The Playboy of the Western World—A New Version
A Critical Edition
Roddy Doyle author Kelly Matthews author Emer O'Toole author Bisi Adigun author Sarah L Townsend author Jason King editor Matthew Spangler editor
Format:Paperback
Publisher:Syracuse University Press
Published:30th Apr '24
£29.95
Available to order, but very limited on stock - if we have issues obtaining a copy, we will let you know.
Bisi Adigun and Roddy Doyle’s centenary adaption of J. M. Synge’s classic The Playboy of the Western World had a sold-out run when it was produced at Dublin’s Abbey Theater in 2007 and was brought back by popular demand in 2009. The new version is set in a contemporary Dublin pub and features the character of a Nigerian asylum-seeker in the lead role. Under the coauthorship of Bisi Adigun, artistic director of Arambe Productions—Ireland’s first African theater company—and best-selling, Booker Prize–winning novelist Roddy Doyle, the play engages with issues of race and immigration in modern Ireland and aims to be a model for intercultural collaboration.
This critical edition features the full text of the play, published for the first time, along with a collection of essays exploring the play’s themes, cultural significance, critical reception, and the legal case that cut short its successful production run. Though the play was first produced over a decade ago, the topic of migration has only increased in its global importance over that time, and this adaptation of Playboy remains a popular touchstone among scholars of Irish theater and immigration.
Spangler, King, and their distinguished contributors, offer a fascinating palimpsest in this volume....The 2007 adaptation of Synge’s canonical work is vigorously mined and the ramifications of one of the great missed opportunities of Irish theatre history thoroughly explored. A formidable challenge has been met with elan." - Myles Dungan, host of The History Show, RTÈ Radio 1
"A timely reminder of the value and complexity of reimagining the Irish Canon and the importance of questioning whose stories we choose to tell and who is chosen to tell them." - Kellie Hughes, Theatre Artist & Artistic Director UCD Ad Astra Academy
ISBN: 9780815638346
Dimensions: unknown
Weight: unknown
242 pages