Two and a half stars, rounding up to three. There are a couple of plays here from the Irish dramatist J.M. Synge, and one was far better than the other I thought. The Playboy of the Western World is Synge's most famous play, as I understand it, and it's also the one I liked least. I get the feeling it's meant to be funny, but this story of a big-talking brat who never quite manages to murder his father, and the community that falls for and spurns him on a dime, just inches too far into farce for me to take it seriously. There are some amusing bits but it's too silly for me to really enjoy, and it felt dragged out over three acts. It gets two stars from me. Far more compelling was the one-act Riders to the Sea, a sad little piece based on life on the Aran Islands, and the death of a family's final son by drowning. Three stars for that one, it's short and affecting and evocative.