It is in many ways rewarding to approach Juno and the Paycock together with The Plough and the Stars and The Shadow of a Gunman as a cycle of political and social plays conceived on an epic scale and deeply tinged by an overall tragic vision; a trilogy similar in some respects to Shakespeare's cycle comprising Richard II, Henry IV (two parts), and Richard III. In each series individual plays, though self-contained and complete in themselves, are more meaningful in conjunction with the other plays relating to their particular cycle, and, together with them, add up to a panoramic view of a country in a state of crisis. Of course Shakespeare's plays are more consciously shaped as chronicles of an age, a particular period of history, than are O'Casey's…. O'Casey wrote of the lives and struggles of ordinary men and women at a particular time of social upheaval...