It’s 11:30 a.m. and already it’s ninety-two degrees. At the bottom of a drained swimming pool, four ridiculous men connive, plot, and play for an unwinnable love, even as they face certain death at the hands of her returning husband. A riveting and savage take on the classic Greek myth of Penelope, wife of Odysseus.
The first eight astonishing plays by Enda Walsh. Bursting onto the theatre scene in 1996 with Disco Pigs, Enda Walsh has delivered a sustained fusillade of strikingly original plays ever since. This volume, with a Foreword by the author, contains: The Ginger Ale Boy (Walsh's first play, previously unpublished) Disco Pigs misterman bedbound The Small Things Chatroom Also included are two previously unpublished short plays, How These Desperate Men Talk (2004) and Lynndie's Gotta Gun (2005).
"A jewel box of a musical: small, delicate, brimming with emotion and charm."—Vogue "It may sound like heresy to fans of the 2006 film, but this bewitching stage adaptation arguably improves on the movie, expanding its emotional breadth and elevating it stylistically while remaining true to the original's raw fragility."?Hollywood Reporter Retaining the film's popular music and lyrics, acclaimed Irish playwright Enda Walsh adapts this charming tale of a complicated romance between an Irish street musician and a young Czech immigrant for the stage. A hit musical Off-Broadway, Once premiered on Broadway in spring 2012 to rave reviews. Enda Walsh is the author of five Edinburgh Festival Fringe First Award-winning plays, including Penelope, The Walworth Farce, and The New Electric Ballroom. He also co-wrote the film Hunger, which won the Camera d'Or award at the Cannes Film Festival. Glen Hansard and Markéta Irglová are the stars and songwriters of the 2006 film Once, for which they won an Academy Award for Best Song. The two comprise the musical folk-rock duo The Swell Season, which is currently touring the United States. A documentary film of the duo, The Swell Season, was an official selection of the 2011 Tribeca Film Festival. Hansard is also a member of the Irish band The Frames and Irglová is a classically trained Czech pianist and vocalist.
It’s eleven o’clock in the morning in a council flat on the Walworth Road in London. In two hours’ time, as is normal, three Irish men will have consumed six cans of Harp, fifteen crackers with spreadable cheese, ten pink biscuit wafers, and one oven-cooked chicken with a strange blue sauce. In two hours’ time, as is normal, five people will have been killed. A remarkable play about what can happen when we become stuck in the stories we tell about our lives. Visceral and tender, The Walworth Farce combines hilarious moments with shocking realism.
A strange, tender love story from the author of Disco Pigs and The Walworth Farce. In a waiting room, inside a tower, Isla waits for her number to be called. A young woman finally understands her fate. And a young man faces a stark decision. In the midst of a bleak and terrifying world, Arlington is a compelling ode to the human spirit and its power to endure. It premiered at Galway International Arts Festival in 2016 in a production by the festival and Landmark Productions, directed by the playwright. Enda Walsh's play Arlington is published in this edition alongside three short theatre installations - Kitchen, A Girl's Bedroom and Room 303 - performed at the 2016 Galway International Arts Festival under the collective title Rooms.
A dark fable of the emotionally stultifying effects of small-town life, from the author of Disco Pigs and The Walworth Farce. Three sisters in a remote fishing village, trapped in the years that have passed since their halcyon days at The New Electric Ballroom, are still obsessed by darker memories of something resembling romance. Enda Walsh's play The New Electric Ballroom was first staged by Druid Theatre Company at the Galway Arts Festival in July 2008 and later at the Traverse Theatre, Edinburgh, during the 2008 Edinburgh Festival Fringe. The production won an Edinburgh Fringe First Award and was revived on tour in 2009.
Disco Pigs is the extraordinary debut play about two warped teenagers that confirmed Enda Walsh's place in the forefront of young Irish dramatists. Pig and Runt are two 17-year-olds who share everything: birthday, language, worldview - and that moment when pop songs and life-changing orgasms flash by and last forever. Also published in this volume is Sucking Dublin, a fierce and uncompromising short play about a group of five individuals tormented by a rape in a claustrophobic, drug-infested Dublin."
"Beautiful...a last transmission from a dying star." - Time Out One of the last works completed by beloved pop icon David Bowie before his death in early 2016, the otherworldy musical Lazarus is a poignant homage to his legacy. Inspired by the 1963 novel The Man Who Fell to Earth, Lazarus weaves a thrilling rock opera from new compositions by Bowie as well as many of his classic songs.