Abstract
For Nicholas Greene in The Politics of Irish Drama, Irish theatre from the late nineteenth through the late twentieth century sets out to “reformulate the Irish Question”. He suggests that the mission of Irish drama from that period is to ask who the Irish are and what Ireland is, thus continuing the process of nation building, but also working out Ireland’s relationship with the world, and especially Britain. Irish drama’s relationship with Britain has become complex during the late twentieth and early twenty-first century. Significant recent works like McPherson’s The Seafarer, McDonagh’s The Lieutenant of Inishmore and Carr’s Woman and Scarecrow premiered in London. These carry on a tradition of National Irish drama begun with Sean O’Casey and Tom Murphy, where plays are so immersed in the postcolonial paradox of the British–Irish relationship that attending their premiere becomes an almost postcolonial experience for an audience. Critics such as Clare Wallace note that European productions of, for example, Marina Carr’s work have accentuated their depiction of Irishness in order to seek authenticity. All this raises the question: what is Irish national drama and what happens to it when in tours or is produced in a different context?
The chapter examines the notion of Irish national drama, asking how it is defined and contested, and how it has evolved since 1998. It will focus on plays that premiered abroad and the ways in which they contest accepted visions of Irish society, highlighting issues that may not be palatable to an Irish audience in plays like Enda Walsh’s Penelope and Mark O’Rowe’s Howie the Rookie. It also examines the (alleged) repetition and normalization of colonial stereotypes of Irishness in work such as McDonagh’s Aran Islands Trilogy.
This chapter also asks if these productions abroad challenge dominant theatrical forms in Ireland, or if these productions are (or have been) reliant on stereotypical signifiers of Irishness, and consider what impact that might have. Finally, the chapter investigates whether these plays reinforce old and perhaps clichéd answers or whether they imagine new questions and different answers.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution.
Buying options
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Learn about institutional subscriptionsNotes
- 1.
Nicholas Grene, Politics of Irish Drama: Plays in Context from Boucicault to Friel (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999), 1–7.
- 2.
Grene, Politics of Irish Drama, 1.
- 3.
Grene, Politics of Irish Drama, 6–7.
- 4.
Victor Merriman, “Settling for More: Excess and Success in Contemporary Irish Drama”, In Druids, Dudes and Beauty Queens: The Changing Face of Irish Theatre, ed. Dermot Bolger (Dublin: New Island, 2001) 55–71 (55).
- 5.
See David Lloyd’s Anomalous States: Irish Writing and the Post-colonial Moment (Durham: Duke University Press, 1993).
- 6.
Clare Wallace, “Authentic Reproductions: Marina Carr and the Inevitable”, in The Theatre of Marina Carr: “before rules was made”, ed. Cathy Leeney and Anna McMullan (Dublin: Carysfort Press, 2003) 43–64 (43–45).
- 7.
Philip Roberts, The Royal Court Theatre and the Modern Stage (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999), 45, 76, 178, 228.
- 8.
For more on this see Peter Harris’s From Stage to Page: Critical Reception of Irish Plays in the London Theatre, 1925–1996.
- 9.
“Fintan O’Toole: Power Plays”.
- 10.
Claudia W. Harris, “Rising Out of the Miasmal Mists: Marina Carr’s Ireland”, in The Theatre of Marina Carr: “before the rules was made” ed. Cathy Leeney and Anna McMullan (Dublin: Carysfort Press, 2003) 216–232 (231).
- 11.
Eamonn Jordan, Dissident Dramaturgies: Contemporary Irish Theatre (Dublin: Irish Academic Press, 2010), 134–149.
- 12.
Ibid., 134.
- 13.
Ibid., 149.
- 14.
Ibid., 148.
- 15.
Ibid., 40–155.
- 16.
Merriman, “Settling for More”, 60.
- 17.
“Kennedy Centre Is Filled With The Sounds of Ireland 2000”.
- 18.
Harris, “Rising Out of the Miasmal Mists”, 218–219.
- 19.
Ibid., 222.
- 20.
Ibid., 222–229.
- 21.
Jordan, Dissident Dramaturgies, 149.
- 22.
Ibid., 143.
- 23.
Harris, “Rising Out of the Miasmal Mists”, 228.
- 24.
Ibid., 229.
- 25.
Grene, Politics of Irish Drama, 2.
- 26.
Marina Carr, Woman and Scarecrow (Oldcastle: Gallery Press, 2006), 29.
- 27.
Ibid., 30.
- 28.
Ibid., 75.
- 29.
Ibid., 76.
- 30.
Ondřej Pilný, “The Grotesque in the Plays of Enda Walsh”, Irish Studies Review 21 (2013): 218.
- 31.
Ibid.
- 32.
Ibid., 219.
- 33.
Ibid., 220.
- 34.
Marina Carr, The Cordelia Dream (Oldcastle: Gallery Press, 2008), 8.
- 35.
Walsh, Penelope (London: Nick Hern Books, 2010), 3.
- 36.
Pilný, “The Grotesque in the Plays of Enda Walsh”, 222.
- 37.
“Press Release: Third Fringe First for Druid and Enda Walsh”.
- 38.
Merriman, “Settling for More,” 61–63.
- 39.
“Fintan O’Toole: Power Plays”, Arts Lives. RTE One. Dublin, Ireland: RTE, 7 June, 2012.
- 40.
Ibid.
- 41.
Grene, Politics of Irish Drama, 2.
- 42.
Jordan, Dissident Dramaturgies, 149.
Bibliography
Carr, Marina. Marina Carr: Plays 1. London: Faber and Faber, 1999.
———. On Raftery’s Hill. Oldcastle: Gallery Press, 2000.
———. Woman and Scarecrow. Oldcastle: Gallery Press, 2006.
———. The Cordelia Dream. Oldcastle: Gallery Press, 2008.
Cerquoni, Enrica. “Review of By the Bog of Cats….” Irish Theatre Magazine 2: 70.
Druid Theatre Company. “Press Release: Third Fringe First for Druid and Enda Walsh”. Accessed 1 March, 2016. http://www.druid.ie/news/press-release-third-fringe-first-for-druid-and-enda-walsh.
“Fintan O’Toole: Power Plays.” Arts Lives. RTE One. Dublin, Ireland: RTE, 7 June, 2012.
Grene, Nicholas. The Politics of Irish Drama: Plays in Context from Boucicault to Friel. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999.
Harris, Claudia W. “Rising Out of the Miasmal Mists: Marina Carr’s Ireland.” In The Theatre of Marina Carr: “Before the Rules Was Made”, edited by Cathy Leeney and Anna McMullan, 216–232. Dublin: Carysfort Press, 2003.
Harris, Peter. From Stage to Page: Critical Reception of Irish Plays in the London Theatre, 1925–1996, Oxford: Peter Lang, 2011.
Haughey, Paul, Cormac O’Brien, and Josh Tobiessen. 2001. “Struggling Toward a Future: Irish Theatre Today.” New Hibernia Review 5:126–133. doi: https://doi.org/10.1353/nhr.2001.0028.
Jordan, Eamonn. Dissident Dramaturgies: Contemporary Irish Theatre. Dublin: Irish Academic Press, 2010.
Kiberd, Declan. Inventing Ireland: The Literature of the Modern Nation. London: Vintage, 1996.
Little, Ruth, and Emilie McLaughlin. The Royal Court Theatre: Inside Out. London: Oberon Books, 2007.
Luckhurst, Mary. “Martin McDonagh’s Lieutenant of Inishmore: Selling (-Out) to the English.” Contemporary Theatre Review 14:34–41. doi: https://doi.org/10.1080/10486800412331296309.
Lloyd, David. Anomalous States: Irish Writing and the Post-colonial Moment. Durham: Duke University Press, 1993.
McDonagh, Martin. Martin McDonagh: Plays 1. London: Methuen, 1999.
———. The Pillowman. London: Faber and Faber, 2003.
———. The Cripple of Inishmaan. London: Methuen, 2013.
———. The Lieutenant of Inishmore. London: Methuen, 2014.
McPherson, Conor. Shining City. London: Nick Hern Books, 2010.
Merriman, Vic. “Settling for More: Excess and Success in Contemporary Irish Drama.” In Druids, Dudes and Beauty Queens: The Changing Face of Irish Theatre, edited by Dermot Bolger, 55–71. Dublin: New Island, 2001.
Pilný, Ondřej. 2013. “The Grotesque in the Plays of Enda Walsh.” Irish Studies Review 21:217–225.
Roberts, Philip. The Royal Court Theatre and the Modern Stage. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999.
Royal Court Theatre. “Ireland at The Royal Court Theatre”. Accessed 2 November, 2015. http://www.royalcourttheatre.com/project/ireland.
RTE. “Kennedy Centre Is Filled With The Sounds of Ireland 2000”. Accessed 10 February, 2016. http://www.rte.ie/archives/2015/0514/701002-irish-arts-festival-in-the-us/.
Wallace, Clare. “Authentic Reproductions: Marina Carr and the Inevitable.” In The Theatre of Marina Carr: “Before Rules Was Made”, edited by Cathy Leeney and Anna McMullan, 43–64. Dublin: Carysfort Press, 2003.
Walsh, Enda. Enda Walsh: Plays 1. London: Nick Hern Books, 2010.
———. Penelope. London: Nick Hern Books, 2010.
———. The New Electric Ballroom. London: Nick Hern Books, 2014.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Copyright information
© 2018 The Author(s)
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Wallace, K. (2018). Irish Plays in Other Places: Royal Court, RSC, Washington and Berlin. In: Jordan, E., Weitz, E. (eds) The Palgrave Handbook of Contemporary Irish Theatre and Performance. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-58588-2_34
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-58588-2_34
Published:
Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, London
Print ISBN: 978-1-137-58587-5
Online ISBN: 978-1-137-58588-2
eBook Packages: Literature, Cultural and Media StudiesLiterature, Cultural and Media Studies (R0)