Customer Reviews

The Field

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A universal parable of an ordinary man with extraordinary qualities. The Bull McCabe is a tragically flawed hero who like his more noble but no more heroic predecessors in Greek or Shakespearean tragedy is as much "sinned against" as sinning. This politically incorrect Irish hero pays the price for his all -consuming obsession with land and overwhelming desire to protect his family dynasty. Read and see this play and admire an ordinary man who is eloquent and persuasive enough to challenge the powerful Irish trinity of God, Law and Society. A hero before his time for all time!

Harking to one of his favorite themes, Keane, one of Ireland's foremost dramatists, once again focuses his action on a character who is at odds with the law but in tune with the sentiment of his fellow farmers. Big Bull McCabe, a farmer whose nineteen-acre farm has no water, has leased four acres of poor land from Maggie Butler for five years, gradually developing it into prime grazing pasture by fertilizing it, fencing it, and pulling the thistles, to give his cows access to water. Now Maggie wants to sell the land to the highest bidder, and Bull, having invested his time and effort, believes that he has rights to the property. When an "imported land grabber" from England offers an unusually high price for the land, Bull, his son, and a friend decide to take justice into their own hands.

The passion of local Kerry farmers for their land, and their consequent resentment of outsiders who threaten the land, take on particularly dark tones in this play. Bull, who seems to have sprung fully grown from the soil, believes that land has its own morality, that the laws which are imposed by "society" are irrelevant. He is willing to do whatever it takes to control the outcome. The other characters here are equally tied to the land, supporting Bull and adhering to a code of silence regarding his activities when the law and the local priest investigate the dispute.

Starkly realistic, the play is simple in concept, but its revelations of the local Irish culture and the response of these Kerry farmers to outsiders and "the clan of the round collar" taps into the "us vs. them" dynamic of the disenfranchised everywhere. Bull is no more extreme in his temper and his desire to protect what is "his" than is Mick Flanagan, the pub keeper, who treats his constantly pregnant wife Maimie like property. Dark and powerful in the tension it establishes between the "law" and the men it is supposed to govern, the play is firmly rooted in the local culture, establishing Bull McCabe as one of Ireland's most famous characters. Mary Whipple