Henrik Ibsen

Frank McGuinness

Oswald, standing in the doorway then, the pipe in his mouth, it was as if I saw his father alive again. Mrs Alving is preparing for the opening of an orphanage, built in memory of her late husband. Her beloved artist son Oswald has returned from Paris to honour the occasion. But his long awaited homecoming rapidly descends into tragedy as his presence triggers the exposure of a dark story of hypocrisy and betrayed love. Henrik Ibsen's Ghosts, in this vital new version by Frank McGuinness, premiered at the Duchess Theatre, London, in February 2010.

Ghosts

Two volumes from the Irish playwright Frank McGuinness: a major play on love, family, and war as well as stunning translations of two classics Set in Buncrana, County Donegal, Ireland, during World War II, Dolly West's Kitchen is centered on a family struggling to come to terms not only with the effects of war on their country and their family but also with their own inability to respond to one another as situations -- and they themselves -- change. As the characters talk of love, sex, war, the English, de Valera, and the Yanks, Dolly West's Kitchen becomes a deeply moving evocation of the fantasy and the reality that was Ireland in the 1940s, filled with the richness of character and sense of place that have always marked Frank McGuinness's writing. Two volumes from the Irish playwright Frank McGuinness: a major play on love, family, and war as well as stunning translations of two classics Set in Buncrana, County Donegal, Ireland, during World War II, Dolly West's Kitchen is centered on a family struggling to come to terms not only with the effects of war on their country and their family but also with their own inability to respond to one another as situations -- and they themselves -- change. As the characters talk of love, sex, war, the English, de Valera, and the Yanks, Dolly West's Kitchen becomes a deeply moving evocation of the fantasy and the reality that was Ireland in the 1940s, filled with the richness of character and sense of place that have always marked Frank McGuinness's writing.

Dolly West's Kitchen

Set in Ireland in the sixteenth century, Mutabilitie explores the area where myth meets and transforms reality and where the harshness of life is transmuted into hope by the chance meeting of a poet and a playwright.

Mutabilitie

'This powerful and subtle play... follows the experience of eight men who volunteer to serve in the 36th (Ulster) Division at the beginning of the First World War. It reaches a climax at the start of the terrible battle of the Somme on July 1, 1916, the actual anniversary of the battle of the Boyne in 1690. The Somme, where the Ulster Division suffered heavy casualties, has, like the Boyne, come to have a sacred place in the Loyalist Protestant mind. It marks the Union sealed with blood. It stands for the ultimate test of Ulster's loyalty; a blood-sacrifice to match any made by Irish nationalists.' Times Literary SupplementObserve the Sons of Ulster Marching Towards the Somme was revived by the Abbey Theatre, Dublin, in 1994 as part of an acknowledgement of the peace process. The production was subsequently taken to the Edinburgh Festival in 1995 and opened at the Royal Shakespeare Company's Barbican Theatre, London, in March 1996.

Observe the Sons of Ulster Marching Towards the Somme

Conrad and Gabriel are lovers but when Alma arrives to tend the sick Gabriel, their lives are unpicked and remade. Frank McGuinness's powerful, subtle and funny play explores the territory where boundaries of love, devotion and hate coalesce. Gates of Gold premiered at the Gate Theatre, Dublin, in 2002.

Gates of Gold

'The Factory Girls' tells the story of five women facing the threat of redundancy, who stage a lock-in in a shirt factory in County Donegal. As their protest continues the woman learn more about each other and themselves as they explore their anger, courage and compassion. It was first performed at the Peacock Theatre, Dublin, in March 1982.

The Factory Girls

Drama

Someone Who'll Watch Over Me

In the summer of 1967 Greta Garbo comes to Donegal. Ireland is on the verge of violent change. Two couples are on the verge of parting. A woman tries to save her family, while a girl tries to save her future. Seemingly above it all is the loveliest and loneliest of all women, the great Garbo. But when the gods arrive, they can cause havoc, not least to themselves, as the divine Greta is to learn. Frank McGuinness's Greta Garbo Came to Donegal premiered at the Tricycle Theatre, London, in January, 2010.

Greta Garbo Came to Donegal

Offers the script of the film version of Brian Friel's play about five sisters living in Ireland in the 1930s

Screenplay

Brian Friel's Dancing at Lughnasa

A son tries to mourn the death of the father who abandoned him. A family rages against the murder of their gay son in war-torn Raqqa. Brilliance turns to madness in the fickle and unforgiving world of theatre. And in the titular story, the world of an operatic tenor violently collides with that of a homeless couple on the streets of New York. In the first collection of stories by Frank McGuinness, this award-winning master storyteller writes above all about freedom: freedom to love, freedom from hate, freedom to speak, freedom to silence. In hypnotic, spellbinding prose, Frank McGuinness hears the voices and sees the visions of his own troubled times. Authentic, shocking, and always and ever bearing the unique ring of truth, Paprika is a collection to cherish.

Paprika

There was once an Englishman, an Irishman and an American - locked up together in a cell in the Middle East. As victims of political action, powerless to initiate change, what can they do, how do they pass the time, and how do they survive? This play investigates

A Play

This first collection by Frank McGuinness contains plays from the 1980s, including his major work of that decade, Observe the Sons of Ulster Marching Towards the Somme, a powerful and profoundly moving study of a group of Ulster Protestant volunteers in the Great War. The book also contains Carthaginians, set in a Derry graveyard in the aftermath of the Bloody Sunday killings, Innocence, McGuinness's vigorous drama based on the life of Caravaggio, The Factory Girls and Baglady.

Factory Girls; Observe the Sons of Ulster Marching Towards the Somme; Innocence; Carthiginians; Baglady

Frank McGuinness Plays 1

My son betrayed me. It is a family tradition. Didn’t I do the same to my father? The World War intensifies in Europe. In Zurich a writer breathes his last imagining his life till now from his childhood in Dublin. The voices of his family circling him – wife, son, daughter – carry him to his end as he hears each separate chapter chronicling the power of their passion for their famous father, their love, their hate, their need, their sorrows and joys, their strangeness. And James Joyce has saved for them one last story to delight and defy them: The Woodcutter And His Children ...

The Woodcutter and his Family

The McKenna family convenes at their remote West Ireland holiday home to mark the 21st birthday of their late son Gene. Eccentric cousin Bridget appears along the causeway, inviting herself for birthday cake and conversation, and ready to expose a family secret. Even Margaret, the unstoppable mother, and Leo, the ever-calm father, can't hold things together in the face of an unexpected visit from the past. There Came a Gypsy Riding premiered at the Almeida Theatre, London, in January 2007.

There Came a Gypsy Riding

Sophocles

The people of Thebes look to Oedipus to lift a terrible curse from them and their city. He consults the oracle and learns that he must root out the late king's murderer. But his relentless interrogation of one man after another leads inexorably, and in the space of a single day, to its own savage conclusion.

Oedipus

The year is 1904 in the city of Dublin. Gretta and Gabriel Conroy attend the Morkan Sisters annual dinner on the Feast of the Epiphany and the last day of Christmas. An evening of laughter, music and dance ends in an epiphany for Gabriel. Recognised as a masterpiece, The Dead, the short story from James Joyce's Dubliners, is dramatised by Frank McGuinness. The play premiered at the Abbey Theatre, Dublin, in December 2012.

by James Joyce in a dramatisation by

The Dead

August Strindberg

Frank McGuinness presents scintillating new versions of two of August Strindberg's plays -- one a major work, the other less well known. Miss Julie is Strindberg's examination of power, sex, and class, set on a midsummer's eve in a nobleman's house and focusing on the shifting relationship between Miss Julie, the daughter of the house, and Jean, her father's manservant. The Stronger is a short play that explores the complex range of emotions felt by Madame X when she encounters Mademoiselle Y, her husband's former mistress, at a fashionable cafe. Calling Mademoiselle Y worn out and evil, Madame X says that the triumph of her marriage proves she is the stronger of the two -- even though these words ring hollow, as she attempts to deceive only herself.

Two Plays

Miss Julie and The Stronger

An Englishman, an Irishman and an American are locked up together in a cell in the Middle East. As victims of political action, powerless to initiate change, what can they do? How do they live and survive? Frank McGuinness explores the daily crisis endured by hostages whose strength comes from communication, both subtle and mundane, from humour, wit and faith. Someone Who'll Watch Over Me premiered at the Hampstead Theatre, London, in 1992 before transferring to the West End. On Broadway, it was awarded the New York Drama Critics' Circle Award for Best Foreign Play and nominated for the Tony Award for Best Play in 1993.

Frank McGuinness

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