Hilary Fannin

Celebrating the work of one of Ireland’s most daring theatre companies, this anthology gathers five plays by established and emerging playwrights. They include vibrant new adaptations of the world classics Peer Gynt and Phaedra alongside vital new dramas that explore issues of urgent contemporary concern, such as sex and sexuality, emigration and climate change. With contributions from Hilary Fannin and Ellen Cranitch, Arthur Riordan, Sonya Kelly, Morna Regan, and Shane Mac an Bhaird – as well as a foreword from Booker Prize-winning novelist Anne Enright - this book is an exciting snapshot of contemporary Irish playwriting. The book operates as a showcase of outstanding new Irish playwriting, blending work by established and emerging playwrights, and also acts as a celebration of one of Ireland’s most important theatre companies. And it includes new plays that demonstrate Rough Magic’s consistent willingness to push the boundaries of Irish theatre, both formally and thematically, in plays that cover such topics as sex and sexuality, emigration and climate change.This edition contains a foreword by Anne Enright, Booker prize winner and Laureate of Irish Fiction.

Celebrating the work of one of Ireland’s most daring theatre companies, this anthology gathers five plays by established and emerging playwrights. They include vibrant new adaptations of the world classics Peer Gynt and Phaedra alongside vital new dramas that explore issues of urgent contemporary concern, such as sex and sexuality, emigration and climate change. With contributions from Hilary Fannin and Ellen Cranitch, Arthur Riordan, Sonya Kelly, Morna Regan, and Shane Mac an Bhaird – as well as a foreword from Booker Prize-winning novelist Anne Enright - this book is an exciting snapshot of contemporary Irish playwriting. The book operates as a showcase of outstanding new Irish playwriting, blending work by established and emerging playwrights, and also acts as a celebration of one of Ireland’s most important theatre companies. And it includes new plays that demonstrate Rough Magic’s consistent willingness to push the boundaries of Irish theatre, both formally and thematically, in plays that cover such topics as sex and sexuality, emigration and climate change.This edition contains a foreword by Anne Enright, Booker prize winner and Laureate of Irish Fiction.

I am attempting to colonise the last frontier. Time, Elena, time. If we could inhabit different iterations of self, we could undo all the mistakes of the past. Don’t you see?Hilary Fannin’s radical adaptation of Maxim Gorky’s classic 1905 dark comedy reworks the original text and draws it into the here and now. Children of the Sun is the story of a small family and their quixotic collection of acquaintances, entertaining and enraging each other while, unseen beyond their fragile walls, their world is being reshaped by unstoppable forces. The play asks how we survive without the benefit of hindsight and whether science, art or love are capable of saving us from uncertainty and destruction. Co-produced by Rough Magic and the Abbey Theatre, Children of the Sun premiered on the Abbey stage as part of Rough Magic’s 40th-anniversary year in April 2024. This edition was published to coincide with that production.

'This is heartache for grown ups. The Weight of Love pulls you in and does not let go' ANNE ENRIGHT'Beautiful and painful, exquisitely written, shot through with nostalgia for our earlier selves' MARIAN KEYESLondon, 1996. Robin and Ruth meet in the staff room of an East London school. Robin, desperate for a real connection, instantly falls in love. Ruth, recently bereaved and fragile, is tentative. When Robin introduces Ruth to his childhood friend, Joseph, a tortured and talented artist, their attraction is instant. Powerless, Robin watches on as the girl he loves and his best friend begin a passionate and turbulent affair. Dublin 2017. Robin and Ruth are married and have a son, Sid, who is about to emigrate to Berlin. Theirs is a marriage haunted by the ghost of Joseph and as the distance between them grows, Robin makes a choice that could have potentially devastating consequences. The Weight of Love is a beautiful exploration of how we manage life when the notes and beats of our existence, so carefully arranged, begin to slip off the stave. An intimate and moving account of the intricacies of marriage and the myriad ways in which we can love and be loved.'Delicate, powerful, hypnotic' DONAL RYAN'Fannin's novel is already likely to be a serious contender for one of the books of the year' SUNDAY TIMES

Hilary is four, not yet five, and she has a mother and a father and an older brother and sisters. She even has a name at home - Billy - that is different from her written-down name. But now that she is in Low Babies in the local convent school, it seems Hilary has something else called responsibilities.

A new play by one of Ireland's most astute young writers "This is the problem with love - it is so fucking unpalatable...Every disease I have is caused by love, loving other people too much. Bald, injured, flawed people - you love them and crucify yourself." Francis is so busy promoting his new novel that he hasn't written it yet, while his partner Magda is too busy mourning the death of her dad to notice that Francis is wandering off with the next model sensation - Java. Their friend Chick has been asked to come up with a sexy shout line for the latest recruitment drive by the Christian brothers while his brother, who is also a monk, has been found absconding in an Easter bunny outfit in the local mall. Hilary Fannin's new play is a soul-searching satire on the incongruous lives of twenty- somethings in contemporary Dublin.Doldrum Bay is published to tie in with the Abbey Theatre production at the Peacock in May 2003.

Sleeping Around is by four top British playwrights from England, Ireland, Scotland and Wales: Mark Ravenhill, Hilary Fannin, Stephen Greenhorn and Abi Morgan Sleeping Around is about love and sex in Britain as we approach the millennium. In a dozen scenes of likely and unlikely connections, two actors (Sophie Stanton and John Lloyd Fillingham) play a variety of couples whose ordinary lives erupt in extraordinary moments.