Drama at Inish is a comic play by the Irish writer Lennox Robinson

Lennox Robinson

Esmé Stuart Lennox Robinson was an Irish dramatist, poet and theatre producer and director who was involved with the Abbey Theatre....

 which was first performed at the Abbey Theatre

Abbey Theatre

The Abbey Theatre , also known as the National Theatre of Ireland , is a theatre located in Dublin, Ireland. The Abbey first opened its doors to the public on 27 December 1904. Despite losing its original building to a fire in 1951, it has remained active to the present day...

, Dublin on 6 February 1933. The storyline of the play serves as a parody of the plots and atmosphere of the plays being performed within it.

Plot

The play is set in Inish, a small Irish seaside resort town, in the early 1930s. The dull routine of the town is plunged into chaos by the arrival of a repertory company led by the De la Meres, a husband and wife team of actor-managers, who have been contracted to take over the local theatre for a season. They plan to put on plays by Chekhov

Anton Chekhov

Anton Pavlovich Chekhov was a Russian physician, dramatist and author who is considered to be among the greatest writers of short stories in history. His career as a dramatist produced four classics and his best short stories are held in high esteem by writers and critics...

, Ibsen

Henrik Ibsen

Henrik Ibsen was a major 19th-century Norwegian playwright, theatre director, and poet. He is often referred to as "the father of prose drama" and is one of the founders of Modernism in the theatre...

 and Strindberg

August Strindberg

Johan August Strindberg was a Swedish playwright, novelist, poet, essayist and painter. A prolific writer who often drew directly on his personal experience, Strindberg's career spanned four decades, during which time he wrote over 60 plays and more than 30 works of fiction, autobiography,...

 to improve the minds of the townspeople.

Surprisingly, the plays prove to be a success, and the theatre is constantly sold out. This appears to validate the De La Meres in their view that given the opportunity to see great art ordinary people will respond. This burst of success comes after many years of struggle for the company who have been travelling from one small town to another, and revives their hopes of one day performing in Dublin or London. Their affected manners and programme of intellectual plays, however, gradually irritate their hosts in the hotel where they are staying. Around the town, meanwhile, acts of criminality and passion break out in the previously sleepy area all of which are in some way connected with the theatre. The spate of strange behaviour even draws the attention of journalists from Dublin who are after the secret of the disturbances without realising the theatre is the cause of them.

The series of strange occurrences climaxes in the local TD

Teachta Dála

A Teachta Dála , usually abbreviated as TD in English, is a member of Dáil Éireann, the lower house of the Oireachtas . It is the equivalent of terms such as "Member of Parliament" or "deputy" used in other states. The official translation of the term is "Deputy to the Dáil", though a more literal...

 voting against the government, and triggering its collapse, after being inspired by An Enemy of the People

An Enemy of the People

An Enemy of the People is an 1882 play by Norwegian playwright Henrik Ibsen. Ibsen wrote it in response to the public outcry against his play Ghosts, which at that time was considered scandalous...

. This proves the last straw and the actors are asked to leave by the hotel owners. The play ends with a circus

Circus

A circus is commonly a travelling company of performers that may include clowns, acrobats, trained animals, trapeze acts, musicians, hoopers, tightrope walkers, jugglers, unicyclists and other stunt-oriented artists...

being engaged to replace the actors for the remainder of the season.