Cast Revealed For BIRTHRIGHT at Finborough Theatre

A unique rediscovery marking the first professional UK production in more than 90 years of Birthright, the classic 1910 rural Irish tragedy by T. C. Murray, opening at the Finborough Theatre for a four week limited season on Tuesday, 5 September 2023 (Press Nights: Thursday, 7 September 2023 and Friday, 8 September 2023 at 7.30pm).

Rural Ireland just before the First World War.

Bat and Maura Morrissey have two fine sons. Hugh is idealistic and accomplished: an altar boy, poet, captain of the hurling team, and pride of his mother. Shane is a born farmer: diligent, obedient, and hardworking. 

Much to Bat’s frustration, tradition dictates that Hugh is set to take over the farm, whilst Shane will be forced to emigrate to America.  

Over the course of one day, family ambition collides with Hugh’s birthright, and the close-knit family is torn apart forever…

Inspired by the biblical story of Esau and Jacob, Birthright is a forgotten masterpiece of Irish theatre.

Birthright was first performed in The Abbey Theatre, Dublin, in 1910 and was playwright T. C. Murray’s Abbey Theatre debut. It was subsequently seen in both the West End and on Broadway, and toured the USA alongside Synge’s In the Shadow of the Glen where it caused huge controversy among Irish-American audiences. It was last seen in London at the Everyman Theatre, Hampstead, in 1931, and is now rediscovered by the Finborough Theatre for the first time in over 90 years.

Playwright T. C. Murray (1873–1959) was an Irish dramatist who enjoyed international popularity from just before the First World War to just after the Second World War. A reclusive Roman Catholic school teacher, he has been called 'the voice of rural Ireland', and was closely associated with The Abbey Theatre, Dublin, Ireland's national theatre. Born in Macroom, County Cork, he wrote fifteen plays, all of which were produced by The Abbey Theatre. His three most highly regarded works are Birthright, Maurice Harte (1912) and Autumn Fire (1924) – which was seen at the Finborough Theatre in 2012 – all of which were produced on Broadway. He was also the author of many short stories, articles and an acclaimed semi-autobiographical novel, Spring Horizon (1937).

Director Scott Hurran trained at Royal Central School of Speech and Drama and RADA. A Leverhulme Arts Scholar, he is the Artistic Director of Ecclesia and was previously Artistic Associate at Eastern Angles. Scott received the 2020 New Creatives commission from BBC Arts and Screen South. Theatre includes Paper Cut (Park Theatre), 13, Three Winters (Rose Bruford College), Patient Light, The Tide Jetty, Britannia’s Children, In Our Honour, Raising Millfield (Eastern Angles Centre), Spare Change (Hightide), Sonny (Arts Ed), Hidden (UK Tour), Counting Stars (Assembly, Edinburgh Fringe), The House of Bernarda Alba (Kings Head Theatre), Three to Four Days (Theatre503), Immigrant (Theatre Uncut and The Young Vic), The Grandfathers (National Theatre Connections, Theatre Chipping Norton and Oxford Playhouse) and The Seventh Continent (Prague Quadrennial). Assistant Direction includes assisting Blanche McIntyre on Botticelli in the Fire (Hampstead Theatre) and Women in Power (Nuffield Theatre and Oxford Playhouse), Tinuke Craig on I Call My Brothers (Gate Theatre), Emma Callander on Theatre Uncut (The Young Vic) and Elizabeth Freestone on This Same England (Royal Shakespeare Company and Pentabus Theatre).
Film includes Clause, Halfway Between Land and Sea, Pecking Birds, Career Boy and Medicine Man. Radio includes The Blackwater Mermaids and Plucking Nose Hairs.

The cast includes:

Rosie Armstrong | Maura Morrissey
Trained at Rose Bruford College.
Theatre includes Sherlock Holmes (Marylebone Theatre), Henry V (Tobacco Factory, Bristol), This Land (Pentabus and Salisbury Playhouse), A Small Family Business, Great Britain (National Theatre), Chimerica (Almeida Theatre and West End), and The Woman in Black (Fortune Theatre).
Film includes Figure and Mare.
Television includes King Gary, The Shredder, Jack and Dean of all Trades.

Peter Broderick | Shane Morrissey
Trained at Royal Welsh College of Music and Drama.
Productions while in training include Jungle Green, Red Velvet and The Winter’s Tale.
Film includes Rhedeg, The Green Sea, When Men were Men, Before His Eyes and When to Fold ‘Em.

Thomas Fitzgerald | Hugh Morrissey
Trained at Arts Ed.
Theatre includes Wuthering Heights (Oxford Shakespeare Company), The Neath (Vaults Festival).
Productions while in training include Like I Care, Othello and Cock.
Film includes Marys’ Treasure, Dying in a Vacuum, Bad Beat and The Priest.
Television includes Enterprise and Moving In.

Pádraig Lynch | Bat Morrissey
Productions at the Finborough Theatre include The Non Stop Connelly Show.
Trained at Drama Centre London.
Theatre includes The House on Cold Hill (UK Tour) Suffragette City (Palladium), The Ruffian on the Stair (Brighton Fringe), The Plough and the Stars (National Theatre), Antigone in New York (Rag Factory), A View from the Bridge (The Young Vic and Wyndham’s Theatre), Let the Right One In (National Theatre Scotland and Apollo Theatre), The Kindness of Strangers (Curious Directives at Southwark Playhouse), The Trial (Barbican Theatre), The Beauty Queen of Leenane (Salisbury Playhouse), Mariana Pineda (Arcola Theatre), Zoyka’s Apartment (Old Red Lion Theatre and Edinburgh Festival), Golden Boy (Yvonne Arnaud Theatre Guildford), Juno and the Paycock (Abbey Theatre, Dublin), Macbeth (Upstairs at the Gatehouse), Hamlet (Theatr Clwyd), Roosters (Bush Theatre), By The Border (National Theatre), and Dracula (Hackney Empire).
Film includes Northern Paradigm, Conspiracy of Silence, The Killing Zone, The Summer House, Taffin, The Courier and Night Shift.
Television includes Fair City and The Cloning of Joanna May.

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