Author: Marina Carr
Publisher: Faber & Faber
ISBN: 0571389198
Category : Performing Arts
Languages : en
Pages : 84
Book Description
Winner of the Susan Smith Blackburn Prize, 1997. 'Carr's harrowing play has the scale and anguish of myth, and the immediacy of a contemporary anecdote.' Independent on Sunday There's a wolf tooth growin in me heart and it's turnin me from everywan and everthin I am. Portia Coughlan lives life in monstrous limbo, haunted by a yearning for her spectral twin brother lying at the bottom of the Belmont river, unable to find any love for her wealthy husband and children, seeking solace in soulless affairs, deeply afraid of what she might do. Portia Coughlan premiered on the Abbey Theatre's Peacock Stage, Dublin, in April 1996 and transferred to the Royal Court Theatre, London, in May that year. It was revived at the Almeida Theatre, London, in October 2023. 'Taut and haunting, funny and sad . . . Carr plays with time and place to resonant, ultimately devastating effect.' The Stage 'One of the most important Irish plays of the twentieth century.' Arts Review 'Marina Carr goes to a deep place that has not just to do with society now but that touches an inner tragedy of existence. The female quality of her writing comes through not only in the way she writes about women, it's in the physicality in her writing. She is right in there with the cycles of life, with the blood and the dirt.' Joyce McMillan, New York Times
Portia Coughlan
Author: Marina Carr
Publisher: Faber & Faber
ISBN: 0571389198
Category : Performing Arts
Languages : en
Pages : 84
Book Description
Winner of the Susan Smith Blackburn Prize, 1997. 'Carr's harrowing play has the scale and anguish of myth, and the immediacy of a contemporary anecdote.' Independent on Sunday There's a wolf tooth growin in me heart and it's turnin me from everywan and everthin I am. Portia Coughlan lives life in monstrous limbo, haunted by a yearning for her spectral twin brother lying at the bottom of the Belmont river, unable to find any love for her wealthy husband and children, seeking solace in soulless affairs, deeply afraid of what she might do. Portia Coughlan premiered on the Abbey Theatre's Peacock Stage, Dublin, in April 1996 and transferred to the Royal Court Theatre, London, in May that year. It was revived at the Almeida Theatre, London, in October 2023. 'Taut and haunting, funny and sad . . . Carr plays with time and place to resonant, ultimately devastating effect.' The Stage 'One of the most important Irish plays of the twentieth century.' Arts Review 'Marina Carr goes to a deep place that has not just to do with society now but that touches an inner tragedy of existence. The female quality of her writing comes through not only in the way she writes about women, it's in the physicality in her writing. She is right in there with the cycles of life, with the blood and the dirt.' Joyce McMillan, New York Times
Publisher: Faber & Faber
ISBN: 0571389198
Category : Performing Arts
Languages : en
Pages : 84
Book Description
Winner of the Susan Smith Blackburn Prize, 1997. 'Carr's harrowing play has the scale and anguish of myth, and the immediacy of a contemporary anecdote.' Independent on Sunday There's a wolf tooth growin in me heart and it's turnin me from everywan and everthin I am. Portia Coughlan lives life in monstrous limbo, haunted by a yearning for her spectral twin brother lying at the bottom of the Belmont river, unable to find any love for her wealthy husband and children, seeking solace in soulless affairs, deeply afraid of what she might do. Portia Coughlan premiered on the Abbey Theatre's Peacock Stage, Dublin, in April 1996 and transferred to the Royal Court Theatre, London, in May that year. It was revived at the Almeida Theatre, London, in October 2023. 'Taut and haunting, funny and sad . . . Carr plays with time and place to resonant, ultimately devastating effect.' The Stage 'One of the most important Irish plays of the twentieth century.' Arts Review 'Marina Carr goes to a deep place that has not just to do with society now but that touches an inner tragedy of existence. The female quality of her writing comes through not only in the way she writes about women, it's in the physicality in her writing. She is right in there with the cycles of life, with the blood and the dirt.' Joyce McMillan, New York Times
Fathers and Sons at the Abbey Theatre (1904-1938)
Author: Fabio Luppi
Publisher: Universal-Publishers
ISBN: 162734697X
Category : Drama
Languages : en
Pages : 245
Book Description
Fathers and Sons at the Abbey Theatre demonstrates how the literary archetype of the clash between fathers and sons and the subsequent depiction of anti-oedipal figures become a major concern for the playwrights writing in a specific and crucial moment of Irish history (1904-1938). The father can be conceived both as a historical / political metaphor as well as a real father in a specific historical and social context. The classical models employed as theoretical tools to nuance the argument--Laius and Oedipus, Ulysses and Telemachus, Aeneas and Anchises, Priam and Hector, Hector and Astyanax--are challenged by the Christian example of Abraham and Isaac, subversively adjusted by Yeats to provide a tragic reading of post-colonial Ireland. All of these pairings provide archetypes for the understanding of complex personal and familial dynamics. The book takes into consideration not only the most famous figures of the Irish National Theatre--as W.B. Yeats, J.M. Synge, Augusta Gregory, and Sean O?Casey?but also overlooked authors such as T.C. Murray, Padraic Colum, Paul Vincent Carroll, Lennox Robinson, Denis Johnston, George Shiels, St. John Ervine, Teresa Deevy. Many commentators have written about the playwrights of the Abbey Theatre, mainly focusing on politics, social classes, Irish identity, cultural issues, and linguistic aspects: no thorough analysis of the clash between generations has been published so far. Those who have tackled the issue have devoted their attention to a single author, or to a single aspect; this study aims to demonstrate that the repeated occurrence of anti-oedipal figures and of the archetype of the clash between fathers and sons?a clear manifestation of the need of emancipation from oppressive authorities and of change in Irish society?must be read as a common phenomenon and as a shared concern. The book is written for people interested in Irish studies, post-colonial studies, and theatre studies.
Publisher: Universal-Publishers
ISBN: 162734697X
Category : Drama
Languages : en
Pages : 245
Book Description
Fathers and Sons at the Abbey Theatre demonstrates how the literary archetype of the clash between fathers and sons and the subsequent depiction of anti-oedipal figures become a major concern for the playwrights writing in a specific and crucial moment of Irish history (1904-1938). The father can be conceived both as a historical / political metaphor as well as a real father in a specific historical and social context. The classical models employed as theoretical tools to nuance the argument--Laius and Oedipus, Ulysses and Telemachus, Aeneas and Anchises, Priam and Hector, Hector and Astyanax--are challenged by the Christian example of Abraham and Isaac, subversively adjusted by Yeats to provide a tragic reading of post-colonial Ireland. All of these pairings provide archetypes for the understanding of complex personal and familial dynamics. The book takes into consideration not only the most famous figures of the Irish National Theatre--as W.B. Yeats, J.M. Synge, Augusta Gregory, and Sean O?Casey?but also overlooked authors such as T.C. Murray, Padraic Colum, Paul Vincent Carroll, Lennox Robinson, Denis Johnston, George Shiels, St. John Ervine, Teresa Deevy. Many commentators have written about the playwrights of the Abbey Theatre, mainly focusing on politics, social classes, Irish identity, cultural issues, and linguistic aspects: no thorough analysis of the clash between generations has been published so far. Those who have tackled the issue have devoted their attention to a single author, or to a single aspect; this study aims to demonstrate that the repeated occurrence of anti-oedipal figures and of the archetype of the clash between fathers and sons?a clear manifestation of the need of emancipation from oppressive authorities and of change in Irish society?must be read as a common phenomenon and as a shared concern. The book is written for people interested in Irish studies, post-colonial studies, and theatre studies.
X’ntigone
Author: Darren Murphy
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
ISBN: 1350335436
Category : Performing Arts
Languages : en
Pages : 64
Book Description
Sometimes a person needs to create an act that destroys the world because the world is broken. The virus has ravaged Thebes. Millions are dead and the economy has tanked. Vaccinations have been administered and the Festival of Liberty is imminent. Things are finally about to change. The countdown is on but leader Creon and his quarantined niece, the self-identifying X'ntigone, have unfinished business before the celebrations can commence. What happens when old-world order meets a radical new world vision? In this thrilling meditation on Sophocles' timeless Greek tragedy, political expediency meets the voice of a generation who want to tear down the power structures that have ill-served a crumbling state. Darren Murphy's X'ntigone is a fresh and vital discourse for our times, when even truth has been sacrificed at the altar of political gain and avarice.
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
ISBN: 1350335436
Category : Performing Arts
Languages : en
Pages : 64
Book Description
Sometimes a person needs to create an act that destroys the world because the world is broken. The virus has ravaged Thebes. Millions are dead and the economy has tanked. Vaccinations have been administered and the Festival of Liberty is imminent. Things are finally about to change. The countdown is on but leader Creon and his quarantined niece, the self-identifying X'ntigone, have unfinished business before the celebrations can commence. What happens when old-world order meets a radical new world vision? In this thrilling meditation on Sophocles' timeless Greek tragedy, political expediency meets the voice of a generation who want to tear down the power structures that have ill-served a crumbling state. Darren Murphy's X'ntigone is a fresh and vital discourse for our times, when even truth has been sacrificed at the altar of political gain and avarice.
Asking For It
Author: Louise O'Neill
Publisher: Quercus
ISBN: 1681445360
Category : Young Adult Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 244
Book Description
Emma O'Donovan is eighteen, beautiful, and fearless. It's the beginning of summer in a quiet Irish town and tonight she and her friends have dressed to impress. Everyone is at the party, and all eyes are on Emma. The next morning Emma's parents discover her collapsed on the doorstop of their home, unconscious. She is disheveled, bleeding, and disoriented, looking as if she had been dumped there. To her distress, Emma can't remember what happened the night before. All she knows is that none of her friends will respond to her texts. At school, people turn away from her and whisper under their breath. Her mind may be a blank as far as the events of the previous evening, but someone has posted photos of it on Facebook under a fake account, "Easy Emma"--photos she will never be able to forget. As the photos go viral and a criminal investigation is launched, the community is thrown into tumult. The media descends, neighbors chose sides, and people from all over the world want to talk about her story. Everyone has something to say about Emma. Asking For It is a powerful story about the devastating effects of rape and public shaming, told through the awful experience of a young woman whose life is changed forever by an act of violence.
Publisher: Quercus
ISBN: 1681445360
Category : Young Adult Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 244
Book Description
Emma O'Donovan is eighteen, beautiful, and fearless. It's the beginning of summer in a quiet Irish town and tonight she and her friends have dressed to impress. Everyone is at the party, and all eyes are on Emma. The next morning Emma's parents discover her collapsed on the doorstop of their home, unconscious. She is disheveled, bleeding, and disoriented, looking as if she had been dumped there. To her distress, Emma can't remember what happened the night before. All she knows is that none of her friends will respond to her texts. At school, people turn away from her and whisper under their breath. Her mind may be a blank as far as the events of the previous evening, but someone has posted photos of it on Facebook under a fake account, "Easy Emma"--photos she will never be able to forget. As the photos go viral and a criminal investigation is launched, the community is thrown into tumult. The media descends, neighbors chose sides, and people from all over the world want to talk about her story. Everyone has something to say about Emma. Asking For It is a powerful story about the devastating effects of rape and public shaming, told through the awful experience of a young woman whose life is changed forever by an act of violence.
The Unmanageable Sisters
Author: Michel Tremblay
Publisher: Nick Hern Books
ISBN: 9781848427440
Category : Female friendship
Languages : en
Pages : 88
Book Description
Green Shield Stamps, a million of them, and Ger Lawless has won them all. It's Ballymun, it's 1974, and she has fifteen friends round for a stamp-sticking party. Over one fateful night, fifteen determined women bring you into their lives in this funny and furious new version of Michel Tremblay's fêted Québécoise comedy, Les Belles-Soeurs.
Publisher: Nick Hern Books
ISBN: 9781848427440
Category : Female friendship
Languages : en
Pages : 88
Book Description
Green Shield Stamps, a million of them, and Ger Lawless has won them all. It's Ballymun, it's 1974, and she has fifteen friends round for a stamp-sticking party. Over one fateful night, fifteen determined women bring you into their lives in this funny and furious new version of Michel Tremblay's fêted Québécoise comedy, Les Belles-Soeurs.
The Country Girls
Author: Edna O'Brien
Publisher: Hachette UK
ISBN: 1780228015
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 146
Book Description
A classic title in Edna O'Brien's Country Girls Trilogy - the first volume It is the early 1960s in a country village in Ireland. Caithleen Brady and her attractive friend Baba are on the verge of womanhood and dreaming of spreading their wings in a wider world; of discovering love and luxury and liquor and above all, fun. With bawdy innocence, shrewd for all their inexperience, the girls romp their way through convent school to the bright lights of Dublin - where Caithleen finds that suave, idealised lovers rarely survive the real world. 'She is one of our bravest and best novelists' Irish Times 'O'Brien rises like a lark in the clear air, she sings as she flies' Literary Review 'One of the greatest writers in the English-speaking world' New York Times Book Review
Publisher: Hachette UK
ISBN: 1780228015
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 146
Book Description
A classic title in Edna O'Brien's Country Girls Trilogy - the first volume It is the early 1960s in a country village in Ireland. Caithleen Brady and her attractive friend Baba are on the verge of womanhood and dreaming of spreading their wings in a wider world; of discovering love and luxury and liquor and above all, fun. With bawdy innocence, shrewd for all their inexperience, the girls romp their way through convent school to the bright lights of Dublin - where Caithleen finds that suave, idealised lovers rarely survive the real world. 'She is one of our bravest and best novelists' Irish Times 'O'Brien rises like a lark in the clear air, she sings as she flies' Literary Review 'One of the greatest writers in the English-speaking world' New York Times Book Review
Theatre and Archival Memory
Author: Barry Houlihan
Publisher: Springer Nature
ISBN: 3030745481
Category : Performing Arts
Languages : en
Pages : 279
Book Description
This book presents new insights into the production and reception of Irish drama, its internationalisation and political influences, within a pivotal period of Irish cultural and social change. From the 1950s onwards, Irish theatre engaged audiences within new theatrical forms at venues from the Pike Theatre, the Project Arts Centre, and the Gate Theatre, as well as at Ireland’s national theatre, the Abbey. Drawing on newly released and digitised archival records, this book argues for an inclusive historiography reflective of the formative impacts upon modern Irish theatre as recorded within marginalised performance histories. This study examines these works' experimental dramaturgical impacts in terms of production, reception, and archival legacies. The book, framed by the device of ‘archival memory’, serves as a means for scholars and theatre-makers to inter-contextualise existing historiography and to challenge canon formation. It also presents a new social history of Irish theatre told from the fringes of history and reanimated through archival memory.
Publisher: Springer Nature
ISBN: 3030745481
Category : Performing Arts
Languages : en
Pages : 279
Book Description
This book presents new insights into the production and reception of Irish drama, its internationalisation and political influences, within a pivotal period of Irish cultural and social change. From the 1950s onwards, Irish theatre engaged audiences within new theatrical forms at venues from the Pike Theatre, the Project Arts Centre, and the Gate Theatre, as well as at Ireland’s national theatre, the Abbey. Drawing on newly released and digitised archival records, this book argues for an inclusive historiography reflective of the formative impacts upon modern Irish theatre as recorded within marginalised performance histories. This study examines these works' experimental dramaturgical impacts in terms of production, reception, and archival legacies. The book, framed by the device of ‘archival memory’, serves as a means for scholars and theatre-makers to inter-contextualise existing historiography and to challenge canon formation. It also presents a new social history of Irish theatre told from the fringes of history and reanimated through archival memory.
About Friel
Author: Tony Coult
Publisher: Faber & Faber
ISBN: 0571282660
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 192
Book Description
This series contains what no other study guides can offer - extensive first-hand interviews with the playwrights and their closest collaborators on all of their major work, put together by top academics especially for the modern student market. As well as invaluable synopses, biographical essays and chronologies, these guides allow the student much closer to the playwright than ever before! In About Friel, teacher and playwright Tony Coult has selected an extensive and stimulating range of documents and interview material that explores Friel's life, work and the experiences of his collaborators and fellow artists who put that work on stage, including Patrick Mason, Connall Morrison, Joe Dowling and actors Catherine Byrne and Mark Lambert. If you want to read just one book on Brian Friel and the titanic power of his work, this is it.
Publisher: Faber & Faber
ISBN: 0571282660
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 192
Book Description
This series contains what no other study guides can offer - extensive first-hand interviews with the playwrights and their closest collaborators on all of their major work, put together by top academics especially for the modern student market. As well as invaluable synopses, biographical essays and chronologies, these guides allow the student much closer to the playwright than ever before! In About Friel, teacher and playwright Tony Coult has selected an extensive and stimulating range of documents and interview material that explores Friel's life, work and the experiences of his collaborators and fellow artists who put that work on stage, including Patrick Mason, Connall Morrison, Joe Dowling and actors Catherine Byrne and Mark Lambert. If you want to read just one book on Brian Friel and the titanic power of his work, this is it.
The Years of O'Casey, 1921-1926
Author: Robert Goode Hogan
Publisher: University of Delaware Press
ISBN: 9780851054285
Category : Drama
Languages : en
Pages : 454
Book Description
This documentary history covers a period of Irish political and dramatic climax that had an impact not only on the nation, but on the world as well. During these years both Ireland and its major theater attained a position, however precarious, of stability. De Valera and the Republicans laid down their arms and entered politics, while, by a state subsidy, the Abbey was formally recognized as the Irish National Theatre. The importance of these years goes far beyond Ireland itself because the Irish masterpieces of Sean O'Casey - The Shadow of a Gunman, Juno and the Paycock, and The Plough and the Stars - made an impact upon world drama nearly as profound as that of Luigi Pirandello or of Eugene O'Neill. As this book is a documentary history, the story is told primarily through the words of the writers, actors, producers, critics, and members of the audience who themselves lived and created the story. However, these contemporary accounts are frequently amplified and put into modern perspective, particularly at crucial moments such as a major production, a final production, or a death. The authors have particularly done so with writers of some importance such as Edward Martyn, William Boyle, or T.C. Murray. Since the theater of these years was especially influenced by the state of the country, the authors give considerable space to the disruptive political events of the times. Always, however, this is done from the particular vantage point of the theater and its workers, for the Irish theater vigorously reacted to and quickly assimilated the turbulent political events of the day: the raids, the reprisals, the burnings, and the murders. These 1,800 days really break into two periods. The first comprises the violence of the Black and Tan War, the exhaustion that led to the treaty, and the bitterness occasioned by the treaty that led to the culminating ferocity of the civil war. The second is politically and theatrically a time of consolidation and assimilation. The two early plays of O'Casey might well be seen as symptoms of this healing process. The wound in the body politic was deep, however, and not to be so quickly or so easily healed; moreover, such matters as The Plough row and O'Casey's departure from Ireland inevitably seem to be later, more lasting symptoms of divisions that still fester in Ireland today. The authors' account of Ireland's drama is not merely confined to the capital city of Dublin, but also to Belfast, Cork, and the provinces. Also included are a full bibliography and cast listings of all the significant new plays produced or published during the period.
Publisher: University of Delaware Press
ISBN: 9780851054285
Category : Drama
Languages : en
Pages : 454
Book Description
This documentary history covers a period of Irish political and dramatic climax that had an impact not only on the nation, but on the world as well. During these years both Ireland and its major theater attained a position, however precarious, of stability. De Valera and the Republicans laid down their arms and entered politics, while, by a state subsidy, the Abbey was formally recognized as the Irish National Theatre. The importance of these years goes far beyond Ireland itself because the Irish masterpieces of Sean O'Casey - The Shadow of a Gunman, Juno and the Paycock, and The Plough and the Stars - made an impact upon world drama nearly as profound as that of Luigi Pirandello or of Eugene O'Neill. As this book is a documentary history, the story is told primarily through the words of the writers, actors, producers, critics, and members of the audience who themselves lived and created the story. However, these contemporary accounts are frequently amplified and put into modern perspective, particularly at crucial moments such as a major production, a final production, or a death. The authors have particularly done so with writers of some importance such as Edward Martyn, William Boyle, or T.C. Murray. Since the theater of these years was especially influenced by the state of the country, the authors give considerable space to the disruptive political events of the times. Always, however, this is done from the particular vantage point of the theater and its workers, for the Irish theater vigorously reacted to and quickly assimilated the turbulent political events of the day: the raids, the reprisals, the burnings, and the murders. These 1,800 days really break into two periods. The first comprises the violence of the Black and Tan War, the exhaustion that led to the treaty, and the bitterness occasioned by the treaty that led to the culminating ferocity of the civil war. The second is politically and theatrically a time of consolidation and assimilation. The two early plays of O'Casey might well be seen as symptoms of this healing process. The wound in the body politic was deep, however, and not to be so quickly or so easily healed; moreover, such matters as The Plough row and O'Casey's departure from Ireland inevitably seem to be later, more lasting symptoms of divisions that still fester in Ireland today. The authors' account of Ireland's drama is not merely confined to the capital city of Dublin, but also to Belfast, Cork, and the provinces. Also included are a full bibliography and cast listings of all the significant new plays produced or published during the period.
Gender, Performance, and Authorship at the Abbey Theatre
Author: Elizabeth Brewer Redwine
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0192650173
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 230
Book Description
Gender, Performance, and Authorship at the Abbey Theatre argues for a reconsideration of authorship at the Abbey Theatre. The actresses who performed the key roles at the Abbey contributed original ideas, language, stage directions, and revisions to the theatre's most renowned performances and texts, and this study asks that we consider the role of actresses in the development of these plays. Plays that have been historically attributed to W. B. Yeats and J. M. Synge have complicated histories, and the neglect of these women's contributions over the past century reflects power dynamics that privilege male, Anglo Irish writers over the contributions of working class actresses. The study asks that readers consider the importance of past performance in the creation of written text. Yeats began his earliest plays performing with and writing for Laura Armstrong, a young woman who was a precursor to Maud Gonne in her irreverent challenge to traditional gender roles. After writing his first plays and poems for Armstrong, Yeats met Gonne and developed two Cathleen plays, The Countess Cathleen and Cathleen ni Houlihan, for her to perform, beginning a lifetime of fruitful argument between the two writers about how Ireland should appear onstage. The book then turns to Synge's work with Molly Allgood in creating The Playboy of the Western World and Molly's contributions to Synge's Deirdre of the Sorrows. A section on Yeats's Deirdre shows the contributions of Lady Gregory and the play's performers. The book ends with a reconsideration of Abbey actress Sara Allgood's performances in British and American film as she brought her earliest work in the pre-Abbey tableau movement to American audiences in the 1940s, in ways that challenged ideas of Irishness, American identity, and aging women on screen.
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0192650173
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 230
Book Description
Gender, Performance, and Authorship at the Abbey Theatre argues for a reconsideration of authorship at the Abbey Theatre. The actresses who performed the key roles at the Abbey contributed original ideas, language, stage directions, and revisions to the theatre's most renowned performances and texts, and this study asks that we consider the role of actresses in the development of these plays. Plays that have been historically attributed to W. B. Yeats and J. M. Synge have complicated histories, and the neglect of these women's contributions over the past century reflects power dynamics that privilege male, Anglo Irish writers over the contributions of working class actresses. The study asks that readers consider the importance of past performance in the creation of written text. Yeats began his earliest plays performing with and writing for Laura Armstrong, a young woman who was a precursor to Maud Gonne in her irreverent challenge to traditional gender roles. After writing his first plays and poems for Armstrong, Yeats met Gonne and developed two Cathleen plays, The Countess Cathleen and Cathleen ni Houlihan, for her to perform, beginning a lifetime of fruitful argument between the two writers about how Ireland should appear onstage. The book then turns to Synge's work with Molly Allgood in creating The Playboy of the Western World and Molly's contributions to Synge's Deirdre of the Sorrows. A section on Yeats's Deirdre shows the contributions of Lady Gregory and the play's performers. The book ends with a reconsideration of Abbey actress Sara Allgood's performances in British and American film as she brought her earliest work in the pre-Abbey tableau movement to American audiences in the 1940s, in ways that challenged ideas of Irishness, American identity, and aging women on screen.