OVERVIEW

• Playwright

  John Boyd 

• Adapted / Translated From

  St. John Greer Ervine

• Setting

  The living room of Martha Martin's home in an Ulster seaside town in 1900.

• Synopsis

  Ineffectual and headstrong, James Martin walks out on his wife and child following an affair with his wife's younger sister. Some 16 years later he returns, with consequences both for himself and his family. Wife Martha has since become a thriving shop-keeper, and he has a grown-up son Johnny and a teenage daughter Agnes, born after he departed. Though James complains bitterly of the life he has had in the meantime, and seems unchanged, Agnes beings to wake in him a sense of genuine fatherly love and affection.

• Play Type

  Adaptation/Translation
  

  Number Of Acts

  Full-Length

Cast size

• Male

  4

• Female

  4

• Total

  8

Original Production

• Date of First Production

  16 March 1954

• Producer

  Produced by Ulster Group Theatre

• Original Venue

  Group Theatre
  

Source Of Information

Information for this entry was taken from press cuttings, and from the original production programme held at the Theatre and Performing Arts Archive of the Linen Hall Library, Belfast.