual harvest. A day of hard work on the land and a traditional night of feasting and celebrations lie ahead. But this year they will be interrupted by a visitor. The Hollywood Reporter says, "This crackling thriller positively thrums with life and love. It will leave you breathless." And The New Yorker raves, "As you sit in the audience, you know you are watching theatre history happen." Don't miss THE FERRYMAN - "the must-see drama of the year" (Time Out).
Sam Mendes directs, with scenic & costume design by Rob Howell, lighting design by Peter Mumford, sound design & original music by Nick Powell, and choreography by Scarlett Mackmin.
The last time a new drama with this breadth of scope and ambition appeared on Broadway was seven years ago. That was Mr. Butterworth's 'Jerusalem,' in which a small-time, middle-aged country drug dealer (played by a monumental Mark Rylance) became a majestic emblem of an ancient, heroic England. With 'The Ferryman,' Mr. Butterworth is again assessing the chokehold of a nation's past on its present. But now it is Northern Ireland at the height of the politically fraught period known as the Troubles. (We hear radio reports of the of the dying Irish Republican hunger striker in the Maze prison.) And he mines the folksy clichés of Irish archetypes - as garrulous, drink-loving, pugilistic souls - to find the crueler patterns of a centuries-old cycle of violence and vengeance.
As a portrait of a vengeance-obsessed culture drowning in its own spilled blood, 'The Ferryman' is a searing social document. As a sprawling human drama, poised on the precipice of a violence that you know is waiting for its beguilingly drawn and assayed characters, it is a riveting work of art. It sprawls, too, in the most exhilarating sense of the term. Jez Butterworth's revenge tragedy, which marked its official opening Sunday night at Broadway's Bernard B. Jacobs Theatre, teems with people and the events that divide and imperil them.
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