Reimagining Ireland

What role does nature play in the cultural world of the theatre? Is the auditorium not a natural environment, and how can theatre and nature aesthetics co-exist in the productive expression of performance? Re-Place: Irish Theatre Environments proposes a new way of thinking about Irish theatre: one that challenges established boundaries between nature and culture and argues for theatre performances to be seen as conceptual ecological environments. Broadening the scope of theatre environments to encompass radiophonic and digital spaces, Re-Place is a timely interrogation of how we understand performance history. This book examines the work, both as text and in production, of three canonical Irish playwrights, J. M. Synge, Samuel Beckett and Brian Friel, and looks at how theatre documentation can further the idea of a natural performance environment. The questions under consideration extend Irish theatre history into the field of the environmental humanities and draw on new materialist discourse to offer exciting and innovative ways to approach performance.

The historiography of Irish theatre has largely been dependent on in-depth studies of the play-text as the definitive primary source. This volume explores the processes of engaging with the documented and undocumented record of Irish theatre and broadens the concept of evidential study of performance through the use of increasingly diverse sources. The archive is regarded here as a broad repository of evidence including annotated scripts, photographs, correspondence, administrative documents, recordings and other remnants of the mechanics of producing theatre. It is an invaluable resource for scholars and artists in interrogating Ireland’s performance history.

This collection brings together key thinkers, scholars and practitioners who engage with the archive of Irish theatre and performance in terms of its creation, management and scholarly as well as artistic interpretation. New technological advances and mass digitization allow for new interventions in this field. The essays gathered here present new critical thought and detailed case studies from archivists, theatre scholars, historians and artists, each working in different ways to uncover and reconstruct the past practice of Irish performance through new means.

This book on the Irish liturgical artist Richard King (1907-74), examines his career in the context of religion, nationalism and modernism. The book focuses on the interdisciplinary relationship between religion and art during pre- and post-Vatican II Ireland. The importance of Irishness and nationalism is shown by the artist’s early secular work of the 1930s and 1940s. His apprenticeship under Harry Clarke (1889-1931) was pivotal for his principal career as a stained glass artist. However, his departure from the Harry Clarke Stained Glass Studios in 1940 allowed him to gradually move away from Clarke’s influence and to develop his own artistic identity. King was also a talented illustrator for The Capuchin Annual and The Father Mathew Record. From the late 1940s to the early 1970s, his awareness of the work of other artists in Ireland, England and Europe led him to engage with modernism. The Documents of Vatican II and his interest in the Scriptures and theology enabled King to grow at the spiritual level which was reflected in his religious art of the mid to late 1960s and early 1970s. His study of the theological writings of French palaeontologist, philosopher and theologian Pierre Teilhard de Chardin (1881-1955) was crucial for King’s more intellectual approach to matters of Christian faith.