Irish theatre in transition : from the late nineteenth to the early twenty-first century / Donald E. Morse [editor].

Format:

Book

Contributor:

Morse, Donald E., 1936- editor.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

English drama--Irish authors--History and criticism.

English drama.

English drama--Irish authors.

English drama--20th century--History and criticism.

English drama--21st century--History and criticism.

Theater--Ireland--History.

Theater.

Ireland.

History.

Physical Description:

xvii, 265 pages : illustrations ; 23 cm

Place of Publication:

Houndsmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire : New York : Palgrace Macmillan, 2015.

Summary:

Irish Theatre in Transition celebrates the creative and richly vibrant Irish theatre which, since its inception, has always been in transition. Fifteen Irish theatre scholars, building on Christopher Murray's foundational essay on the first hundred years, explore Irish theatre's significance under the headings of 'Engaging with a Changing Reality' (of the Celtic Tiger, the sexual revolution, dementia), 'Enhanced Theatricality', 'Reframing Transition', and 'Inventiveness and Expanding the Stage' and discuss Irish plays in London, varied performances across Ireland in a year, Shakespeare, and Sam Shepard as Irish playwright. This book is designed to show some of the myriad forms of transition: how this theatre reflects the changing conditions of a changing society and nation; how it innovates by returning to its roots or to abandoned but still viable theatrical conventions; how it continually reinvents itself and experiments with new media, and how it moves beyond the local and dares to imagine new audiences. Book jacket.

Contents:

Introduction / Donald E. Morse

Foundations and refoundations in historical perspectrive. The Irish theatre: the first hundred years 1897-1997 / Christopher Murray

Engaging with a changing reality. Black hole experiences: moochers, smoochers, dig outs and the parables and spasms of time in Conor McPherson's The night alive / Eamonn Jordan

Queer creatures, queer places: otherness and normativity Irish drama from Synge to Friel / José Lanters

Troubled relations of gender and generation in Celtic tiger drama: Stella Feehily's Duck and O go my man / Mária Kurdi

"The politics of aging": Frank McGuinness's The hanging gardens / Donald E Morse

Enhanced theatricality. The play within the play in select contemporary Irish plays / Csilla Bertha

When the mirror laughs: face to face with three Irish stage worlds / Eric Weitz

Then like Gigli, now like Bette: the grotesque and the sublime in Mark O'Rowe's Terminus / Ondřej Pilný

Reframing transition. Shakespearean productions at the Abbey Theatre: 1970-1985 / Patrick Lonergan

Snapshots: a year in the life of a theatre judge / Nicholas Grene

The Irish play on the London stage: an overview from independence to the present / Peter James Harris

Inventiveness and expanding the stage. The diverse dramatic contributions of Frank McGuinness / Helen Heuser Lojek

Pat Kinevane's Forgotten and silent: universalizing the abject / Joan Fitzpatrick Dean

Writing for "the real national theatre": Stewart Parker's plays for television / Clare Wallace

Playing with Beckett on film / Dawn Duncan

On the "re-foundation" of the Irish theatre: Sam Shepard, Irish playwright / Stephen Watt.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN:

9781137450685

1137450681

OCLC:

887848088