Theatre Survey
Focusing on the period between 1982 and 1995 (before and just as the economic prosperity associated with the Celtic Tiger reached the general Irish population), Bernadette Sweeney in her book Performing the Body in Irish Theatre examines five productions that typify a sea change in performance on th...
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| Published in: | Theatre survey 2009-11, Vol.50 (2), p.363 |
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| Main Authors: | , , |
| Format: | Article |
| Language: | eng |
| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | Get full text |
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| Summary: | Focusing on the period between 1982 and 1995 (before and just as the economic prosperity associated with the Celtic Tiger reached the general Irish population), Bernadette Sweeney in her book Performing the Body in Irish Theatre examines five productions that typify a sea change in performance on the Irish stage. Women in Irish Drama spans the twentieth century and considers not only women playwrights, but also the representation of women and women as theatre practitioners. Since C. L. Innes published her groundbreaking Woman and Nation in Irish Literature and Society, 1880-1935 in 1993, more than a dozen important books on Irish women writers have appeared. Reynolds charts the persistence of MacSwiney's conception of a "consistent person" through his early one-act plays, his political writings, and his 1914 play The Revolutionist, all of which foreshadow his own hunger strike, death, and funeral in 1920. Sweeney convincingly argues that the five productions on which she focuses display a far greater candor about the human body, especially the female body, by developing a more physical performance style than had been typical on Irish stages. [...]recently, the presence of women in Irish drama was usually hearthside, typically depicted if not confined to a domestic space, or wandering an allegorical landscape like Cathleen ni Houlihan or even the Countess Cathleen. |
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| ISSN: | 0040-5574 1475-4533 |