Penguin Books Australia

'He was a dirty man, God forgive him, and he getting old and crusty'

Riots greeted the first performance of The Playboy of the Western World at Dublin's Abbey Theatre on 26 January 1907 for its perceived attack on the Irish people, and eggs, potatoes and even a slice of fruit cake were hurled at the actors during subsequent performances. Yet now Synge's comedy centring around an apparent parricide and its cover-up is considered his masterpiece. Also containing Yeats's The Countess Cathleen (1892) and O'Casey's Cock-a-doodle Dandy (1949), this collection of three plays shows a vital stage in the rich explosion of Irish drama that first made itself heard at the turn of the twentieth century, and gathered momentum during the Easter Rising of 1916 and beyond.

W. A. Armstrong's introduction to this edition examines how the Irish Dramatic Movement revived the ancient Irish language and its myths, legends and folklore.

With an introduction by W. A. ARMSTRONG