- Paperback: 300 pages
- Publisher: Syracuse University Press (30 Jun 1996)
- Language English
- ISBN-10: 0815603452
- ISBN-13: 978-0815603450
- Product Dimensions: 22.9 x 15.4 x 2 cm
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 2,780,493 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- See Complete Table of Contents
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Product Description
Synopsis
This first volume in a series of drama anthologies invites readers to experience five of the best new plays being produced in 1993-1995 in Ireland's most famous theatre, The Abbey Theatre. This collection includes plays produced at the Abbey within the previous three years. Michael Harding's "Hubert Murray's Widow", his fourth play for theatre, is a surreal nightmare revolving around a killing and a funeral. With a macabre sense of humour, he explores the sense of confusion and harsh reality of sectarian violence in Northern Ireland's border counties today. Neil Donnelly has had five plays produced by the National Theatre Society since 1980. The comedy, "The Duty Master" deals with an Irish-born school teacher who has rejected his roots to the extent that he has become "more English that the English". Marital strife combined with a visit from his brother to the exclusive public school north of London where he works results in his being forced to reconsider his personal and national identity. O'Kelly presents the plight of an illegal African immigrant.Niall William's "A Little Like Paradise" deals with hope and humour - the regeneration of a small Western Irish town unknown to the European community and ignored by Dublin. The final play in the collection, Tom MacIntyre's "Sheep's Milk on the Boil" is set on a remote island off the Irish coast.
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Amazon.com:
3.0 out of 5 stars (1 customer review)
5 of 6 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Nice book, though some odd choices of play, 20 Oct 1999
By A Customer - Published on Amazon.com
This review is from: New Plays from the Abbey Theatre: 1993-1995 v. 1 (Irish Studies) (Paperback)
This book gathers together some half-dozen plays presented by Ireland's Abbey Theatre in the early 90s. The title is somewhat misleading, as all of the plays were presented at the Peacock, the Abbey's new writing stage. Its main purpose is to make the plays available to readers and potential producers, and in this it succeeds admirably, although there are a couple of notable plays from the period that didn't get included, presumably because they were already available elsewhere. (This makes the volume somewhat unrepresentative.) The plays themselves are of varying quality. Michael Harding's "Hubert Murray's Widow" is an interesting, darkly funny tragicomedy (or comitragedy) about a dead gunman and the events surrounding, and after, his death; Donal O'Kelly's "Asylum! Asylum!" is a characteristically angry piece about the treatment of an African refugee, written some time before the number of refugees in Ireland skyrocketed, and thus anticipating a major current social issue. Tom MacIntyre's "Sheep's Milk on the Boil" is an impenetrable scrap of whimsy, and Niall Williams' "A Little Like Paradise" is a sentimental mood piece about the West, the kind of play that has since been stamped into a bloody pulp by the erratic genius of Martin McDonagh. Neil Donnelly's "The Duty Master" is dull but worthy, a portrait of an Irishman teaching in an English public school, and about as exciting as it sounds. There are some excellent production shots, but one is not told which actor played which role and thus identifying what scene is being depicted is not easy. Plus, the American editor suffers from a too-misty-eyed appreciation of Irish drama and the respective qualities of the plays, and tries to hard to fit them into the familiar canon. But a useful book, especially for those that want to put the plays on.
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