Description
Book SynopsisThrough analysis of both major Irish dramas and the artists and companies that performed them, Modern Irish Theatre provides an engaging and accessible introduction to 20th century Irish theatre: its origins, dominant themes, relationship to politics and culture, and influence on theatre movements around the world.
Trade Review“Mary Trotter’s
Modern Irish Theatre will find a permanent residence on the reading lists for every course I teach on modern and contemporary drama. Her expertise is vast and deep, and this book makes a fine, unique contribution to our knowledge of the ‘infinite variety’ of Irish drama.”
Stephen Watt, Indiana University
“Through a set of superbly constructed phases Mary Trotter situates twentieth-century Irish theatre in its evolving socio-political contexts. She covers theatrical activities from Belfast to Cork and from Dublin to Galway, analysing along the way a vast array of texts and performances from the high modernism of the early Abbey through to the community theatre of Charabanc. In a highly accessible style she articulates superbly how Irish theatre has performed the nation, how its use of realism can be read as counter-hegemonic, and how representations of gender and race have disrupted the myth of the rural in the theatrical imaginary.”
Brian Singleton, Trinity College, Dublin
Table of ContentsAcknowledgements vii
Timeline of Signifi cant Events in Irish Arts and Politics ix
Introduction 1
Part I: Performing the Nation, 1891-1916 5
Introduction to Part I 7
1 Imagining an Aesthetic: Modern Irish Theatre’s First Years 13
2 Realisms and Regionalisms 35
Part II: War and After, 1916-1948 61
Introduction to Part II 63
3 The Abbey Becomes Institution: 1916-1929 67
4 New Voices of the 1930s and 1940s 91
Part III: Rewriting Tradition, 1948-1980 113
Introduction to Part III 115
5 Irish Theatre in the 1950s 119
6 Irish Theatre's Second Wave 136
Part IV: Re-imagining Ireland, 1980-2007 151
Introduction to Part IV 153
7 Theatres Without Borders: Irish Theatre in the 1980s 157
8 A New Sense of Place: Irish Theatre since the 1990s 176
Conclusion: What is an Irish Play? 195
Notes 199
Bibliography 210
Index 224
