The riotous history of The Playboy of the Western World
When first staged in Dublin in 1907 JM Synge's play caused a riot. Two years later its author was dead but his play was soon to go global'Whenever a country produces a man of genius," said WB Yeats of his friend John Millington Synge, "that man is never like the country's idea of itself."Ireland in 1907 saw itself as ready for self-rule and it expected its artists to promote the image of a steady, sober, self-re…