The Cambridge Companion to Twentieth-Century Irish Drama (Cambridge Companions to Literature)
Cambridge University Press, 2/26/2010
EAN 9780521008730, ISBN10: 0521008735
Paperback, 308 pages, 22.9 x 15.2 x 2 cm
Language: English
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.
'Extensive in its breadth and including studies of the major playwrights and their most important works, this book offers an excellent introduction to a major dramatic and theatrical tradition.' Reference Reviews