Alone It Stands: Munster rugby takes down All Blacks, moves on Manhattan

John Breen’s very Irish play, finally brought to New York, tackles the meaning of sport – and therefore life itselfIt’s a shame, in a way, that John Breen’s opera from 2014, Breakdown, is not in fact about rugby. In his play Alone It Stands, at 59E59 in New York City until the end of the month, the Irishman turns a maul into a screaming birth. God knows what he could do with a ruck.Like rugby union itself, the play is very simple and hugely complicated. Six actors take on a multitude of parts to tell the tale of 31 October 1978, the day Munster, the most southerly province, beat the mighty New…