Conversations on a homecoming

by Tom Murphy

Genres: Plays

74 pages, Hardcover

Published January 1, 1986

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

[Dem · Rating 2 out of 5]

Conversations on a Homecoming by Thomas Murphy is a Script.

The setting for this play is a small town in Galway in the 1970s and the conversations take place in a pub among a group of locals who are friends. Michael is one of the gang and has made an unexpected visit home after 10 years in America.

I have never read a script before as a book club read and it certainly makes for interesting reading. I think however I would need to read this a couple of times in order to get the whole gist of the story as I felt I did not quite appreciate the storyline first time around. I read it as I would a book and found it difficult to keep the characters straight in my head and also Characters get fleshed out better on stage than in a script.
As I am going to see the play shortly it will be great to see the storyline and the characters actually played out and will make interesting discussion among the group.

[Pádraig Mac Oscair · Rating 4 out of 5]

Too often, narratives about Irish emigration and return fall into trite sentimentality which amount to poverty porn for the consumption of the middle class like Angela's Ashes or In America. This, perhaps benefitting massively from Tom Murphy having actually grown up in poverty with nine siblings living abroad, is a necessary corrective in which the squabbling, drunken pub-goers and returned migrants are shown to be as much the authors of their own misfortune as anything to do with Irish history. Funny as well - Murphy has a real sense for the rhythms of conversation where people half-like one another and freely talk over each other.

[Micaela · Rating 3 out of 5]

hombres... hombres irlandeses pero hombres...