Irish Studies: Literature, Film and Theatre

This peer-reviewed journal maintains and openminded editorial policy. It provides a forum for the sharing of insights into performance practices, historical and current. International and wide-ranging in scope, unfettered by the orthodoxies of academic discourses.

PAJ offers extended coverage of the visual arts (such as video, installations, photography, and multimedia performance), in addition to reviews of new works in theatre, dance, film, and opera. Issues include artists' writings, essays, interviews and dialogues, historical documentation, performance texts and plays, reports on performance abroad, and book reviews.

TDR provides scholarship on performances and their social, economic and political contexts. With an emphasis on the experimental, avant-garde, intercultural and interdisciplinary, it covers dance theatre, performance art, popular entertainment, media, sports, rituals and performance in politics and everyday life.

In the annals of Irish studies and theater history much has been written about the Abbey Theatre. Now, Mary Trotter not only sheds new Light on that company's history but also examines other groups with a range of political, religious, gender, and class perspectives that consciously used performance to promote ideas about nationalism and culture in Ireland at the turn of the last century. This innovative, interdisciplinary work details how different nationalist organizations with diverse political and artistic goals employed theater as an anticolonial tool. In Dublin's turbulent cultural and political arena during the first decades of the twentieth century, nationalist audiences read popular Irish melodramas in subversive ways; the Daughters of Erin staged tableaux of great women heroes; and the Abbey players earned both acclaim and apprehension within the nationalist community. Here is a compelling analysis of these and other groups' prominent role in Irish nationalism in the years before Easter 1916, and the way these political theaters gave birth to modern Irish drama.

Conventional wisdom holds that the playwright Sean O'Casey was the first to offer a new vision of Irish authenticity in the people and struggles of inner-city Dublin in his groundbreaking trilogy. Challenging this view, Mannion argues that there was an established tradition of urban plays within the Abbey repertoire that has long been overlooked by critics. She seeks to restore attention to a lesser-known corpus of Irish urban plays, specifically those that appeared at the Abbey Theatre from the theatre's founding until 1951, when the original theatre was destroyed by fire. Mannion illustrates distinct patterns within this Abbey urban genre and considers in particular themes of poverty, gender, and class. With detailed analysis of box office records and extensive appendixes of cast members and production schedules, this book offers a rich source of archival material as well as a fascinating revision to the story of this celebrated institution.

The Irish Theatre in Transition explores the ever-changing Irish Theatre from its inception to its vibrant modern-day reality. This book shows some of the myriad forms of transition and how Irish theatre reflects the changing conditions of a changing society and nation.

Christopher Murray's work on Sean O'Casey is a critical biography. In addition to the normal biographical elements, Dr Murray provides a strong interpretative context for the life. For example, he looks afresh at the Dublin of the 1880s and 1890s in order to provide an updated background to O'Casey's childhood. He pays a great deal of attention to the political situation from 1880 to 1922, setting it against O'Casey's own treatment in his six volumes of autobiography. In general he attempts to establish O'Casey's Ireland.This leads naturally to a fresh examination of the great Dublin trilogy, The Shadow of a Gunman, Juno and the Paycock and The Plough and the Stars, the three works on which O'Casey's reputation stands. The rejection of his next play, The Silver Tassie, by the Abbey Theatre precipitated O'Casey's move to England.

This collection of essays showcases the rich diversity of current writing about Irish theatre. The volume includes perspectives from experts in scenography, physical theatre, dramaturgy and stand-up comedy, as well as academic contributions drawing from anthropology, psychology, sociology, gender studies and performance studies. Exploring plays, events, exhibitions, performances, and rehearsal and realization processes, the essays provide a stimulating analysis of the languages and procedures of theatre in Ireland.

Tom Murphy shot to fame with the London production of A Whistle in the Dark in 1961, establishing him as the outstanding Irish playwright of his generation. The international success of DruidMurphy, the 2012-13 staging of three of his major plays by the Druid Theatre Company, served to underline his continuing appeal and importance. This is the first full scale academic study devoted to his theatre, providing an overview of all his work, with a detailed reading of his most significant texts. His powerful and searchingly honest engagement with Irish history and society is reflected in the violent Whistle in the Dark, the epic Famine (1968), the often hilarious Conversations on a Homecoming (1985) and the darkly Chekhovian The House (2000). Folklore and myth figure more prominently in the spiritual drama of The Sanctuary Lamp (1975), the Faustian Gigli Concert (1983) and the women 's stories of Bailegangaire (1985). The range and reach of Murphy 's theatre is demonstrated in this informed reading, supported by key interviews with the playwright himself and his most important theatrical and critical interpreters.

As a playwright, screenwriter, and film director, Martin McDonagh has amassed an exceptional body of work since the premiere of the controversial, hugely successful, and career altering The Beauty Queen of Leenane in 1996. This renowned work was followed by acclaimed and award winning plays and films, such as The Lieutenant of Inishmore, The Pillowman, Six Shooter, In Bruges, and Seven Psychopaths. This wide ranging study considers the broad spectrum of influences on McDonagh's writing, his intricate dramaturgy, and complex relationships between the plays and their theatrical and broader social contexts. The book cogently, uniquely, and comprehensively articulates the elusive spirit and transgressive theatricality of one of the most notorious, unique, successful, and inspiring talents writing today.

This collection of essays examines the work of award-winning and Tony nominated Irish playwright, Conor McPherson. McPherson's works include: The Weir, The Good Thief; This Lime Tree Bower, Shining City, and The Seafarer.

This is a highly readable and illuminating account of his career to date that will appeal to the legions of fans of his work for the stage and of his films Six Shooter and In Bruges. As a resource for students and practitioners it is unrivalled, providing an authoritative and enquiring approach to his work that moves beyond the tired discussions of national identity to offer a comprehensive critical exploration. Lonergan provides a detailed analysis of each of his plays and films, their original staging, critical reception, and the connections within and between the Leenane Trilogy, the Aran Islands plays and more recent work.

Ibsen and Chekhov on the Irish Stage challenges the notion that a country's dramatic tradition develops in cultural isolation. It uncovers connections between past productions of plays by Ibsen and Chekhov and contemporary literary adaptations of their works by Irish playwrights, demonstrating the significance of international influence for the formation of national canon.