Deirdre of the Sorrows, Synge’s Romantic Irish Legend, on Stage at City Lit
Buck Mulligan thought, puzzled: -- Shakespeare? he said. I seem to know the name. A flying sunny smile rayed in his loose features. -- To be sure, he said, remembering brightly. The chap that writes like Synge.” (Thanks to Gerry Owen for the quote.)Synge, who is best known for his plays Playboy of the Western World and Riders to the Sea, left an unfinished draft of Deirdre of the Sorrows when he died in 1909. The play was finished by William Butler Yeats and Synge's fiancée, Molly Allgood. City Lit’s production is the first time that Deirdre has been staged in Chicago for 100 years. In 1917, the Chicago Little Theatre, an influential part of the art theater movement, staged the play. The art theater or little theater movement was organized to present the work of contemporary European playwrights and counter the commercial theater then being produced in the U.S. Deirdre of the Sorrows continues at City Lit Theater, 1020 W. Bryn Mawr Ave. (on the second floor of the Edgewater Presbyterian Church), through October 15. Performances are Friday-Sunday with Monday performances on October 2 and 9. Tickets are $32; buy them online or call 773.292.3682.
Nancy S Bishop
Nancy S. Bishop is publisher and Stages editor of Third Coast Review. She’s a member of the American Theatre Critics Association and a 2014 Fellow of the National Critics Institute at the Eugene O’Neill Theater Center. You can read her personal writing on pop culture at nancybishopsjournal.com, and follow her on Twitter @nsbishop. She also writes about film, books, art, architecture and design.