Brigit Saint Brigit Theatre: 'The Field' by John B. Keane

It's 1965 in County Kerry, so the threat comes not from an outside invader, but from another villager, the widow Butler who owns the few fertile acres and needs to sell to survive. Its passage to the river makes it indispensable. Thady ‘Bull’ McCabe needs that field. But he can't afford to pay the asking price which is what it's worth. Yet that field, he knows in his bones, is his. His family's blood and sweat and tending have made it his. With ferocity and a dangerous reputation, he forces a rigged auction in which he will be the only bidder. But then, enter an outsider. William Dee is a man who can afford to pay the higher price, an Irish expat, happy to live in Britain, and one who believes in the primacy of the law, contracts, and the authorities that will protect him. He doesn't realize he's entered a world not of manmade law but of passion and elemental force. The explosive intrigue, violence, investigation, and clerical condemnation that follow roil the small-town community: each person struggles in a net of guilt, denial, and self-preservation. Keane's is a plot and examination of character that rivets. Yet slightly beneath the playwright's acute depiction of the events and reactions of specific characters in a specific place and time runs a haunting undertone that's without time or place. How much do the facts win out over our comfort in being a member of the tribe? How do we recognize the ages-old, whispered myths that so infuse and color our judgement? And how can we know which ones have value? In Bull McCabe, John B. has cunningly created a character whose selfishness and brutality repel, while his passion and tenderness for the land draw us in. Such human contradiction is the stuff of the play's essential power.

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