YMMV / The Plough and the Stars

• Anvilicious: You'd never think from this play that O'Casey was in favour of Irish independence. The Volunteer characters are depicted as pompous blowhards who are in it for the camaraderie and the loyal toasting, but the minute things look bad, they turn into gutless cowards (if they're not actually dying screaming.) Peter Flynn, the old republican, is a sentimental old fool and the Young Covey is a Strawman Political. The other characters pay lip service to the cause of freedom until they're the slightest bit inconvenienced by the effort to achieve it, whereupon they can't be bothered. The most heroic character is a violently bigoted Protestant, and the most sympathetic characters are two English soldiers.
• The Woobie: Mollser, a teenage girl dying of TB who functions as Only Sane Man in her very brief appearance. By Act Four, she's dead.