The essays in this collection cover the whole range of Irish drama from the late nineteenth-century melodramas which anticipated the rise of the Abbey Theatre to the contemporary Dublin of theatre festivals. A team of international experts from Ireland, the UK, the USA and Europe provide individual studies of internationally known playwrights of the period of the Literary Revival - Yeats, Synge, Lady Gregory, Shaw, Wilde, O'Casey - and contemporary playwrights Brian Friel, Tom Murphy, Frank McGuiness and Sebastian Barry, in addition to emerging playwrights such as Martin McDonagh and Marina Carr. Further to studies of individual playwrights the collection also includes examination of the relationship between the theatre and its political context as this is inflected through its ideology, staging and programming. With a full chronology and bibliography, this collection is an indispensable introduction to one of the world's most vibrant theatre cultures.
Notes on contributors; Chronology; 1. Plays of (ever) changing Ireland Shaun Richards; 2. Late nineteenth-century Irish theatre: before the Abbey - and beyond Stephen Watt; 3. The ideology of the Abbey theatre Adrian Frazier; 4. The theatre of William Butler Yeats Joep Leerssen; 5. Lady Gregory's Abbey theatre drama: Ireland real and ideal James Pethica; 6. J. M. Synge, 'national' drama and the post-Protestant imagination Mary C. King; 7. On the siting of doors and windows: aesthetics, ideology and Irish stage design Richard Allen Cave; 8. Oscar Wilde and the politics of style Neil Sammells; 9. George Bernard Shaw and Ireland Gearóid O'Flaherty; 10. Sean O'Casey's Dublin trilogy: disillusionment to delusion Ronan McDonald; 11. Ireland's 'exiled' woman playwrights: Teresa Deevy and Marina Carr Cathy Leeney; 12. Samuel Beckett and the counter-tradition John P. Harrington; 13. Brian Friel's sense of place Helen Lojek; 14. The Field Day Theatre Company Marilynn Richtarik; 15. Tom Murphy and the children of loss Nicholas Grene; 16. Reconstructing history in the Irish history play Claire Gleitman; 17. The Abbey theatre and the Irish state Lionel Pilkington; 18. Staging contemporary Ireland: heartsickness and hopes deferred Vic Merriman; 19. The revival revised Brian Singleton; Guide to further reading; Index.
