Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Acknowledgements
- Chronology
- List of abbreviations
- Introduction
- 1 Stage interpreters
- 2 Strangers in the house
- 3 Shifts in perspective
- 4 Class and space in O'Casey
- 5 Reactions to revolution
- 6 Living on
- 7 Versions of pastoral
- 8 Murphy's Ireland
- 9 Imagining the other
- Conclusion: a world elsewhere
- Notes
- Bibliography
- Index
1 - Stage interpreters
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 22 September 2009
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Acknowledgements
- Chronology
- List of abbreviations
- Introduction
- 1 Stage interpreters
- 2 Strangers in the house
- 3 Shifts in perspective
- 4 Class and space in O'Casey
- 5 Reactions to revolution
- 6 Living on
- 7 Versions of pastoral
- 8 Murphy's Ireland
- 9 Imagining the other
- Conclusion: a world elsewhere
- Notes
- Bibliography
- Index
Summary
Here, for the first time, is the real Ireland on stage:
Ireland, so rich in scenery, so full of romance and the warm touch of nature, has never until now been opened by the dramatist. Irish dramas have hitherto been exaggerated farces, representing low life or scenes of abject servitude and suffering. Such is not a true picture of Irish society.
(Playbill for the first production of Dion Boucicault's The Colleen Bawn, New York, 1860)We will show that Ireland is not the home of buffoonery and of easy sentiment, as it has been represented, but the home of an ancient idealism. We are confident of the support of all Irish people, who are weary of misrepresentation.
(Manifesto for the Irish Literary Theatre, 1897).the neo-Gaelic movement … is bent on creating a new Ireland after its own ideal, whereas my play is a very uncompromising presentment of the real old Ireland.
(Preface to John Bull's Other Island, 1907)apart from Synge, all our dramatists have pitched their voices for English acceptance and recognition … However I think that for the first time this is stopping … We are talking to ourselves as we must and if we are overheard in America, or England, so much the better.
(Brian Friel, on the Field Day production of Translations, 1980)- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- The Politics of Irish DramaPlays in Context from Boucicault to Friel, pp. 5 - 50Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2000