The King of Friday's Men

King of Friday's Men (1948) is an Irish play in three acts by Michael Joseph (M.J.) Molloy[1] and is considered one of his most successful plays.[2] The first production was on October 18, 1948, in the Abbey Theatre in Dublin, Ireland.[3]

The Abbey Theatre in Ireland (2006)

Plot

The story is set in 1787, in Ireland, a few years before the French Revolution, where a young woman is rescued by an aged man, Bartley Dowd, from an Anglo-Irish landlord who seeks her for his pleasure. The aging man is capable of fighting with the shillelagh or wooden walking stick in the process of rescuing her. The story has twist and turns as the landlord plots against the aged warrior.[4] The play brings up the issue of claims that feudal lords had Droit du seigneur or lus primae noctis (right to the first night) from serfs in medieval Europe. The play could be considered an example of how advanced European society has progressed for the rights of women from what was claimed to exist in an earlier time.

Abbey Theatre Productions

The show premiered at the Abbey Theatre in Dublin in 1948. The following year was the same production. The show then premiered in the United States.

US Productions
Maggie McNamara (1954) was in the 1951 Broadway production.

The show was at the McCarter Theater in Princeton, New Jersey in 1951 and then moved the Broadway's Playhouse Theater later that year. Unfortunately, it only lasted four performance on Broadway.[5]

Cast for the Broadway Production (1951)[6]

Maggie McNamara: Una Brehony

Sean McClory: Rory Commons

Walter Macken: Bartley Dowd.

The character of Bartley Dowd was first played in Ireland by author and actor Walter Macken,[7] who also played the same character in the Broadway production in the US.[6]

Returning Back to the Abbey Theatre

The show returned to the stage of the Abbey Theatre for a 1952 production. Following that, there was a 1973 production with Sean Kenny as the theatre designer. Twelve years later, there was a 1985 production. Nineteen years after that, there was a 2004 production.[8]

Characters

Bartley Dowd: Aged gentleman who was separate and distinct to the colonial system around him .

Una Brehony: The young lady who is rescued by Bartley Dowd

Rory Commons: The Landlord

Book version of play

The play was later published as the book King of Friday's Men: A Play in Three Acts (1953)[9]

References
  1. "Irish Playography: King of Friday's Men". www.irishplayography.com. Retrieved 2023-08-05.
  2. "M. J. Molloy", Wikipedia, 2023-06-15, retrieved 2023-08-05
  3. "Irish Playography: The Abbey Theatre". www.irishplayography.com. Retrieved 2023-08-05.
  4. "New Plays in Manhattan". TIME Magazine. 57 (10): 57–58.
  5. "Maggie McNamara", Wikipedia, 2023-05-31, retrieved 2023-08-05
  6. "King of Friday's Men (Playbill)".
  7. "Molloy, Michael Joseph | Dictionary of Irish Biography". www.dib.ie. Retrieved 2023-08-05.
  8. "Search Results | Abbey Archives | Abbey Theatre - Amharclann na Mainistreach". Abbey Theatre. Retrieved 2023-08-08.
  9. Molloy, M.J. The King of Friday's Men: A Play in Three Acts.
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