THE SHADOW OF A GUNMAN - Sean O'CaseyThe Shadow of a Gunman is the first play in Sean O'Casey's Dublin trilogy, performed first performed at the Abbey Theater in 1923 - James Joyce's Ulysses had been published the previous year. The action takes place in 1920, while the War of Independence rages. The other two Dublin plays are Juno and the Paycock and The Plow and the Stars, the latter of which caused a riot at its first performance at the Abbey because the nationalists in the audience were unhappy with O's hostile portrayal. 'Casey of the Abbey Revolutionaries. 1916 Easter Rising. Dominic Dromgoole's revival of The Shadow of a Gunman is set at the Tricycle Theater in London's Kilburn, long an Irish ghetto, where in the 70s and 80s the local public houses were full of IRA fundraisers. Clearly, Dromgoole wants the play to resonate with Kilburn's own story. The key event of the play is a black-and-tan raid in the middle of the night on an apartment building: the feeling of what it means to be caught in a war between guerrillas and an occupying army is evoked with extraordinary economy. How many wars of national liberation have there been in the last eighty years, how many raids, how many innocent people killed? The mind turns away from these questions. O'Casey said that the play: is built on the framework of Shelley's phrase [from "Prometheus Unbound"] "Ah me! Alas, pain, pain forever, forever!" Indeed, the phrase is quoted in the first moments of the piece. This suggests that the play is a tragedy, and indeed it is. It ends with the death of a brave and innocent young girl, Minnie Powell (wonderfully played by Jane Murphy, making her first appearance on the professional stage). All the characters seem hopelessly trapped in circumstances from which they cannot escape. Every character (even Minnie's perhaps) is fatally flawed. It seems like nothing good can come of anything they do, and the violence around them takes over their lives whether they like it or not. At the same time, the play is a comedy. In fact, about ninety percent of the work consists of a seemingly endless series of comedy sketches. As with Beckett and Joyce, we feel the constant influence of the music hall. This comedy is at the expense of the weaknesses of the Irish – their inability to be tidy, clean or punctual..;