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Druid’s King of the Castle highlights geographical, historical and psychological boundaries. The playwright, Eugene McCabe, lived around the geographical boundaries of Fermanagh and Monaghan; he naturally represented their society on stage – scenery, clothes, accent, traditions, drinks and economy. First performed in 1964, King of the Castle still has a resounding impact on contemporary audiences through its recollection of 1950-60s Irish social decorum and principles of life, which can also be reflected on our present epoch. The performance deals with the themes of power and money, love and respect. These boundaries between the characters become an enormous canyon from which they cannot escape. Thus, the tragic fate is unavoidable; mirroring classic Greek tragedies.
The spectators are welcomed to a vividly naturalistic mise-en-scène, as the stage is mimetically designed to bring the essence of the contemporary life with the use of industrial machines. These make noises and produce smoke, a scale that has a semiotic significance: ‘the weight of capital’ in the society, and a farmhouse architecture which is ‘Scober’ MacAdam’s — the king of the castle— house, in Co. Leitrim. The whole frame and the created atmosphere have provided a sense of nostalgia to some members of the audience who have lived around farms.
The production also utilizes some illusionary techniques such as the placement of a large table and thirteen chairs on stage that come from the ceiling. The opening scene may have religious reference to The Last Supper; there are eleven men eating and drinking to whom are served by Teresa (Scober MacAdam’s wife, played by Seána Kerlake) and another woman. This particular frame is a mimêsis of Leonardo da Vinci’s painting. The use of onstage space is vast, multilevel and the position of the characters may also contain metaphysical significances, for instance, Teresa mostly remains on stage left that can be a theatrical reference to hell and/or chaos as well as religious.
The plot is quite simple and slow, but the characters demonstrate a duality of realities which emphasize the boundaries between the psychic and action, thought and word. Scober (Séan McGinley) is fifty-nine. He has properties, money and a young wife, Teresa, who is twenty-nine— their names also have religious connotations. Even though he has all this power, his neighbours mock him because he is sexually impotent— one character, Tommy, successfully and consecutively brought laughter for the audience. Consequently, he wants employee Matt, who is thirty-two, ‘to give her a belly’, so Scober can have an heir. Matt and Teresa have a tense argument that leads to physical aggression. It is a powerful scene. An intimate relation is the outcome of the violent act. It highlights the role of women in that society and the submissive attitude towards men, which correlates to the present day— there are men and women who still live in verbal and physical aggressive environments.
Scober acts like Oedipus in Oedipus the King. Teresa is an unhappy and tired wife, who merely wants to be loved. When she asks him if he loves her, he says he respects her. The truth is shown to his eyes, yet he is blind with the illusionary smoke of power and money. Teresa revenges his egoistic attitudes by having sexual relation with Matt without the acknowledgment of Scober. Quotations like “being figuratively blind and knowing nothing” are constantly repeated in the course of the play, emphasising the motifs of Oedipus. The tragedy finishes when Teresa leaves Scober alone in the void of nothingness.
To finalize, Druid’s King of the Castle does represent a very clear realistic atmosphere and the zeitgeist of the society. There are extensive scenes, such as when men are working for Scober or when Teresa is serving them tea. However, this should not be viewed as a negative aspect since the idea is to pass a sense of real and natural tiredness, physically and psychologically. Taking into consideration the purpose of the play, it is quite captivating.
