Marking the 50th anniversary of one of the worlds leading theatre companies, this book collects six of its most impactful plays together in one volume for the first time.
Druid Theatre is Irelands leading theatre company. Since their origin in 1975 they have surprised, delighted, and inspired audiences worldwide, touring from their home city of Galway in the west of Ireland to countless other locations nationally and internationally. Under the leadership of Garry Hynes, the first woman to win a Tony Award for directing, the company has revitalised the Irish dramatic tradition by staging seminal new plays and by breathing life into neglected classics. This anthology celebrates that tradition by gathering together six key plays from Druids fifty-year history.
Featuring an exciting blend of established and unjustly forgotten playwrights this collection also provides insight into the companys history. Edited by Barry Houlihan, Patrick Lonergan, and Máiréad Ní Chróinín, each play is accompanied by a short introduction and production images (many of them never published before) from Druids archive at the University of Galway. The plays include:
The Wood of the Whispering by MJ Molloy Same Old Moon by Geraldine Aron Conversations on a Homecoming by Tom Murphy At the Black Pigs Dyke by Vincent Woods The Lonesome West by Martin McDonagh The Beacon by Nancy Harris
The selection of plays allows key themes from Druids history to be seen more clearly to allow readers to understand how the company has so fearlessly charted the boundaries between the realistic and the fantastic, the past and the present, and the individual and the wider society. It also presents six plays that are of huge value in their own right: these are original and daring dramas that have shaped and defined a half-century of Irish playwriting.
