Plays 1: Famine / The Patriot Game / The Blue Macuschla

by Tom Murphy

The first collection of plays by "The most distinctive, the most restless, the most obsessive imagination at work in the Irish theatre today" Brian Friel
Famine portrays the Great Hunger of the Irish in 1840s, with fresh pathos and insight.

Patriot Games is a documentary drama charting the 1916 Easter rising.

The Blue Macushla is a live gangster movie on stage set in the Republic of the 1970s with the politics of the Troubles emerging in Northern Ireland spilling over into the South.

252 pages, Paperback

First published February 25, 1992

About the author

Tom 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.

Reviews

[Harry McDonald · Rating 4 out of 5]

Famine: 5/5 - clearly one of the great history plays, one of the great Irish plays, one of the great plays.

The Patriot Game: 3/5 - a speedy docudrama about the Easter Rising... fine, but not as dramatic as you'd hope or want.

The Blue Macushla: 3/5 - I love that seemingly all British and Irish dramatists circa 1970-1990 seem to have one barely intelligible noir thriller in their back catalogue.

[Luis Pradilla · Rating 3 out of 5]

The plays in here are all centered around the history and problematics of Irish people, each one dealing with a different time period and struggle. Famine pretty self-explanatory about a town and the contradictions revolving around the depressing times of the Famine. The Patriot Game seems almost like a manifesto about the uprising of Nationalists from the political and artistical point of view. Finally The Blue Macuschla shows the latter Nationalist control over the people and the consequences of this all in a gangster style drama. While it's hard to read sometimes, because of the Irish expressions it's also an unique collection of pieces that helps to understand the struggles of the country.

[Cláudia Parra · Rating 3 out of 5]

Actually, I just read the second play: The patriot game, that is related to the events of 1916. It intended to show how the leaders felt about the insurrection, their fears, their dreams, their wish for liberty. I could say it is more focused in Pearse actions and brings a little about his life, specially when his mother appears in the play. Very important fact, because it implies an analogy with the myth of Mother Ireland.