CDE Studies 01

Eberhard Bort (ed.)
The State of Play: Irish Theatre in the ‚Nineties‘

Wissenschaftlicher Verlag Trier, 1996.
202 pp. ISBN 3-88476-232-X. EUR 19,50

„…our theatre in the nineties is alive and well and in pursuit of new understanding, new images, fresh articulation of who we are as a people, what we are as individuals and where we are headed as a nation in the age of the Maastricht Treaty, the Common Agricultural Policy, and the Land of Heart’s Desire, where the Deutschmark is re-writing all our histories. In high (or is it not low?) Germany we came to dig a little deeper into such questions and challenges as these histories continue to pose. Allthough our agenda was the contemporary theatre and drama, it was not forgotten that the battle standard followed was originally designed by Yeats, suitably mocked at by Shaw, and carried with pride and passion by Synge almost one hundred years ago.“

Thus Christopher Murray in this introductory essay of this volume: a timely assessment of Irisch drama and theatre in the 1990s, developed from the papers given at an international conference on contemporary Irisch Theatre at the University of Tübingen, south Germany. The conference marked the fifteenth anniversary of the Tübingen Anglo-Irisch Theatre Group, a University-based company which has produced well over sixty Irish plays in Tübingen and beyond.


Table of Contents

Eberhard BORT: „Preface:’There’s a Buzz'“

Ivy BANNISTER: „A Place Called Tübingen“

Christopher MURRAY: ‚The State of Play: Irish Theatre in the ‚Nineties“

Karin McCULLY: National Theatre: The State of the Abbey“

Anna McMULLAN: „Reclaiming Performance: The Contemporary Irish Independent Theatre Sector“

Cathy LEENEY: „Deevy’s Leap: Teresa Deevy Remembered in the 1990s“

Brendan MacGURK: „Commitment and Risk in Anne Devlin’s Ourselves Alone and After Easter

Gerald DAWE: „A Hard Act Stewart Parker’s Pentecost

Robert F. GARRATT: „Beyond Field Day: Brian Friel’s Dancing at Lughnasa

Eberhard BORT: „‚Come on You Boys in Green‘: Irish Football, Irish Theatre, and the’Irish Diaspora'“

Claudia W. HARRIS: „Reinventing Women: Charabanc Theatre Company“

Tom MAGILL: „Between a Bible and a Flute Band: Community Theatre in the Shankill and in Long Kesh“

Beate RICHTER: „The Experience of Understanding Belfast: The Adventure of Translating Graham Reid“

Stuart MARLOW: ‚The Northern Irish Troubles: A Problem of Representation“

Mary CLOAKE: „Beyond the Theatre Review: The Arts Council and Regional Developments in Irish Theatre“

Paul O’HANRAHAN: „Local Arts Centres and Irish Theatre“

Select Bibliography