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[No abstract available] non-peer-reviewed

[No abstract available] Not

Ibsen’s 1882 An Enemy of the People is sometimes described as a problem play, in that it dramatises a compelling debate between two brothers about the nature of morality and individual responsibility. But that term might obscure the fact that it’s also quite a confused play: Ibsen himself was unsure whether to see it as a comedy or something more serious. It has many of the ingredients of a Restoration-style romp (improbable entrances and exits, characters hiding behind screens to eavesdrop upon their enemies). Yet it also has what Ibsen called a “serious basic theme” – namely, the question of what happens when an individual forces a society to accept as true something we would much rather ignore. In exploring that issue, Ibsen was responding to the public outcry to Ghosts, a play notoriously described as an “open sewer” and a “loathsome sore unbandaged” by scandalised critics. Ibsen’s hero Dr Stockmann is thus often seen as a surrogate for Ibsen himself, and the play’s suggestion that the truth must be told, whatever the cost, is often viewed as Ibsen’s defence of the necessity of plays like Ghosts. But because of that identification between the writer and his hero, it’s sometimes forgotten that Ibsen was ambivalent about Stockmann, describing him as “an oddball and a hothead", while also acknowledging that there was much to admire about him. non-peer-reviewed

As we enter the Gaiety, we discover that Once has already begun: the cast are gathered in what looks like an ordinary pub where a session is underway. They play music for about twenty minutes while members of the audience wander onstage – ordering pints from the barman, listening to the music, waving to friends who have just arrived. As we settle into our seats, we realise that Bob Crowley’s set is not an exact replica of a traditional Irish pub: along the walls, he has positioned a series of mirrors, of varying shapes and sizes. Those mirrors allow us to see the actors from different angles during the performance, but their more significant impact is to ensure that, throughout the evening, the audience will always be able to see itself reflected on-stage. non-peer-reviewed

[No abstract available] non-peer-reviewed

Irish attitudes towards John B. Keane have changed a lot during the last ten years – due largely to Garry Hynes’ production of four of his plays during that period. Keane has always been popular, but he was also seen by many as populist: as someone who chose sentimentality over pathos, the grotesque over the tragic, and cheap laughs over careful characterisation. Hynes’ productions gave us a darker and more dignified Keane: his plays might be flawed, she showed – but they certainly shouldn’t be dismissed. Nine years after his death, Keane is still seen as a popular playwright – but he’s also regarded as someone who needs to be taken more seriously now. non-peer-reviewed

[No abstract available] Not

The first thing to say about Pan Pan’s performance of Beckett’s 1956 radio play is this: if you’re planning on going to it, please don’t read this review – it would be a shame to spoil the surprise that awaits you. And perhaps the second important point is how refreshing (and unusual) it is to be surprised by an Irish production of a play by Beckett – a writer whose works are usually treated so reverentially that they’re in danger of becoming museum pieces. While this is a very faithful rendition of the play, Pan Pan provide an experience that is genuinely different from anything you’ll have encountered in the theatre before. non-peer-reviewed

During the last decade, Owen Roe has emerged as one of Ireland’s very best actors – yet, until now, he’s rarely filled a major leading role. His performance as the Irishman in Ben Barnes’s 2001 Gigli Concert was astonishing precisely because it was so well matched by Mark Lambert in the role of JPW King. Likewise, his work as Petruchio in the 2006 Rough Magic Taming of the Shrew was memorable because it was so thoroughly complemented by Pauline McLynne’s Katherina. Roe, in other words, is the kind of actor one could build a company around: he excels when he works with others – mirroring them, reacting to them, listening to them. Some actors are so great that they can make others seem mediocre by comparison. Roe is great because he allows everyone around him to seem excellent. non-peer-reviewed

When Martin McDonagh’s Leenane plays first appeared in Ireland, they seemed exciting for many reasons: their delinquent humour, their rootedness in (but distance from) the Irish dramatic tradition, their wilfully transgressive attitude – and, in particular, their disorientating blend of the past with the present. The environment that McDonagh presented seemed like a skewed representation of 1950s Ireland: eternally rain-filled and poteen-soaked, his Leenane was populated by an over-familiar rabble of frustrated spinsters, lonely priests, ape-like peasants, and kind-hearted but feisty colleens. Yet the language that those characters used was firmly rooted in the 1990s, with references to Packie Bonner’s performance in the 1994 World Cup, the wars in Bosnia, Bishop Eamon Casey, and so on. Many academic critics have suggested that McDonagh’s plays allowed audiences (especially in Dublin) to laugh at an imagined version of our rural past – to reassure themselves that we had left that old Ireland behind. But, watching those plays travel around Ireland between 1996 and 2001, I always felt that McDonagh was doing something far more challenging. His inclusion of those topical references tended to disrupt our sense of distance from the past: he seemed to be suggesting that we can’t ever forget where we came from, much as we might like to pretend otherwise. non-peer-reviewed

It took Samuel Beckett about three weeks to write Krapp’s Last Tape. During that time, the play went through seven distinct stages which, according to the scholarship, involved a gradual stripping away of sentimentality: the text retained some realistic qualities, but it also became more surreal and more comical. Perhaps as a result of that textual history, actors playing the role of Krapp often try to avoid evoking too strong an emotional reaction from audiences: we might sympathise with Krapp, but will usually find it difficult to relate to him – and we’ll rarely feel inclined to shed tears for him. non-peer-reviewed

You have to wonder why Irish dramatists keep writing plays about politicians. In 1969, Brian Friel’s The Mundy Scheme brilliantly satirised the political life of that period, while anticipating much that would follow. Yet that play is never revived, has been out of print for years, and is rarely written about. In 2001, Sebastian Barry premiered Hinterland, another grossly underrated drama about a fictitious Taoiseach, who in this case resembled Charles Haughey. Barry’s play was accused of being ‘moronic’ in the press; he later said that the critical response in Ireland was like something out of Stalin’s Russia. Marina Carr’s 2002 Ariel had as its protagonist a midlands politician who sells his soul for political power. That work was greeted not with hostility, but with indifference and snide contempt – and Carr has not written a play set in the midlands since. non-peer-reviewed

[No abstract available] Not

[No abstract available] peer-reviewed

Dancing at Lughnasa premiered at the Abbey in 1990, and was produced in Dublin during five of the ten subsequent years – using the same director and designer every time. Our understanding of the play has therefore been conditioned to an unusual extent by people other than Brian Friel – by Joe Vanek, whose design has now become iconic, and by Patrick Mason, whose direction is regarded by some as an inspiring highpoint of recent Irish theatre, but by others as a sentimentalised betrayal of Friel’s text. This over-familiarity, combined with the 1997 film version of Lughnasa – and the impact of Riverdance on our perception of the play’s famous dance scene – has blunted its impact considerably. non-peer-reviewed

Perhaps unfairly, Marie Jones remains more noted for commercial rather than critical success. The Blind Fiddler – an exciting fusion of melodrama, traditional music, and great storytelling – looks likely to be as successful as her earlier plays. But it also has an impressive emotional and thematic complexity that shows clearly that her work deserves closer critical attention. non-peer-reviewed

Optimism about contemporary Irish drama seems to have diminished recently. At the 2001 Irish Times/ESB Theatre Awards, a member of the judging panel lamented the scarcity of new Irish plays, stating that he wanted to describe 2001 as a good year for Irish theatre – but couldn’t. Media reports on Irish theatre enhance this sense of gloom: the Abbey has lurched from controversy over its production of Barbaric Comedies to criticism of its proposal to relocate to Dublin’s docklands; the Gate has publicly disagreed with the Arts Council over its funding; and despite its international success, Galway audiences are reportedly frustrated by what they perceive to be Druid Theatre’s irrelevance to them. What makes this apparent negativity difficult to understand is that, as recently as 1999, many commentators were declaring that Irish theatre had entered a new golden age, and that a second renaissance had been signaled by the emergence of plays like The Steward of Christendom, Portia Coughlan, and The Weir. As reports of the demise of the Celtic Tiger illustrate, this sudden shift from celebration to despondency is not exclusive to commentary on Irish theatre – and perhaps what is most evident in such reports is the Irish media’s tendency to exaggerate. The value of Theatre Stuff, an excellent collection of essays from Carysfort Press, is that it brings clear-headed analysis to a debate that has hitherto been dominated by marketing and excessively exuberant journalism. non-peer-reviewed

Critics have been declaring Irish playwrighting to be in a state of crisis for most of the last 100 years but, even so, it’s hard not to feel glum about the present state of our writing for the stage. The latest plays from established figures have been met with disappointment and occasional hostility; and we’ve had a glut of formally conservative plays from emerging writers that cover the same narrow territory of dead babies, abusive mothers, and sexually dysfunctional men. It’s a pleasant surprise therefore to see two plays, from Declan Hughes and Malachy McKenna, that cover new thematic ground, while emphasising the importance of plot, dialogue and many other characteristics not much seen on the Irish stage recently. non-peer-reviewed

Almost every European country that gained independence after the First World War had one thing in common: with only one exception, they all tried to stimulate the growth of a national literature by commissioning translations of two key texts – the Bible and the works of Shakespeare. There’s an interesting implication in this: that, for a nation to form an identity, it has to come to terms with God first, and then Shakespeare. The one exception to this trend was, of course, Ireland which (leaving aside our troublesome attitudes to God), found itself in a strange relationship with Shakespeare: too familiar to be translated, his work was also too English to be comfortably assimilated into our culture. non-peer-reviewed

The ramifications of the controversy over Sebastian Barry’s latest play echo well beyond the "Hinterland", argues Patrick Lonergan. What, exactly, is so bad about Hinterland? Using aspects of the career of Charles Haughey, the play explores Sebastian Barry’s well-known preoccupations with fatherhood, power, memory, and dislocation. Early press responses focussed only on the play’s treatment of Haughey, however, and reports that his solicitors were examining Barry’s script created the public belief that Hinterland was "about" the former Taoiseach in a biographical sense. That perception proved difficult to dispel. non-peer-reviewed

Arriving to watch Tara Maria Lovett’s The Call, we realise that we have entered a human body. The room pulses with red lighting as we take our seats around a ribcage, a pile of stones at its centre representing a heart. The owner of this body, Maddie – played by Emma Coolahan – emerges and, prompted by a mysterious ‘voice’ played by Declan Mills, she describes how her heart has been turned to stone. Taking us from her childhood to young adulthood in a series of vignettes, Maddie explains how she has struggled to understand herself and her relationships with a number of different men, all performed very entertainingly by Michael FitzGerald. non-peer-reviewed

As Michel Tremblay’s play begins, we are told that we are not about to see a Three Sisters or a Hamlet. Instead, we are asked to witness the writer’s remembrance of Nana, his mother, whom he is summoning to the stage "for the pleasure of seeing her again." "You will laugh," he promises us, "and you’ll cry too" – and when the play concludes ninety minutes later, these words have been proven largely accurate: most of the audience leaves the Peacock smiling, although some remain seated, still in tears after the play’s inspiring conclusion. non-peer-reviewed