What is worse than having no money at all? The promise of receiving a life-changing sum or it that just does not come.
Normally, we stray far away from nearing the endings in most columns as a means of leaving that element available to the reader upon further exploration. Sean O'Casey's tale of a tight family unit unbound in "Juno & The Paycock" demands examination because its final act offers one of the most unique conclusions in Theatre.
Mary Boyle, so resolute and confident in her ways is leaving future Union leader Jerry. Johnny Boyle, having recovered from his injuries in the ongoing Irish Civil War is having moments of guilt and personal horror. All while their mother Juno keeps it all together, and their father Captain Jack Boyle holds down the bar with his optimism.
Schoolteacher Charlie Bentham shows up one day and presents the Captain with a major opportunity. It seems a distant relative has left him around 2000 pounds in a will. Instantly, the Captain is done with his running "butty" Joxer and spending wealth he does not yet physically possess. This alteration of the Boyle's fortunes has even changed the way other townspeople look at them. However, the Captain wants to sew up all of his and the needs of his family immediately - perhaps move to a house by the sea.
O'Casey's duality of life is embedded deep within the second act. Mary is torn between the philosophies of Jerry's nihilism and Charlie Bentham's "theosophist" belief in one "Universal Life-Breath." (In his defense, the Captain finds that fellow Dubliners know more about "Charlie Chaplin an' Tommy Mix than they do about SS. Peter an' Paul!") O'Casey is carefully lighting a path for the collapse of the Boyles. However, you would never know it.
Their newly furnished home (on the promise of future payment) is more liable to break out into song than speak of the conflicts of the day. This fact reaches an interesting impasse when Mrs. Tancred visits on the way to the wake of her son. At this point, we know that Johnny is connected to Robbie Tancred's death. However, we miss the point of the household's dancing and singing in the midst of yet another young Irish man lost in this ongoing conflict. When Mrs. Tancred delivers her beautiful eulogy ("Me home is gone, now; he was me only child,") it is as sobering as slap in the face.
The last official character to appear in second act, the tailor Needle Nugent, is also the first in the third act to burst the Boyle's bubble. We learn it has been over a month since anyone has heard from Charlie Bentham. The loans have matured into debts. When Mary and Juno head out, The Captain stays behind in bed. Joxer and Needle Nugent enter the home under the impression that they are alone. Surprisingly, Joxer is the first to criticize and mock his longtime best friend ("forgettin' their friends, forgettin' God - wouldn't even lift his hat passin' a chapel.") Needle Nugent's realism is understood. He speaks the plain truth. Nugent made him a suit. The seven pounds is long overdue. Nugent wants payment. Apparently, he did his due diligence and discovered that the money is simply not coming. Joxer turning on the Captain is understandable, but feels disconcerting.
Nugent demands his money, and when he does not receive it - takes his suit back. This begins a downward spiral of bad luck for the Boyle's that we cannot spoil. To O'Casey's credit, once the descent begins, you can see most of it coming. However, seeing it onstage (a new production starring Oscar winner Mark Rylance was announced for September 2024) must be riveting. In the most brilliant of terms, O'Casey ends the final act with three separate endings. Each Boyle story follows its natural denouement to collapse, but O'Casey pauses to insert the passage of time. This time is not only to account for the possibility of these events happening in reality. There is a lot to consider here. This house was a home. Now it is just an empty candlelit example of the Captain's worst fear - "the world's in a terrible state of chassis."
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Mik Davis is the record store manager at T-Bones Records & Cafe in Hattiesburg.
NEW MUSIC This Week
CARY HUDSON - Ole Blue [CD](Malaco) • Mississippi-born and bred Cary Hudson becomes part of Mississippi label Malaco Records new Americana initative. After years of making several brilliant records on his own, "Ole Blue" brings all of those familiar elements and players back together for a Folk/Blues hybrid that presents Hudson's homespun songs in their best light. Like many of his solo shows where he can transform the stage into a classic Delta porch by stomping out his own beats while playing guitar, "Ole Blue" revisits the primary circle of Hill Country Blues that most Mississippi music descends from. Along the way, Hudson also steps into the large shoes of classic songwriters like Townes, Guy, and Prine to again emerge as a seminal Southern storyteller.
WILLIE NELSON - The Border [LP/CD](Legacy) • Eighty years after his first gig singing with the Bohemian Polka, Ninety-one year old Willie Nelson releases his seventy-fifth album. Like all the later Buddy Cannon-produced records, "The Border" is equally split between Nelson/Cannon collaborations and contributions from ace songwriters like Shawn Camp and Will Jennings. The standout at the moment is his revitalized version of Rodney Crowell's 2019 song "The Border." Nelson's rendition not only captures the same sympathy for the human task of serving in the Border Patrol, his gravelly voice and stately vibrato lend it gravitas.
HABIBI - Dreammachine [LP/CD](Kill Rock Stars) • Detroit's Habibi have existed on the outer orbit of Indie Rock for more than ten years. A longtime critical fave, "Dreammachine" proves the promise of the first wave of acclaim that crashed on the girl-group-inspired duo in 2011. Expanded to a full five-piece group (with more help from MGMT sideman Jay Heiselman,) Habibi weaves in and out of dreamy, oblique Pop ("My Moon") and their patented early Sixties-meets-late Sixties psychedelics ("Do You Want Me Now.") "Dreammachine" feels like Rahill and Lenny finally achieved their multidimensional sound.
MARIAS - Submarine [LP/CD](Atlantic) • After dropping one of the most alluring singles of 2023 ("A Room Up In The Sky" feat. Eyedress - who has several early reissues out this week,) Maria Zardoya leads her lounge-tinged space-bound Indie rockers on their lovelorn second album. "Submarine" deals with isolation in a different way (the disco-laden "Run Your Mouth") romanticizing memory over the present and igniting the chill of a condition-based relationship ("If Only.")
