Murphy Plays: 6: The Cherry Orchard; She Stoops to Folly; Drunkard; Last Days of a Reluctant Tyrant

brings together four plays by the author inspired by other great works of literature: : In Chekhov's tragi-comedy - perhaps his most popular play - the Gayev family is torn by powerful forces, forces rooted deep in history and in the society around them. Tom Murphy's fine vernacular version allows us to re-imagine the events of the play in the last days of Anglo-Irish colonialism. It gives this great play vivid new life within our own history and social consciousness. : Modelled on Oliver Goldsmith's classic novel , Murphy builds a comedy peopled with thieves, pimps, bawds, lechers and imposters who will prey on innocence unless God - or the ruling class - takes a hand. is inspired by the American temperance play first performed in 1844 and attributed to W. H. Smith and A gentleman. A drama in five acts, it was perhaps the most popular play produced in the United States before the dramatization of in the 1850s. An epic family drama, shot through with dark humour, tells the tragic story of a family disintegrating, having lost its moral values and is inspired by by Mikhail Saltykov-Shchedrin. It follows Arina who rises from servant girl to matriarch controlling a vast family estate and empire until she slackens her hold and loses her power to the hypocrisy and relentless grasping of her chosen son.