A reading of The Seafarer (2007), the last published play by the Irish
playwright Conor McPherson (1971- ), which aims to investigate the rich
intertextuality that the work presents. The text echoes both canonic and
popular renderings of the Faustian myth, those of Christopher Marlowe
(c. 1564-1593) and Johann Wolfgang Goethe (1749-1832), as well as its
folk rewritings. In The Seafarer McPherson conveys a complex portrait of
a group of Irish working-class mates, who are enthralled in existential and
gender conflicts. In this his fourth full-length ensemble play to reach both
the London West End and New York Broadway (the first being The Weir of
1999) McPherson critically dialogues with the modernist and postmodernist
dramatic tradition mainly through the works of John Middleton
Synge (1871-1909), Samuel Beckett (1906-1989), Harold Pinter (1930-2008) and David Mamet (1947- ), without losing, however, a genuine
sense of deep Irishness.
