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Plays 2: Conversations on a Homecoming / Bailegangaire / A Thief of a Christmas
The second collection of plays by "The most distinctive, the most restless, the most obsessive imagination at work in the Irish theatre today" Brian Friel
In Conversations on a Homecoming, Michael returns from America to Ireland for a long-awaited reunion with his drinking companions: "A bilious bar-room comedy on the irreducible elements in the Irish character and the death of the Kennedy dream" (Observer), Bailegangaire "is as complex and haunting as one of Yeats' later poems…A senile bedridden old woman rehearses over and over again an epic tale of a village laughing match…Meanwhile her two granddaughters struggle to release themeselves from the prison of remembered unhappiness. "Here is a potent allegory - of the need to exorcise the past and its myths if one is to be happy in the future." (Sunday Telegraph) Tom Murphy was born in Tuam, County Galway, his other plays include Conversations on a Home Coming, Balegangaire and A Thief of Christmas; The Morning After Optimism, The Sanctuary Lamp and The Gigli Concert as well as more recently Cupa Coffee and The Wake (1996), and She Stoops to Folly. His career has been closely associated with The Abbey Theatre, Dublin who have produced many of his plays.
In Conversations on a Homecoming, Michael returns from America to Ireland for a long-awaited reunion with his drinking companions: "A bilious bar-room comedy on the irreducible elements in the Irish character and the death of the Kennedy dream" (Observer), Bailegangaire "is as complex and haunting as one of Yeats' later poems…A senile bedridden old woman rehearses over and over again an epic tale of a village laughing match…Meanwhile her two granddaughters struggle to release themeselves from the prison of remembered unhappiness. "Here is a potent allegory - of the need to exorcise the past and its myths if one is to be happy in the future." (Sunday Telegraph) Tom Murphy was born in Tuam, County Galway, his other plays include Conversations on a Home Coming, Balegangaire and A Thief of Christmas; The Morning After Optimism, The Sanctuary Lamp and The Gigli Concert as well as more recently Cupa Coffee and The Wake (1996), and She Stoops to Folly. His career has been closely associated with The Abbey Theatre, Dublin who have produced many of his plays.
- GenresPlays
256 pages, Paperback
First published March 25, 1993
About the author
Tom Murphy
31 books7 followersTom 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.
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Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
May 5, 2025
Conversations on a Homecoming: 4/5 - There are many Irish plays set in pubs where a group of men talk about life. This is a very good one.
Bailegangaire: 3/5 - Beckettian in its rhythms and elliptical in its structure. A seriously hard play to read.
A Thief of a Christmas: 4/5 - Ideal anti-Christmas programming. Another pub play, reads like comedy with knots in it.
Bailegangaire: 3/5 - Beckettian in its rhythms and elliptical in its structure. A seriously hard play to read.
A Thief of a Christmas: 4/5 - Ideal anti-Christmas programming. Another pub play, reads like comedy with knots in it.
July 22, 2025
Conversations - more traditional, conventional, familiar play that does an excellent job of capturing the Ireland of the time and the form of people talking over each other on stage, but I was surprised by how unimpressive the script was compared to the performance I saw of it before. Makes you think.
Bailegangaire - little more out there, difficult to read play that probably does need to be seen to be believed because one characters ramblings are totally incomprehensible. But the reading of the play still got across the misery and the tense emotional state of the characters. Very memorable.
A Thief of a Christmas - mostly just made the emotional effect of Bailegangaire even stronger as the backstory is even grimmer than what was happening in the other one. Good backstory but is quite chaotic to have much of an emotional effect. But his talent for weaving in different external forces in Irish society into the closed club of the pub is still massively impressive. His disdain for the petty bourgeois never weakens for a moment.
Bailegangaire - little more out there, difficult to read play that probably does need to be seen to be believed because one characters ramblings are totally incomprehensible. But the reading of the play still got across the misery and the tense emotional state of the characters. Very memorable.
A Thief of a Christmas - mostly just made the emotional effect of Bailegangaire even stronger as the backstory is even grimmer than what was happening in the other one. Good backstory but is quite chaotic to have much of an emotional effect. But his talent for weaving in different external forces in Irish society into the closed club of the pub is still massively impressive. His disdain for the petty bourgeois never weakens for a moment.
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews