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The Theatre of Tom Murphy

Playwright Adventurer

Professor Nicholas Grene author Patrick Lonergan editor Kevin J Wetmore, Jr editor

Format:Paperback

Publisher:Bloomsbury Publishing PLC

Published:27th Dec '18

Currently unavailable, and unfortunately no date known when it will be back

The Theatre of Tom Murphy cover

This book by leading Irish drama scholar Nicholas Grene provides an up-to-date close reading of the major plays of Tom Murphy, setting them in the context of their production history and of his full career.

Tom Murphy shot to fame with the London production of A Whistle in the Dark in 1961, establishing him as the outstanding Irish playwright of his generation. The international success of DruidMurphy, the 2012-13 staging of three of his major plays by the Druid Theatre Company, served to underline his continuing appeal and importance. This is the first full scale academic study devoted to his theatre, providing an overview of all his work, with a detailed reading of his most significant texts. His powerful and searchingly honest engagement with Irish history and society is reflected in the violent Whistle in the Dark, the epic Famine (1968), the often hilarious Conversations on a Homecoming (1985) and the darkly Chekhovian The House (2000). Folklore and myth figure more prominently in the spiritual drama of The Sanctuary Lamp (1975), the Faustian Gigli Concert (1983) and the women’s stories of Bailegangaire (1985). The range and reach of Murphy’s theatre is demonstrated in this informed reading, supported by key interviews with the playwright himself and his most important theatrical and critical interpreters.

The best and most complete [book on Murphy] that anyone has yet produced and all future scholars and critics will use it as a diving board from which to plunge into Murphy's deep and turbulent waters. * Fintan O’Toole, The Irish Times *

ISBN: 9781472568106

Dimensions: unknown

Weight: 326g

272 pages