Overview

Irish Women Playwrights 1900-1939 is the first book to examine the plays of five fascinating and creative women, placing their work for theatre in co-relation to suggest a parallel tradition that reframes the development of Irish theatre into the present day. How these playwrights dramatize violence and its impacts in political, social, and personal life is a central concern of this book. Augusta Gregory, Eva Gore-Booth, Dorothy Macardle, Mary Manning, and Teresa Deevy re-model theatrical form, re-structuring action and narrative, and exploring closure as a way of disrupting audience expectation. Their plays create stage spaces and images that expose relationships of power and authority, and invite the audience to see the performance not as illusion, but as framed by the conventions and limits of theatrical representation. Irish Women Playwrights 1900-1939 is suitable for courses in Irish theatre, women in theatre, gender and performance, dramaturgy, and Irish drama in the twentieth century as well as for those interested in women’s work in theatre and in Irish theatre in the twentieth century.

Full Product Details

9781433103322

Table of Contents

Reviews

"""A pioneering study, both scholarly and reader-friendly, this important book probes in fascinating detail the lives and works of five neglected Irish playwrights and makes a valid case for their recognition as major voices. Leeney has done the Irish theatre a magnificent service."" (Christopher Murray, Emeritus Professor of Drama and Theatre History, University College Dublin) ""This timely and original revisioning of Irish theatre engages and challenges the gendered interpretations of text in performance. Against a rich theoretical background, Leeney explores the work of these five playwrights who, through individual innovations in theatrical space and coded language, upset theatrical conventions and unsettled the accepted interpretations of violence, culture, and politics."" (Ann Saddlemyer, Emeritus Professor of English and Drama, University of Toronto) ""Leeney's important study of Irish women playwrights from 1900 to 1939 recuperates the five focus women and re-contextualizes their work. Her scholarship is extensive, yet the argument reads clearly. Her theatrical experience lends new perspectives on the performance potential of the plays discussed. The book reveals the strides all five women made as playwrights attempting to gain control over their art and of their place in Ireland and indeed the world. Refusing simple dichotomies, Leeney opens up the complexities of Ireland's theatrical history in its state infancy and helps us to recognize more fully some of the women who worked to make real change."" (Dawn Duncan, Professor of English and Global Studies, Concordia College)"

A pioneering study, both scholarly and reader-friendly, this important book probes in fascinating detail the lives and works of five neglected Irish playwrights and makes a valid case for their recognition as major voices. Leeney has done the Irish theatre a magnificent service. (Christopher Murray, Emeritus Professor of Drama and Theatre History, University College Dublin) This timely and original revisioning of Irish theatre engages and challenges the gendered interpretations of text in performance. Against a rich theoretical background, Leeney explores the work of these five playwrights who, through individual innovations in theatrical space and coded language, upset theatrical conventions and unsettled the accepted interpretations of violence, culture, and politics. (Ann Saddlemyer, Emeritus Professor of English and Drama, University of Toronto) Leeney's important study of Irish women playwrights from 1900 to 1939 recuperates the five focus women and re-contextualizes their work. Her scholarship is extensive, yet the argument reads clearly. Her theatrical experience lends new perspectives on the performance potential of the plays discussed. The book reveals the strides all five women made as playwrights attempting to gain control over their art and of their place in Ireland and indeed the world. Refusing simple dichotomies, Leeney opens up the complexities of Ireland's theatrical history in its state infancy and helps us to recognize more fully some of the women who worked to make real change. (Dawn Duncan, Professor of English and Global Studies, Concordia College)

[...] Cathy Leeney's Irish Women Playwrights is a very important intervention into the field of Irish theatre studies - one that should be widely read, debated, and emulated. (Patrick Lonergan, GRAAT 2014)

Author Information

Cathy Leeney lectures in drama studies at University College Dublin. She initiated the first Masters in Directing for Theatre in Ireland in 2005 and is a founding member of the Executive of the Irish Society for Theatre Research. She trained as a director with the British Theatre Association in London. Her publications include Seen and Heard: Six New Plays by Irish Women (2001), The Theatre of Marina Carr: «before rules was made» (edited with Anna McMullan, 2003), and essays and articles on twentieth century and contemporary Irish theatre, playwriting, and directing.

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