The Playboy of the Western World and Other Plays

Though he completed only five plays in his short lifetime, J. M. Synge, co-founder of the Abbey Theater, ranks as one of Ireland’s greatest playwrights. Rescuing the Irish peasant from a romanticized stereotype, his plays capture the essence of the Irish spirit in both his realistic characters and his unique language.

In the Shadow of the Glen
Synge’s first play (1903), based on an Irish folktale, combines the macabre with broad comedy, as an elderly husband fakes his death to test his dis...