A Century of Irish Drama: Widening the Stage (Drama and Performance Studies) - Softcover

Softcover

ISBN 10: 025321419X ISBN 13: 9780253214195

Publisher: Indiana University Press, 2001

Synopsis

This book traces a significant shift in 20th century Irish theatre from the largely national plays produced in Dublin to a more expansive international art form. Confirmed by the recent success outside of Ireland of the "third wave" of Irish playwrights writing in the 1990s, the new Irish drama has encouraged critics to reconsider both the early national theatre and the dramatic tradition it fostered.

On the occasion of the centenary of the first professional production of the Irish Literary Theatre, the contributors to this volume investigate contemporary Irish drama’s aesthetic features and socio-political commitments and re-read the plays produced earlier in the century. Although these essayists cover a wide range of topics, from the productions and objectives of the Abbey Theatre’s
first rivals to mid-century theatre festivals, to plays about the "Troubles" in the North, they all reassess the oppositions so commonplace in critical discussions of Irish drama: nationalism vs. internationalism, high vs. low culture, urban experience vs. rural or peasant life.

A Century of Irish Drama includes essays on such figures as W. B. Yeats, Lady Gregory, J. M. Synge, Sean O’Casey, Brendan Behan, Samuel Beckett, Marina Carr, Brian Friel, Frank McGuinness, Christina Read, Martin McDonagh, and many more.

Stephen Watt is Professor of English and Cultural Studies at Indiana University-Bloomington, and author of Postmodern/Drama: Reading the Contemporary Stage, Joyce, O’Casey, and the Irish Popular Theatre, and essays on Irish and Irish-American culture. He has also written extensively on higher education, most recently Academic Keywords: A Devil’s Dictionary for Higher Education (with Cary Nelson).

Eileen M. Morgan is a lecturer in English and Irish Studies at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. She is currently working on Sean O’Faolain’s biographies of De Valera and on Edna O’Brien’s 1990s trilogy, and is preparing a book-length study on the in

About this title

About the Author:

Stephen Watt is Professor of English and Cultural Studies at Indiana University-Bloomington, and the author of Postmodern/Drama: Reading the Contemporary Stage (1998) and Joyce, O'Casey, and the Irish Popular Theatre (1991). In addition to publishing essays on Irish and Irish-American Culture, he has also written extensively on higher education, most recently Academic Keywords: A Devil's Dictionary for Higher Education (1999), co-authored with Cary Nelson.

Eileen M. Morgan Assistant Professor of English at SUNY-Oneonta and the author of essays on contemporary Irish culture. She completed a dissertation at Indiana University on twentieth-century Irish fiction and film in 1998, and her essay on Neil Jordan's film Michael Collins appeared recently in New Hibernia Review. She is currently working on Sean O'Faolain's biographies of De Valera and on Edna O'Brien's 1990s trilogy, and is preparing a book-length study on the influence of radio in Ireland.

Shakir Mustafa is Assistant Professsor in the Department of Modern Languages and Literatures at Boston University. He recently completed a dissertation at Indiana University on Irish revisionism and modernist Irish literature. His essays on Irish literature, particularly on Joyce and Irish revisionism, have appeared in such journals as THE NEW HIBERNIA REVIEW and THE CANADIAN JOURNAL OF IRISH STUDIES.and he is, at present, working on a translation of Arabic short stories into English.

About this edition

• Publisher: Indiana University Press
• Publication date: 2001
• ISBN 10: 025321419X
• ISBN 13: 9780253214195
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 360
• Editor: Watt Stephen, Morgan Eileen, Mustafa Shakir