Past and Present Irish Theatre since 1964

(5 Credit Hours) · Undergraduate

1964 is often considered a key date in the history of Irish theatre with the first production of Brian Friel's Philadelphia Here I Come! The sixty years since then has been a period of modernisation and secularisation in Ireland, but with the political violence in the North acting as a recurrent reminder of the legacy of the country's troubled history. It has also been a period in which Irish theatre has diversified, with the establishment of companies such as Druid in Galway in 1975, Field Day in Derry in 1980, and alternative theatres such as Rough Magic in Dublin in 1984. Irish playwrights in this time have looked for new ways of dramatising the past in the light of the present: the past of individuals, of families and of the nation as a whole. The aim of this module is to explore some of the most significant texts of the period both for their experimental theatrical forms and for their engagement with past and present. The syllabus is a provisional one because the plays chosen will be varied to allow for the inclusion of current productions; the analysis of performance as well as published texts will be one dimension of the module, which will be taught entirely through seminar discussion on the basis of suggested themes posted in advance on Blackboard.