DruidMurphy: Plays by Tom Murphy

by Tom Murphy

This collection brings together three of Tom Murphy's finest plays, Famine, A Whistle in the Dark and Conversations on a Homecoming . Together, they tell the story of Irish emigration - of those who went and those who were left behind. Crossing oceans and spanning decades, Murphy's three plays cover the period from the Great Hunger of the nineteenth century to the 'new' Ireland of the 1970s, exploring what we mean when we call a place 'home'.

Conversations on a Homecoming : County Galway, 1970s.
Even the humblest of small-town pubs can be a magnet for dreamers. Michael, after a ten-year absence, suddenly returns from New York and has a reunion with old friends, in that same pub 'The White House'.

A Whistle in the Dark : Coventry, 1960
Irish emigrants, the uprooted Carney family, adapt aggressively to life in an English city.

Famine : County Mayo, 1846
In Glanconnor village in the west of Ireland, the second crop of potatoes fails. The community now faces the real prospect of starvation.

With an introduction by Dr Patrick Lonergan, Nui Galway

DruidMurphy, presented by Druid in a co-production with Quinnipiac University Connecticut, Nui Galway, Lincoln Center Festival and Galway Arts Festival, marks a major celebration of one of Ireland's most respected living dramatists and toured Ireland, London and the Us in 2012.

Genres: Plays, Ireland

298 pages, Paperback

First published July 25, 2012

About the author

Tom Murphy (born 1935) is an Irish dramatist who has worked closely with the Abbey Theatre in Dublin and with Druid Theatre, Galway. Born in Tuam, County Galway, Ireland, he currently lives in Dublin.

Reviews

[Nancy · Rating 5 out of 5]

Who takes the time to read plays?
I do.
Tom Murphy does not seek the limelight
...but his plays are 'beacons' of insight into
the Irish psyche.
He is considered to be the greatest living Irish playwright.

Review

[MM Broadstone · Rating 5 out of 5]

Murphy tells a bluntly realist story of the last century of Irish life though the plays are not always strictly realist. The ability to convey the hidden truth of a culture in a not always clearly realist style reminds me of O’Neill. If you want to see the playwright O’Neill would have been had his family never left Ireland then read Murphý. They share a kind of stark genius and between them the tell the story of the Irish on both sides of the Atlantic

[Anna · Rating 4 out of 5]

i've only read one of these plays but i'm sure as hell counting it