Description
Book SynopsisThis two-volume edited collection illuminates the valuable counter-canon of Irish women’s playwriting with forty-two essays written by leading and emerging Irish theatre scholars and practitioners. Covering three hundred years of Irish theatre history from 1716 to 2016, it is the most comprehensive study of plays written by Irish women to date. These short essays provide both a valuable introduction and innovative analysis of key playtexts, bringing renewed attention to scripts and writers that continue to be under-represented in theatre criticism and performance.
Volume One covers plays by Irish women playwrights written between 1716 to 1992, and seeks to address and redress the historic absence of Irish female playwrights in theatre histories. Highlighting the work of nine women playwrights from the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, as well as thirteen of the twentieth century’s key writers, the chapters in this volume explore such varied themes as the impact of space and place on identity, women’s strategic use of genre, and theatrical responses to shifts in Irish politics and culture.
CONTRIBUTORS: Conrad Brunström, David Clare, Thomas Conway, Marguérite Corporaal, Mark Fitzgerald, Shirley-Anne Godfrey, Úna Kealy, Sonja Lawrenson, Cathy Leeney, Marc Mac Lochlainn, Kate McCarthy, Fiona McDonagh, Deirdre McFeely, Megan W. Minogue, Ciara Moloney, Justine Nakase, Patricia O'Beirne, Kevin O'Connor, Ciara O'Dowd, Clíona Ó Gallchoir, Anna Pilz, Emilie Pine, Ruud van den Beuken, Feargal Whelan
Trade Review'Spanning from the eighteenth-century to the present day,
The Golden Thread brings together the work of leading scholars in Irish theatre and women’s writing with that of theatre practitioners to recover the often-hidden contributions of women playwrights. The collection develops a counter-canon of Irish playwrights that examines issues of class, sexuality, and disability.'
Colleen English,
The New Books Network'This is one of those indispensable works that will influence the future of performance studies and feminist criticism. The number and variety of voices on display, the effort in the reconstruction of the canon by adding women playwrights who had been erased in the past, and the declared ambition to draw attention to and create the conditions for revivals and publications of plays created by contemporary women playwrights make this extensive compilation more than recommendable. [....] All in all, a very enjoyable edition, which makes for a rewarding read and provides essential information.'
María Gaviña-Costero,
Estudios Irlandeses'In a word,
The Golden Thread: Irish Women Playwrights, 1716–2016... is superb. This two-volume collection showcases writers familiar and less familiar, offers valuable context and incisive textual readings, attends to performance as well as stagecraft, and ranges among historical periods and critical approaches.'
Prof. Paige Reynolds,
English Studies‘The Golden Thread is an ambitious, richly textured and multifaceted research piece that opens up the field of Irish theatre studies in most fruitful ways. It offers a robust counteracting to the under-representation of Irish women playwrights in the canon and is a strong incentive for producers to revive their work… a most valuable book for anyone interested in Irish studies, in Irish theatre studies and also for anyone interested in an alternative history of Irish theatre.’ Hélène Lecossois, Études irlandaises
Table of ContentsIntroduction
David Clare, Fiona McDonagh & Justine Nakase
“There’s no Place like old England”: Space and Identity in Mary Davys’s
The Northern Heiress; Or, the Humours of York (1716)
Marguérite Corporaal“Some tender scenes demand the melting tear”: Frances Sheridan’s
The Discovery (1763) and the Vindication of “Sentimental Comedy”
Conrad BrunströmIrish Wit on the London Stage: Elizabeth Griffith’s
The Platonic Wife (1765)
Clíona Ó GallchoirDeceptive Disabilities in Maria Edgeworth’s
The Double Disguise (1786): Irish Patriotism, Consumption, and the Martial Male Body
Sonja LawrensonReimagining Maria Edgeworth’s
The Knapsack (1801) for a Contemporary Young Audience
Fiona McDonagh & Marc Mac LochlainnMary Balfour’s
Kathleen O’Neil (1814): An Expression or Betrayal of Her Ulster Scots Background?
David ClareJustice and the “Triple Goddess” Archetypes in Anna Maria Hall’s
Mabel’s Curse (1837)
Ciara MoloneyOperas without a Hero:
A Comic Trilogy (1876–1879) by Elena Norton and Mary Heyne
Mark Fitzgerald“Petticoats!—petticoats! petticoats!”: Sartorial Economics in Clotilde Graves’s
A Mother of Three (1896)
Justine NakaseFrom Gort to Antarctica: Lady Gregory’s Audiences and
The Rising of the Moon (1903)
Anna PilzLady Gregory’s
Grania (1912): Myth and Mythology
Shirley-Anne Godfrey“You have let the play go to pieces”: Geraldine Cummins and Susanne R. Day’s
Fox and Geese (1917) and the Hegemony of the Early Abbey Theatre
Thomas Conway“Something left over from the Eighteenth Century, undergoing a slow process of decay”: The Impotence of the Ascendancy in Mary Manning’s
Youth’s the Season–? (1931)
Ruud van den BeukenShape Shifting the Silence: An Analysis of
Talk Real Fine, Just Like a Lady (2017) by Amanda Coogan in Collaboration with Dublin Theatre of the Deaf, an Appropriation of Teresa Deevy’s
The King of Spain’s Daughter (1935)
Úna Kealy & Kate McCarthyThe Premiere Staging of
Mount Prospect (1940) by Elizabeth Connor (the Pen Name of Una Troy) at the Abbey Theatre
Ciara O’DowdCorruption and Socio-Political Tensions in Christine Longford’s
Tankardstown (1948)
Kevin O’ConnorSocial Class, Space, and Containment in 1950s Ireland: Maura Laverty’s “Dublin Trilogy” (1951–1952)
Cathy Leeney & Deirdre McFeelyMáiréad Ní Ghráda’s
An Triail/On Trial (1964): Hiding Hypocrisy in Plain Sight
Feargal WhelanChristina Reid: Acts of Memory in
Tea in a China Cup (1983),
The Belle of the Belfast City (1989), and
My Name, Shall I Tell You My Name (1989)
Emilie PineAnne Devlin: Depicting a Gendered Journey: Men and Women on
The Long March (1984)
Megan W. MinogueA Partial Eclipse: The Role of the Religious in Patricia Burke Brogan’s
Eclipsed (1988 / 1992)
Patricia O’BeirneCoda – What the Woman Sees: Waking Up to Feminist Aesthetics
Cathy Leeney
