Theatre and Archival Memory

This book presents new insights into the production and reception of Irish drama, its internationalisation and political influences, within a pivotal period of Irish cultural and social change. From the 1950s onwards, Irish theatre engaged audiences within new theatrical forms at venues from the Pike Theatre, the Project Arts Centre, and the Gate Theatre, as well as at Ireland's national theatre, the Abbey.

Drawing on newly released and digitised archival records, this book argues for an inclusive historiography reflective of the formative impacts upon modern Irish theatre as recorded within marginalised performance histories. This study examines these works' experimental dramaturgical impacts in terms of production, reception, and archival legacies. The book, framed by the device of 'archival memory', serves as a means for scholars and theatre-makers to inter-contextualise existing historiography and to challenge canon formation. It also presents a new social history of Irish theatre told from the fringes of history and reanimated through archival memory.

Focuses on marginalised and previously unexplored performance histories Presents the device of archival memory as a way in which scholars and theatre-makers can study the development, influence and impact of marginlised Irish drama The first book to present a detailed and scholarly study of the key figures and productions which actively shaped the development of the modern Irish repertoire

Auteur
Dr. Barry Houlihan is an Archivist at National University of Ireland, Galway. He teaches theatre history and archival studies, digital cultures, and history. Barry is the editor of Navigating Ireland's Theatre Archive: Theory, Practice, Performance (2019) and contributes regularly to RTÉ Brainstorm on topics of theatre, literature and cultural and archival heritage.

Contenu

Chapter 1: The Family, Law, and the State: 'Radical Republic'.- Chapter 2: Performing to a New Ireland: Censorship and Radical Dramaturgies.- Chapter 3 - Performing Irish Foreign Policy: State, Nation, and the International.- Chapter 4 Staging Modernising Ireland: Landscape(s), Class, and Communities.- Chapter 5: Cultural Exchange and Internationalising Irish Drama Country Boys and Follies.- Chapter 6: Conclusions: A New Archival Memory: Expanding the Repertoire.