Contemporary Irish Theatre and Performance Studies Reader
Selected and Introduced by
Finola Cronin and Eamonn Jordan
Table of Contents
Introduction
Finola Cronin and Eamonn Jordan
Abbey Theatre
Abbey Theatre: Abbey Tours to London after 1990
Anu Productions
Anu and the Dublin Fringe Festival
Barabbas… the company
Barabbas at Play with The Whiteheaded Boy
Sebastian Barry
The Poetic Theatre of Sebastian Barry
Out of History: From The Steward of Christendom to Annie Dunne
Blue Raincoat Theatre Company
Blue Raincoat Theatre Company and its Influences
Patricia Burke Brogan
Eclipsed
Marina Carr in the US: Perception, Conflict and Culture in Irish Theatre Abroad
Journeys in Performance: On Playing in The Mai and By the Bog of Cats…
Olwen Fouéré interviewed by Cathy Leeney and Anna McMullan
Anne Devlin
Anne Devlin’s After Easter: Journeys and Vision
Bernard Farrell
The Joyful Mysteries of Comedy
Field Day Theatre Company
Field Day: Local roots and global reach
Fishamble Theatre Company
Along the thin line: Dublin comedy in recent Fishamble and other plays
Brian Friel
‘Singing of Human Unsuccess’: Brian Friel’s Portraits of the Artist
Csilla Bertha and Donald E. Morse
The Transience of the Visual Image in Touring Theatre: Brian Friel’s Dancing at Lughnasa
Olwen Fouéré
Olwen Fouéré’s Corpus: The Performer’s Body and her Body of Work
Marie Jones
Marie Jones and Charabanc: Popular Theatre in / for Northern Ireland
Purchasing Power: Material Culture and the Function of America in Marie Jones’s post Charabanc plays
Thomas Kilroy
The Modernity of Thomas Kilroy
Thomas Kilroy – Irish Modernist: a response to Nicholas Grene
Hugh Leonard
The Masks of Hugh Leonard: Da as an Irish Comedy
Leonard’s Progress: Hugh Leonard at the Dublin Theatre Festival
Patrick Mason
Patrick Mason: A Director’s Festival Golden Fish
Tom Mac Intyre
Slow Surrender: Finding a Theatrical Voice Through the Plays of the 1970s
Grotesque Entertainment: The Pillowman as Puppet Theatre
Frank McGuinness
Observe the Sons of Ulster: Historical Stages
A Director’s Perspective on Mutabilitie
Michael Barker Caven in conversation with Helen Lojek
Respond or Else: Conor McPherson’s The Weir at the Donmar Warehouse
Gary Mitchell
Fighting the Peace: Counter-Narrative, Violence, and the Work of Gary Mitchell.
Tom Murphy
‘The saga will go on’: Story as History in Bailegangaire
The Fell of Dark: The Gigli Concert
Mark O’Rowe
At the Terminus in the Brain: Illusions of consciousness in Mark O’Rowe’s Terminus
A Sense Of Place, A Place Of Dread
Pan Pan Theatre Company
Pan Pan Theatre Company
Panti Bliss
Queer Performance, Affective Engagement, and the case of Panti Bliss
Billy Roche
The Cavalcaders: Billy Roche’s Signature Play
Rough Magic
Lynne Parker: “Radical” Director: Reflections of a Fellow Director
Second Skin: Costume and Body: Power and Desire
Gerard Stembridge
Living by the Code: Authority in Gerard Stembridge’s The Gay Detective
Enda Walsh
Enda Walsh and Space: The Evolution of a Playwright and Practitioner
On Directing and Performing the Theatre of Enda Walsh
Sculpting the Spaces of Enda Walsh’s Theatre: Sabine Dargent in Conversation
Who The Hell Do We Think We Still Are? Reflections
On Irish Theatre and Identity
Theatre and the Act of Criticism – Afterword from Critical Moments
‘Strangeness made sense’: reflections on being a non-Irish Irish playwright.
Audience expectation and the expected audience – writing for the international stage
The Dublin Theatre Festival: Social and Cultural Contexts
The International Dance Festival Ireland of 2002: ‘the time has come to dance’.
Rape, Murder and Mayhem: Women Writing Violence
Framing Reality: A Case Study in Prison Theatre in Northern Ireland
The Utopian Performative in Post-Ceasefire Northern Irish Theatre
There’s Nothing Queer Here: The Abbey Theatre and the Problem of Practice
All We Say is ‘Life is Crazy’: – Central and Eastern Europe and the Irish Stage
Beyond the Passion Machine: The Adigun-Doyle Playboy and Multiculturalism
Beyond Ryanga: The Image of Africa in Contemporary Irish Theatre