Medicine & The Same: two plays (NHB Modern Plays)

*How long have you been here, John?

• I don't know.
  And what brought you here?
• That's difficult to answer.*

John Kane is sitting on a hospital gurney, and very shortly a jazz percussionist, two women called Mary, a very old man and a giant lobster will arrive. Then everything will start.

Enda Walsh's new play Medicine is a dark and frequently absurdist work that shatters the boundary between cast and audience. It is a devastatingly funny and moving meditation on how, for decades, we have treated those we call mentally ill.

It was premiered by Landmark Productions and Galway International Arts Festival at the Edinburgh International Festival in August 2021 prior to its opening at the Galway International Arts Festival in September.

Medicine is published here alongside Enda Walsh's 2017 play The Same.

Auteur

Enda Walsh is a multi-award-winning Irish playwright. He lives in London. His work has been translated into over twenty languages and has been performed internationally since 1998.

His recent plays include: Medicine at the 2021 Edinburgh International Festival and Galway International Arts Festival; Arlington at the 2016 Galway International Festival; an adaptation of Roald Dahl's The Twits for the Royal Court (2015); Ballyturk and Room 303 at the 2014 Galway International Arts Festival; Misterman, presented by Landmark Productions and Galway International Arts Festival in Ireland, London and New York (2011-2012); and several plays for Druid Theatre Company, including Penelope, which has been presented in Ireland, America and London, from 2010-2011, The New Electric Ballroom, which played Ireland, Australia, Edinburgh, London, New York and LA from 2008-2009, and The Walworth Farce, which played Ireland, Edinburgh, London and New York, as well as an American and Australian tour, from 2007-2010.

He collaborated with David Bowie on the musical Lazarus (New York Theatre Workshop, 2015, and West End, 2016), and won a Tony Award in 2012 for writing the book for the musical Once, seen on Broadway, in the West End and on a US tour.

His other plays include Delirium (Theatre O/Barbican), which played Dublin and a British tour in 2008; Chatroom (National Theatre), which played at the National Theatre and on tour in Britain and Asia (2006-2007); and The Small Things (Paines Plough), which played London and Ireland (2005).

His early plays include Bedbound (Dublin Theatre Festival) and Disco Pigs (Corcadorca).

His film work includes Disco Pigs (Temple Films/Renaissance) and Hunger (Blast/FILM4), winner of the Camera d'Or at the 2008 Cannes Film Festival.