'One doesn't want to tread on ghosts," says Niall Henry softly. But the process of making J.M. Synge's The Playboy of the Western World vivid and relevant for a new century is bound to involve - at the very least - a certain amount of chain-rattling. Synge's lilting prose may, on the face of it, seem a curious choice for a director who has been associated with a primarily physical form of theatre;, but that, of course, is the challenge.
"To take something that would be deemed 'brilliant' by some people and 'traditional' by others - and all the different things in between," says Henry. "And try to respect the text, respect the ethics of it, the politics of it and everyone's sensitivities towards it.
"We don't have too many classical theatre texts in Ireland - in comparison to the French or the Germans, say. And the English are replete with them. The Playboy is a classic text, but it's also a very beautiful play; and it has at its core semi-grotesque qualities which are, at times, very like Beckett.
"It's also an important play in terms of our socio-political and theatrical history. It's the emotional property of the Abbey, but also of companies like Druid, who have been associated with many facets of social and theatrical change. So it's got very interesting resonances as a piece of theatre in the very young theatrical world that Ireland now exists in."
The present production grew out of collaborations and friendships, he says: Last summer, Henry's Sligo-based Blue Raincoat company came to the Peacock with Jocelyn Clarke's Alice in Wonderland and Alice Through the Looking Glass as part of a National Theatre partnership initiative. When that project went well, Ben Barnes asked Henry if he'd be interested in a follow-up. He was. He also wanted to work with his long-time friend Mikel Murfi, "whom I grew u p with and went to school with; we sailed together until we were about 20, fought many a time, and were the best of friends". Both had trained in France, albeit in different styles of theatre. "Now we're the wrong side of 30 and never had the opportunity to work together -- so I asked Mikel if he was interested, and it has developed from there."
With Murfi cast as the eponymous hero, Christy Mahon, the next step was to work out how to portray the play's two women, Pegeen Mike and the Widow Quin. Traditionally the Widow is older, harder - Synge himself specifies only that she is "a woman of about 30", while Pegeen is merely the daughter of Michael James Flaherty, publican - but it is obvious from the opening scenes of a preview performance that this production has shifted the emphasis considerably by casting Olwen Fouere as a pent-up Pegeen, all angles and anger and gritted teeth, while Cathy Belton plays the Widow Quin with coltish grace and a dancer's fluidity.
For Henry, this sort of "against-type" casting can be a positively creative force. "Setting up a project that hopefully will lead somewhere interesting demands, in a sense, shifting the foundations slightly at the outset so there's no way of going back," he says. "In a way, the play pales in its significance compared to the people you work with -- because they're alive today, and they're here."
He is reluctant to impose a "concept" on his production, but agrees that the twin poles of movement and stillness are important. Murfi's athleticism is, by now, legendary - and the Playboy's spectacular entrance has the audience holding its breath in a collective gasp. Henry sprinkles his conversation with references to painting and ballet, and the influences of both can be seen in a production that resembles, at one level, an intricately-choreographed series of still-life studies.
"You only see something move because you've seen something not moving," he says. "After an hour and a half, you end up with a composite memory; the things which are happening on the stage make sense because of something that was established an hour ago."
Staging and props are minimal, and the traverse set-up, with the actors moving around and behind the audience, using the four corners of the Peacock's tiny space, creates the sort of immediate, three-dimensional sensation more usually associated with circus. Henry is delighted by the comparison.
"The Italians came up with the idea of the proscenium arch during the Renaissance - and no wonder people got fed up with the Renaissance after a while. 'Pros' is one of the things Peter Brook would talk about a s the death of theatre. It belongs to a different era; it's not immediate; it creates a divide; you don't have any sense of participation. When you buy your ticket for the theatre, you should feel that you belong with these people - that they're there to play for you. That's why good circuses are great.
"It was Olwen's idea to put in the hides for the actors at the back of the steps - and that also helps create the sense, for the audience, that you're in the middle of their world."
Henry is also highly aware of the play's idiosyncratic blend of comedy and tragedy. "The grotesque elements of the script -- it's very Eastern European, that. Because of the very difficult history they've had over the past hundred years, they find humour in things that we would find crazy. When I lived in Paris, the Playboy would be on at the Chatelet twice a year, from Japanese companies, Australian companies, Korean companies. I was 19 then, and regarded it as a play I'd never do when I grew up, you know? But seeing avant-garde companies from all over the world regard it as a masterpiece, I began to think: 'OK, maybe there's something I'm missing here.' And when you start to look at it - really look at it - as a play you c an understand why. Any play that looks at the human condition at a proper level will survive at the end of the day."
The Playboy of the Western World is at the Peacock Theatre, Dublin.