DruidMurphy – Plays by Tom Murphy opened in London at the Hampstead Theatre on Saturday, June 23rd, as part of the London 2012 Festival. Below are links to the reviews including some excerpts.

The Irish Times – Read Full Review Here

“a riveting, shattering and deeply necessary journey.”

“Druid remind you that no one has articulated the legacy of dispossession as eloquently or unflinchingly as Murphy.”

“These plays may be seen separately, giving the density of thought and emotion in Murphy’s work time to unravel, but viewed together the works abound with rewarding echoes and insistent, pressing whispers, threaded through with striking visual motifs and the illuminating torch of extraordinary performers. Druid’s collaboration with Murphy is a staggering achievement and here it lets the plays speak to us as urgently as they ever did.”

The Guardian – 4 Stars – Read Full Review Here

“richly rewarding event”

“staged by Hynes with a breathtaking poetic realism” (On Conversations on a Homecoming)

“Murphy’s viscerally powerful play” (On A Whistle in the Dark)

“I emerged astonished both by Murphy’s historical awareness and Druid’s ensemble vigour.”

The Daily Telegraph – 5 Stars – Read Full Review Here

“attendance should be obligatory”

“thanks to productions so faultless they’re no effort to sit through – even in one marathon day”

The Times – 4 Stars – Read Full Review Here

“Viewed in its entirety, DruidMurphy is truly epic, broad of scope, its insight profound, its clear-sightedness both cruel and compassionate. Remarkable.”

“Impeccably acted in meticulous, stirringly evocative productions by Druid’s founder Garry Hynes, the plays traverse time and oceans to present a kind of dramatic ballad of Ireland and Irishness, musical in its shifts of mood and rhythm, compelling in its complexity and its emotional force.”

The Irish Independent – Read Full Review Here

“It is a privilege to watch theatre of such indelible quality.”

“Under Hynes’ masterful direction, this is a remarkable theatrical achievement, in scope, vision and execution.”

Financial Times – Read Full Review Here

“I can find no weak links in Druid’s production. The cast is talented; Francis O’Connor’s designs are unobtrusively stylish; and Garry Hynes directs with wisdom and feeling.”

“Murphy is, I suspect, the greatest dramatist writing in English.”

The Stage – Read Full Review Here

“DruidMurphy presents a rare opportunity to survey a span of one writer’s works, namely Tom Murphy”

“Though the plays were conceived as separate entities, not as a trilogy, the boldness and brilliance of Druid’s cross-cast production grants them a stylistic unity, staged inside the same frame of corrugated iron sheeted walls but distinctly designed environments by Francis O’Connor that stretch from a pub and lounge to crop fields.”

What’s On Stage.Com – 5 Stars – Read Full Review Here

“a high-five Hibernian highlight of the year so far, a fantastic tear-sodden blast of the very best in Irish theatre. Garry Hynes leads her Galway-based Druid company in triumph and despair, twin impostors of the Celtic dream and nightmare”

“These are snapshots of a nation’s history, fleshed out in scenes of intense theatricality in Garry Hynes’s superb productions”