Considered "too dangerous" to be staged at the Abbey a century ago, Synge's Tinker's Wedding has a violently anti-clerical thrust that still has impact today. Druid Theatre's project of producing all Synge's plays continues with these two rarely performed works that sit comfortably together. Both portray outsiders affirming their individuality in the face of religious authority and social conformity.
The first is a gleeful comedy presenting a tinker's frustrated attempt to gain respectability by marrying her lover in a church. In The Well of the Saints, two blind beggars are horrified by the ugliness they see around them when their sight is restored by a saint.
Just as the tinker, Sarah Casey (Norma Sheahan) rejects the values of the priest who excludes her, Mary and Martin Doul choose to remain blind rather than be cured again.
While its harsh parable is a little obvious, the Well of the Saints's language is rich, and memorably delivered by Marie Mullen as Mary. Synge did not specify a particular period for the play and Garry Hynes's production suggests several different worlds. The saint has stepped out of a medieval painting, while the local lads and girls are in 1940s belted coats and berets. However, it doesn't quite cohere; nor do Simone Kirby's local beauty and Mick Lally's lustful Martin Doul seem fully at ease.
Likewise, the patchwork costumes in The Tinker's Wedding seem too twee; while the play is not a piece of social realism, there is a danger of creating a timeless Synge-land that denies his acute observation of social class and hierarchy. It might have been more rewarding to present these tinkers as the more recognisable - and problematic - figures of contemporary Irish travellers.
·At An Griánan, Letterkenny, until Saturday. Box office: 00353 7491 23288.
