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Perspectives on Contemporary Irish Theatre pp 249–268Cite as

Palgrave Macmillan

Queering the Irish Stage: Shame, Sexuality, and the Politics of Testimonial

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Abstract

The purpose of this chapter is twofold. Firstly, it critically surveys several landmark plays that have since the 1990s concerned themselves with the de-shaming of queer Irish subjects. Secondly, it interrogates how playwrights, theatre makers and performers have mobilised non-traditional dramaturgical strategies and/or powerful testimonials to highlight and explore queer lives in an Ireland that has struggled to come to terms with dissident sexualities. The non-traditional and highly performative strategies employed by recent Irish queer theatre make visible what was previously invisible; namely, the ways in which public understandings of sexual shame have been discursively coupled with queerness and reified as a threat to nation. The chapter concludes with theoretical and socio-political questions that probe the overarching assimilatory ethos of recent queer testimonial theatre.

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. University College Dublin, Dublin, Ireland

    Cormac O’Brien

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  1. Cormac O’Brien
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Correspondence to Cormac O’Brien .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. University College Cork, Cork, Ireland

    Anne Etienne

  2. Université de Caen Normandie, Caen, France

    Thierry Dubost

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O’Brien, C. (2017). Queering the Irish Stage: Shame, Sexuality, and the Politics of Testimonial. In: Etienne, A., Dubost, T. (eds) Perspectives on Contemporary Irish Theatre. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-59710-2_18

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