The play's the thing to capture the imagination of a Gillian

Sometimes life changing moments are hard to detect. Sure there are the big ones: getting married, becoming a parent, the glorious realization you aren't like any of the people on Jersey Shore. However, then there are the smaller ones, the ones which takes time to digest, understand, notice them for what they are. Friday night was that one, the quieter one.

I have seen "Juno and the Paycock" before. I have read it for at least three classes. I have seen the Hitchcock movie. So needless to say, I wasn't going in blind. I knew what to expect, or so I thought. In reality nothing in the world could have prepared me for the perfection of this production. In the first joint effort between the National Theatre in London and the Abbey Theatre in Dublin, there was an intensity and beauty to it I have rarely seen in any play. I was only five rows back, close enough I could see the colour of Cirain Hinds and Sinead Cusask's eyes, watch Hinds brilliantly droop his mouth as Captain Jack Boyle got drunker and drunker as the action wore on, feel the despair Cusack radiated as Juno learned of the disintegration of her family and get caught up in the smallest of details on stage. It was heaven.

O'Casey's masterpiece seems to be strangely modern, despite being 78 years old. Between the politics of a country searching for independence and a family's slip into destitution, there is a timeliness to the story of Juno Boyle. It is strange to realize how similar people are, not just in different countries, but also throughout time. The greed, ideologies of the young, longing to see our children better off than we are, still linger today.

Equally as interesting to the action on stage was the audience's reaction. From  the young French couple a few seats down from me who made out for most of the third act to the uncomfortable laughter at Hinds' final scene as he ponders where he will get his next drink and the loss of his family, I found myself amazed at human nature and my own snobbery. I think I had expected everyone to be as transfixed at what was going on and moved by the sheer power of it.

When the curtain fell and the actors came out for their bows, I didn't want it to end. I wanted to sit there applauding for what I had seen for as long as I could, just to linger in that moment of what I can only describe as a religious experience. I loved watching the looks on the actors faces as we clapped, whistled, whooped for what they had given us for the previous 2.5 hours. The best of these looks came from the lady herself, Sinead Cusack. In the history of the Abbey Theatre, there have only been 7 women to play Juno Boyle, so to be one of the seven is to be, well, part of history. Yet as we clapped and poured out our love and admiration for her portrayal, she stood, looking out at us with humility. It was incredible to witness. All of it. Incredible. I am certain my life is never going to be the same.