Tragedy or Farce?

Theater director Max Stafford-Clark is no stranger to controversy. An ardent promoter of new writing through his Out Of Joint company, he brought to the stage such succès de scandale as Mark Ravenhill's 1996 hit about sex and consumerism, Shopping and F______. Even he, though, may have been taken aback by the furor that has attended his latest project: Sebastian Barry's Hinterland , a co-production between Out Of Joint, the Abbey Theatre in Dublin and London's Royal National Theatre.

The play is a satire partly based on the life of the Irish politician Charles Haughey — nicknamed by his people...