This book examines theatre within the context of the Northern Ireland conflict and peace process, with reference to a wide variety of plays, theatre productions and community engagements within and across communities. The author clarifies both the nature of the social and political vision of a number of major contemporary Northern Irish dramatists and the manner in which this vision is embodied in text and in performance. The book identifies and celebrates a tradition of playwrights and drama practitioners who, to this day, challenge and question all Northern Irish ideologies and propose alternative paths. The author's analysis of a selection of Northern Irish plays, written and produced over the course of the last thirty years or so, illustrates the great variety of approaches to ideology in Northern Irish drama, while revealing a common approach to staging the conflict and the peace process, with a distinct emphasis on utopian performatives and the possibility of positive change.

Autorentext

Eva Urban received her PhD from University College Dublin in 2008 for a thesis on community and identity in contemporary Northern Irish drama. She currently lectures at University College Dublin. Her research interests are in political and utopian theatre in an international context and she regularly engages in theatre and performance practice.

Inhalt

Contents: Political Purpose and Dramatic Alienation: Patrick Galvin's We do it for Love and Tinderbox Theatre Company's Convictions - History Plays: Representations of the United Irishmen in Northern Star by Stewart Parker and Tearing the Loom by Gary Mitchell - Remodelling Mythologies: Field Day's 'Fifth Province' and Frank McGuinness's Ulster Plays - Caricaturing Iconographies or Puppet Masters and Broken Strings in Tim Loane's To be Sure or how to count chickens when they come home to roost and Caught Redhanded or How to Prune a Whin Bush - The Politics of the Peace Process and Theatrical Imagination: Sole Purpose Productions - Foucault's Looking Glass and Tongues of Flame: Pentecost, After Easter, Ourselves Alone, The Wedding Community Play, Massive.