The Playboy of the Western World and Two Other Irish Plays: The Countess Cathleen, the Playboy of the Western World, Cock-A-Doodle Dandy (Classic, 20th-Century, Penguin) - Tapa blanda

A murderer becomes the toast of the village as his charm negates his crime. A young countess saves her tenants from starvation, but only by selling her soul to the Devil. The sleepy parish of Nyadnanave sees a vision of a cockerel that dares the inhabitants to break the shackles of Church and State. All these plays were met with moral outrage and rioting in their native Ireland.

Yeats's 'The Countess Cathleen' (1892), J. M. Synge's 'The Playboy of the Western World' (1907) and O'Casey's 'Cock-a-doodle Dandy' (1949) emerged from a period of traumatic change for Ireland. While the plays bear witness to the immmense social upheavals of the turn of the twentieth century, they also represent a new age of Irish drama that rose from the turmoil, and their lessons ring true to this day.

'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