About the Play:

Is Life Worth Living? is a full-length comedy by Lennox Robinson. A travelling repertory troupe comes to a village in Ireland and after a week or so of Ibsen, Chekhov, and Strindberg, the town is driven insane. Is Life Worth Living? is a delightful farce from Dublin's Abbey Theatre that imagines the undesirable effects a steady diet of serious drama might have on the amiable residents of the small resort town of Inish.

Is Life Worth Living? is a joyous "love letter" to the theatrical profession as the lives of the residents of the Irish village are transformed by the arrival of the De La Mare Repertory Company which is dedicated to the serious classics of the theatre! Can Chekhov, Strindberg and Ibsen be bad for you? That provocative question is posed in Is Life Worth Living? (sometimes billed as Drama at Inish). The Summer theatrical season at Inish has consisted of a steady diet of comics, circuses and vaudeville, but this year the fun begins when the town elders decide to improve the tone of the place. Enter Hector de la Mare and his wife Constance Constantia of the De La Mare Repertory Company – committed exclusively to "psychological and introspective drama: the great plays of Russia, an Ibsen or two, a little Strindberg; because," as Hector puts it, "they may revolutionize some person's soul." Whether or not the souls of Inish require revolution is the question this comedy poses while delightfully exaggerating and celebrating the transformative power of the theatre. The once happy-go-lucky villagers start to develop neuroses, complexes and inhibitions that parallel characters in the plays. The steady diet of "psychological and introspective drama" leads to an outbreak of crime, violence and irrational acts of morality. Soon the once cheery little village is a pit of gloom and doom. How all this is resolved is genial fun mixed with some touching moments.

Is Life Worth Living? premiered in 1933 at the Abbey Theatre in Dublin as Drama at Inish, but in London and on Broadway it was called Is Life Worth Living? It played on Broadway three times in the 1930's, was successfully revived Off-Broadway in 2009 by New York's Mint Theatre Company, and also had a successful run at the Shaw Festival in 2011.

Cast: 5 female, 8 male

About the Playwright:

Lennox Robinson (1886-1958) was an Irish dramatist, poet and theatre producer and director. A prolific playwright and one-time manager of Ireland's renowned Abbey Theatre, he was equally adept at comedy and tragedy, a talent that shines through the poignant laughter of his popular play Is Life Worth Living? (originally titled Drama at Inish).