Word: macken
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Dates: during 1950-1959
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...romantic period piece about a homely 18th Century shillelagh fighter who turns up in the west of Ireland just as a great landlord is about to seize a pretty young peasant girl for his pleasure. When the girl (Maggie McNamara) pretends love for the brawny shillelagh-swinging Dowd (Walter Macken), he cheerfully whips the landlord's entire press gang. But though Dowd eventually wins the girl's love, the landlord schemes so that he does not win the girl...
...swashbuckling stage piece about the Ireland that ran more to liquor than to leprechauns, The King of Friday's Men has some of the old Irish gift of words, while Dowd has some of the mighty human dimensions of folklore. And Actor Macken, who first played the part at the Abbey, brings real vigor to it, and the smack and caress of Irish speech. But the play's snatches of racy prose do not offset its stretches of lumpish playwriting. Too often both untidy and oldfashioned, it closed after four performances...