Chris Morash's widely-praised account of Irish Theatre traces an often forgotten history leading up to the Irish Literary Revival. He then follows that history to the present by creating a remarkably clear picture of the cultural contexts which produced the playwrights who have been responsible for making Irish theatre's world-wide historical and contemporary reputation. The main chapters are each followed by shorter chapters, focusing on a single night at the theatre. This prize-winning book is an essential, entertaining and highly original guide to the history and performance of Irish theatre.

Morash and Richards present an original approach to understanding how theatre has produced distinctively Irish senses of space and place.

This work analyses the prose and drama of the Irish writer Tom Mac Intyre and the concept of paleo-postmodernism. It examines how Mac Intyre balances traditional themes with experimentation, which in the Irish literary canon is unusual. This book argues that Mac Intyre’s position in the Irish literary canon is an idiosyncratic one in that he combines two contrary aspects of Irish literature: between what Beckett terms as the Yeatsian ‘antiquarians’ who valorize the ‘Victorian Gael’ and the ‘others’ whose aesthetic involves a European-influenced ‘breakdown of the object’ which is associated with Beckett. Mac Intyre’s experimentation involves a breakdown of the object in order to uncover an unconscious Irish mythological and linguistic space in language. His approach to language experimentation is Yeatsian and this is what the author terms as paleo-postmodern. Thus the project considers how Mac Intyre incorporates Yeatsian revivalism with postmodern deconstruction in his drama and short stories.

This Handbook offers a multiform sweep of theoretical, historical, practical and personal glimpses into a landscape roughly characterised as contemporary Irish theatre and performance. Bringing together a spectrum of voices and sensibilities in each of its four sections — Histories, Close-ups, Interfaces, and Reflections — it casts its gaze back across the past sixty years or so to recall, analyse, and assess the recent legacy of theatre and performance on this island. While offering information, overviews and reflections of current thought across its chapters, this book will serve most handily as food for thought and a springboard for curiosity. Offering something different in its mix of themes and perspectives, so that previously unexamined surfaces might come to light individually and in conjunction with other essays, it is a wide-ranging and indispensable resource in Irish theatre studies.

This book uses the social transformation that has taken place in Ireland from the decriminalisation of homosexuality in 1993 to the repeal of the 8th amendment in 2018 as backdrop to examine relationships between activism and contemporary Irish theatre and performance. It studies art explicitly intended to create social and political change for marginalised constituencies. It asks what happens to theatre aesthetics when artists’ aims are political and argues that activist commitments can create new modes of beauty, meaning, and affect. Categories of race, class, sexuality, and gender frame chapters, provide social context, and identify activist artists’ social targets. This book provides in depth analysis of: Arambe – Ireland’s first African theatre company; THEATREclub – an experimental collective with issues of class at its heart; The International Dublin Gay Theatre Festival; and feminist artists working to Repeal the 8th amendment. It highlights the aesthetic strategies that emerge when artists set their sights on justice. Aesthetic debates, both historical and contemporary, are laid out from first principles, inviting readers to situate themselves – whether as artists, activists, or scholars – in the delicious tension between art and life. This book will be a vital guide to students and scholars interested in theatre and performance studies, gender studies, Irish history, and activism.

This title examines the representation of the body in Irish theatre alongside the specific circumstances within which Irish theatre is performed, incorporating issues of gender and embodiment, and the performance of Irishness and tradition. The author contextualizes the body in Irish theatre, and includes in-depth analysis of five key productions.

The third revised and enlarged edition contains discussions of British, Irish and American literary works up to 2020. Focussing on outstanding writings in prose, poetry, drama and non-fiction, the book covers the time from the Anglo-Saxon period to the 21st century. The feature that makes this literary history unique among its rivals is the coverage of television/web series as a particular form of postmodern drama. The chapters on recent drama now contain detailed analyses of the development of TV and web series from Britain, Ireland and America, with extensive discussions of those series now considered classics. In addition, there are several major innovative features. To begin with, each century is introduced by a survey of the socio-political and cultural backgrounds in which the literary works are embedded. Furthermore, extensive visual material (more than 160 engravings, cartoons and paintings) has been integrated. This visual aspect as well as the introductory sections on art for each century give the reader an excellent idea of the symbiosis between visual and literary representations. Further innovative aspects include - discussions of non-fictional works from literary criticism and theory, travel writing, historiography, and the social sciences - analyses of such popular genres as crime fiction, science fiction, fantasy, the Western, horror fiction, and children’s literature - footnotes explaining technical and historical terms and events - a detailed glossary of literary terms - chronological tables for British/Anglo-Irish and American literatures an updated (cut-off date 2020), extensive bibliography containing suggestions for further reading