The Unmanageable Sisters (NHB Modern Plays)

Green Shield stamps, a million of them, and Ger Lawless has won them all. It's Ballymun, it's 1973 and she's got 15 friends round for a stamp-sticking party. Over one night, the lives of 15 women collide in Deirdre Kinahan's new version of Michel Tremblay's fêted Quebecois comedy, Les Belles-Soeurs. Premiered at the Abbey Theatre, Dublin, in February 2018.

Michel Tremblay is a French Canadian novelist and playwright, born in Montreal, Quebec. His first professionally produced play, Les Belles-S?urs, was written in 1965 and premiered at the Théâtre du Rideau Vert on August 28, 1968. It stirred up controversy by portraying the lives of working-class women and attacking the straight-laced, deeply religious society of mid-20th century Quebec. A version of the play in Scots English, The Guid Sisters, translated by Bill Findlay and Martin Bowman, was premiered at the Tron Theatre, Glasgow, in 1989; and a version set in Ireland, The Unmanageable Sisters by Deirdre Kinahan, premiered at the Abbey Theatre, Dublin, in 2018. His other notable works include: À toi, pour toujours, ta Marie-Lou (1970); La grosse femme d'à côté est enceinte (1978); Albertine, en cinq temps (Albertine in Five Times) (1984); Le Vrai Monde? (1987); and Messe solennelle pour une pleine lune d'été (Solemn Mass for a Full Moon in Summer) (1996).