Overview

Generations of Irish playwrights have tried to assert the reputation of the stage Irish figure as other than comic, but each effort was in its turn assailed as buffoonery. Using post-colonial and performative theory, Buffoonery in Irish Drama demonstrates the ways the Irish struggled to create a sense of identity in a colonial structure, and it explores the distortion and appropriation of that new identity that elicit further calls to eradicate negative stereotypes. Demonstrating the pervasiveness of the reclamation efforts, Buffoonery in Irish Drama covers a wide range of well-known and obscure plays to show the trajectory of twentieth-century drama that brings us into a globalized twenty-first-century Ireland.

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9781433105463

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Reviews

«This eminently readable study illuminates a lively panorama of twentieth-century Irish plays, examining them against the context of Ireland's rich (and changing) culture and demonstrating the pervasiveness of central concerns. Kathleen Heininge's thought-provoking approach is sophisticated and sensible. She has a wide-ranging familiarity with key theoretical and dramatic texts, a sharp awareness of audience and performance, and an ability to provide a coherent synthesis helpful for a range of readers. Heininge's innovative analysis yields new ways of thinking about familiar plays and introduces a variety of less familiar plays about which we should begin to think. 'Buffoonery in Irish Drama' is essential reading as background from which to consider the emergence of twenty-first-century Irish drama. -- Helen Lojek

This eminently readable study illuminates a lively panorama of twentieth-century Irish plays, examining them against the context of Ireland's rich (and changing) culture and demonstrating the pervasiveness of central concerns. Kathleen Heininge's thought-provoking approach is sophisticated and sensible. She has a wide-ranging familiarity with key theoretical and dramatic texts, a sharp awareness of audience and performance, and an ability to provide a coherent synthesis helpful for a range of readers. Heininge's innovative analysis yields new ways of thinking about familiar plays and introduces a variety of less familiar plays about which we should begin to think. Buffoonery in Irish Drama is essential reading as background from which to consider the emergence of twenty-first-century Irish drama. (Helen Lojek, Associate Dean, College of Arts and Sciences, Boise State University, Idaho)

This eminently readable study illuminates a lively panorama of twentieth-century Irish plays, examining them against the context of Ireland's rich (and changing) culture and demonstrating the pervasiveness of central concerns. Kathleen Heininge's thought-provoking approach is sophisticated and sensible. She has a wide-ranging familiarity with key theoretical and dramatic texts, a sharp awareness of audience and performance, and an ability to provide a coherent synthesis helpful for a range of readers. Heininge's innovative analysis yields new ways of thinking about familiar plays and introduces a variety of less familiar plays about which we should begin to think. Buffoonery in Irish Drama is essential reading as background from which to consider the emergence of twenty-first-century Irish drama. (Helen Lojek, Associate Dean, College of Arts and Sciences, Boise State University, Idaho)

Author Information

The Author: Kathleen Heininge received her doctorate from University of California Davis and is now Assistant Professor of Writing/Literature at George Fox University in Oregon, where she teaches British and world literature and women’s studies. She publishes primarily on Irish literature, especially drama.

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