About the Play:

The Rising of the Moon is a one-act comedy by Lady Augusta Gregory. A mysterious encounter between an escaping political prisoner and a police sergeant effectively encapsulates the fervent hope of Irish patriotism and nationalism that Lady Gregory hoped could inspire the nation. The play brings the rich poetical tradition contained in the speech of the countryside into the city.

The Rising of the Moon is set on a quay in a seaport town. A sergeant and two policemen are on the look out for an escaped "raggedy" beggar. What follows is an encounter between the sergeant and the beggar that proves that they may be on opposite sides of the law but are bound by the same intrinsic feel for the land, its music and its history. More applicable to today, this comedy examines the difficulty of one's choosing between two competing loyalties, both of which are "right" and both of which are "wrong." Lady Gregory was an Irish nationalist and the play conveys that sympathy. It is referred to by the Tom Cruise character in his movie with Nicole Kidman, Far and Away.

The Rising of the Moon was first produced in 1907 by the Irish National Theatre, the play is anti-English and cleaves to the powerful heart of strength and mystery in the Fenian ballads of rebellion. The Rising of the Moon and Spreading the News were produced in 2007 at the Shaw Festival in Niagara-on-the-Lake, Ontario as two halves of a double-bill titled The Kiltartan Comedies. (Kiltartan is the barony in County Galway where both Lady Gregory and the people she wrote about lived.)

Cast: 4 men

What people say:

"Gregory's two plays are lighter fare... but ... when it comes to writing for theatre, Gregory was an artist of the first order." — The Globe and Mail

About the Author:

Lady Augusta Gregory (1852-1932) was an Irish dramatist. Though she did not begin her writing career until middle-age, Lady Gregory soon became a vital force in the Irish drama. She is best known for her collaboration with William Butler Yeats and John Millington Synge in the formation of the Irish National Theatre and the Abbey Theatre Company. The one-act farce Spreading the News has been popularized through study in high schools in North America, and two longer comedies, The Rising of the Moon and The Workhouse Ward, were perennial favourites in the Abbey repertoire.