FROM NATIONAL TO GLOBAL ISSUES IN CONTEMPORARY IRISH THEATRE

Maria Rosaria Coda

REVIVALISTS

• LADY GREGORY• W.B. YEATS• THE ABBEY THEATRE• RURAL IRELAND• TOWARDS INDEPENDENCE• REACTING TO BRITISH STEREOTYPES

BRITISH STEREOTYPES OF IRISH PEASANTS

• PADDY

• “CHIMPANZEES” (Charles Kingsley 1860)

THE IMAGINARY PEASANT

• TRUTH AND NATURE• ROMANTIC• SPIRITUAL • ANTIMATERIALISTIC• IRISH TRADITION & LANGUAGE

POST-COLONIAL TIMES

• Plays concerned with promises, realities and disappointments of national independence

• Opening to multicultural issues (see analysis by Jochen Achilles of Friel’s Making History & Berry’s Preyers of Sherkin)

BRIAN FRIEL (1929)

• FIELD DAY THEATRE

• DONEGAL

• POST-COLONIAL ISSUES IN HIS PLAYS

• CULTURAL IDENTITY

DANCING AT LOUGHNASA

• NOSTALGIA• INDUSTRIALIZATION• CHANGING PLACE• CHANGING CULTURE• HUMAN NATURE

JOHN B. KEANE (1928)

• SOCIAL PROBLEMS• CLASH OF VALUES• TRANSFORMATION OF IRELAND• RURAL SETTINGS

THE FIELD

• INDUSTRIALIZATION• SMALL VILLAGE• BULL MCCABE• VALUES

MARTIN MCDONAGH (1970)

• BORN IN LONDON • SUMMERS IN CONNEMARA• DISTANCING

THE LONSOME WEST

• DESOLATE LAND• FATHER WELSH• OBJECTS• THE CHURCH• THE CELTIC TIGER

MARINA CARR (1964)

• MIDLAND SETTINGS• MIDLAND ACCENT• LANDSCAPE AS ACTOR• FEMALE CHARACTERS

BY THE BOG OF CATS

• NATURE• FAMILY• DEPARTURE MOTIVE

ENDA WALSH (1967)

• VIOLENCE • PARANOIA• FARCE

THE NEW ELECTRIC BALLROOM

• FARCE• ANONYMOUS SETTING

CHATROOM

• VIRTUAL WORLD• BULLYING• GLOBAL TOPICS

IDENTITY

• ARE CULTURES NATURALLY NATIONAL?• WHAT IS IDENTITY?• WHAT IS NATURAL, WHAT IS JUST A

CONSTRUCTION?

THANK YOU! CIAO!