Riders to the Sea

Riders to the Sea is a one-act play by J.M. Synge [1] (1871–1909) .

The text

A poetic work, perhaps one of the best one-act plays ever written, with dialogue in Synge's version of the Gaelic dialect of the Aran islands, sometimes referred to as "Hyberno-English"[2], a form Synge used consumately in his plays.

First performed on 25 February 1904 at the Molesworth Hall, Dublin, by the Irish National Theater Society.

First published in The Shadow of the Glen. Riders to the Sea by Elkin Mathews, London 1905. Later taken up in the various version of Collected Plays by John M. Synge. (i.a. Harmondsworth, Middlesex [Eng.] : Penguin Books, 1952).

Translations and adaptations

Translated into Afrikaans by C.W. Hudson as Na die See ("to the sea"), published in Tydskrif vir Letterkunde, 11(3):98-107, 1961.

Performance history in South Africa

1976: Performed as part of a double bill of plays by J M Synge (Riders to the Sea and The Shadow of the Glen), directed by Beth Dickerson, with Contemporary Dance '76, directed by Gary Gordon, in April.

Sources

NELM catalogue.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Riders_to_the_Sea

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hiberno-English

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Millington_Synge

Tydskrif vir Letterkunde, 11(3):98-107, 1961

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