DruidMurphy: Plays 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, 1960Irish emigrants, the uprooted Carney family, adapt aggressively to life in an English city.Famine: County Mayo, 1846In 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 GalwayDruidMurphy, 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.

Richly rewarding … Conversations on a Homecoming … offers a microcosm of Irish life and what is extraordinary is how much of it Murphy packs in: the failed dreams, the love of drink, the male fear of women and the emergence of a bustling class of entrepreneurs … the play pins down better than any work I know the Irish need to escape … with A Whistle in the Dark … Murphy’s viscerally powerful play shows a fighting Irish family, the Carneys … what Murphy captures perfectly is the rootlessness of the myth-making Carneys … with Famine … we see the real source of Ireland’s tragedy … I emerged astonished … by Murphy’s historical awareness., Urgent and visceral … Murphy exposes the anguished concerns of people whose self-respect has been stunted [in Conversations on a Homecoming]. The dialogue deals chiefly in disappointment. But this is not a gloomy piece. Humiliation is tempered by humour, poignancy, affection, singing … the playwright is unsparing with his characters, yet compassionate – no arch-villains, no lost causes … [A Whistle in the Dark] moves at threatening, erratic pace: imminent, explosive violence diffuses and returns … [Famine] proceeds to the most harrowing and beautiful climax I have seen on stage … Themes of emigration? “Universal themes” would be truer. Murphy is, I suspect, the greatest dramatist writing in English., Anguished, angry, passionate, poetic and at times violent, this trio of works by the seminal Irish playwright Tom Murphy makes a richly textured and absorbing theatrical experience … the plays traverse time and oceans to present a kind of dramatic ballad of Ireland and Irishness, musical in its shifts of mood and rhythm, compelling in its complexity and its emotional force … Conversations on a Homecoming is an achingly sad, wistful work about unfulfilled potential. Its low-key tenor is interrupted by outbreaks of snarling verbal savagery, a latent threat that explodes into terrifying brutality in A Whistle in the Dark ... the trio is completed by Famine … an almost painterly vision of history that flows, dreamlike, through scenes of great suffering … The pace is deliberately agonising, the ordeal before us relentless. Viewed in its entirety, DruidMurphy is truly epic, broad of scope, its insight profound, its clear-sightedness both cruel and compassionate. Remarkable.

Tom Murphy is considered by many to be Ireland's greatest playwright. He has written twenty-five plays and has received numerous awards and nominations. Throughout his career, he has worked closely with the Abbey Theatre in Dublin and with Druid Theatre in Galway. His first successful play, A Whistle in the Dark, was performed at the Theatre Royal, Stratford East in 1961 where it caused great controversy. A major restrospective of his work was presented at the Abbey Theatre in 2001. He has published six play collections with Methuen Drama in the Contemporary Dramatists series.