2. John Millington Synge
The Irish playwright John Millington Synge can claim an honor few other writers have achieved: his most famous play caused actual riots. A Protestant from an upper-middle-class background, his comedy The Playboy of the Western World incited a great deal of anger with its perceived insults to working-class Catholic Irish people. The first night of the production at the Abbey Theatre in Dublin led to such an uproar that the third act had to be pantomimed.
Subsequent productions of the play continued to lead to riots. A political leader of the Sinn Feín party described the play as a “vile and inhuman story told in the foulest language we have ever listened to from a public platform” and encouraged the rioting. The play’s patricide combined with the unfavorable portrayal of rural Irish people, especially the women dressed in shifts which were, at the time, a symbol of adultery and wantonness, drove the hostile reception to work.
John Millington Synge sadly did not live long past his young prime. Diagnosed with Hodgkins’ Lymphoma in his 30s, which was untreatable at the time, he died at 38 years while attempting to finish his last play. He cut a striking figure with his thick, black hair and long mustache with a sharp, triangular goatee. With a handsome face, it’s easy to picture someone like Josh Brolin playing him in a film.
