Bisi Adigun and Roddy Doyle’s centenary adaption of J. M. Synge’s classic The Playboy of the Western World had a sold-out run when it was produced at Dublin’s Abbey Theatre in 2007 and was brought back by popular demand in 2008. The new version is set in a contemporary Dublin pub and features the character of a Nigerian asylum-seeker in the lead role. Under the coauthorship of Bisi Adigun, artistic director of Arambe Productions—Ireland’s first African theater company—and best-selling, Booker Prize–winning novelist Roddy Doyle, the play engages with issues of race and immigration in modern Ireland and, when first released, aimed to be a model for intercultural collaboration.
This critical edition features the full text of the play, published for the first time, along with a collection of essays exploring the play’s themes, cultural significance, critical reception, and the legal case that cut short its successful production run. Though the play was first produced over a decade ago, the topic of migration has only increased in its global importance over that time, and this adaptation of Playboy remains a popular touchstone among scholars of Irish theater and immigration.

Bisi Adigun's profile page

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Roddy Doyle is the author of eight novels, a collection of stories, and a memoir. He won the Booker Prize in 1993 for Paddy Clarke Ha Ha Ha. He lives and works in Dublin.

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Roddy Doyle's profile page

Jason King's profile page

Matthew Spangler's profile page

Kelly Matthews' profile page

Emer O'Toole's profile page

Sarah L. Townsend's profile page

A timely reminder of the value and complexity of reimagining the Irish Canon and the importance of questioning whose stories we choose to tell and who is chosen to tell them.

Kellie Hughes, Theatre Artist & Artistic Director UCD, Ad Astra Academy

Spangler, King, and their distinguished contributors, offer a fascinating palimpsest in this volume....The 2007 adaptation of Synge’s canonical work is vigorously mined and the ramifications of one of the great missed opportunities of Irish theatre history thoroughly explored. A formidable challenge has been met with elan.

Myles Dungan, host of The History Show, RTÈ Radio 1