The Theater: Old Play Off-Broadway, Dec. 19, 1960

The Plough and the Stars (by Sean O'Casey) stands in the very first rank of modern plays. Among O'Casey's own, only Juno and the Paycock can challenge it; but though Juno has more memorable characters and richer comedy, its tragedy is dented with willful, stagy melodrama, where in The Plough and the Stars, tragedy and comedy are locked in an unshatterable embrace. In The Plough O'Casey found, if no better materials for tragedy, then an apter moment. Under the stress of turbulent historic events, amid the gunfire and bloodshed of the 1916 Easter Rebellion, O'Casey could release his anger and compassion...

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