The House

Description

"The most compelling indictment of emigration ever committed to the stage" (Irish Times) Summertime, and the emigrant workers, dressed in new suits and dreams, are returning home for the annual sojourn. They are young, vigorous, they have money in their pockets. But they do not belong here any more - and they do not belong abroad. They are resentful and dangerous. None more so than the seemingly gregarious Christy Cavanagh. His childhood fixation with Mrs de Burca and her daughters becomes a frightening obsession when he finds that the date has been set for the auctioning of their house, and his bid to possess heaven has tragic consequences. "Murphy's great skill as a playwright is to fuse the epic with the domestic, to create a drama whose narrative and action aspire to the mythic and poetic with characters as intensely vivid as they are intimately realised" (Sunday Tribune) The House premiered at the Abbey Theatre, Dublin in April 2000.

Tom Murphy was born in Tuam, County Galway. He live in Dublin. He has received numerous theatre awards and holds honorary degrees from Trinity College Dublin and NUI (Galway). A six-play season celebrating his work - Tom Murphy at the Abbey - was presented at the Abbey Theatre in 2001. He has written for television and film, and a novel, The Seduction of Morality. His stage plays include On the Outside (with Noel O'Donoghue), A Whistle in the Dark, A Crucial Week in the Life of a Grocer's Assistant, Famine, The Morning After Optimism, The White House, On the Inside, The Sanctuary Lamp, Epitaph Under Ether (a compilation from the works of J.M. Synge), The Blue Macushla, Conversations on a Homecoming, The Gigli Concert, Bailegangaire, A Thief of a Christmas, Too Late for Logic, The Patriot Game, She Stoops to Folly (from The Vicar of Wakefield by Oliver Goldsmith), The Wake, The House, The Drunkard, The Cherry Orchard (a version), Alice Trilogy and The Informer (from the novel by Liam O'Flaherty).