Juno (book by Joseph Stein, music and lyrics by Marc Blitzstein, dances by Agnes de Mille) is a Pyrrhic victory of Broadway talent over an Irish genius. This musical version of Sean O'Casey's Juno and the Paycock paradoxically mutes O'Casey's inner music with song, fetters his soaring spirit with dance, and deflects the lyric flow of his dialogue into prosy pools of talk.
A modern classic, Juno and the Paycock is fashioned around characters who escape the last-act curtain and become dramatic immortals like Hamlet, Tartuffe, and St. Joan. Captain Boyle, the strutting Paycock,...