After leaving Ireland for London to write, 1970 saw his first two plays, Retreat and The Director produced by the Abbey Theatre in Dublin in 1970. His next play, Straight Up, received its premiere at the Traverse Theatre in Edinburgh and subsequently transferred to the Piccadilly Theatre in London in December 1971. It premiered in the US at the Kansas City playhouse in 1973 with subsequent productions in Seattle, Newhaven, Washington DC and New York City. Straight Up was translated into German by Jurgen and Astrid Fischer and given the German title Im Schoss der Familie. The translation premiered in Germany at the Landestheater Darmstadt in 1972, and was then successful over a 14-year period with German and Austrian major productions in cities such as Berlin, Düsseldorf, Hamburg, Stuttgart and Vienna. Straight Up was premiered in Australia by the Western Australia Theatre Company in Perth.
