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Theatre Talk: Voices of Irish Theatre Practitioners, and: Theatre Stuff: Critical Essays on Contemporary Irish Theatre (review)

2005; Johns Hopkins University Press; Volume: 57; Issue: 1 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1353/tj.2005.0037

1086-332X

Mary Trotter,

Theatre and Performance Studies

Reviewed by: Theatre Talk: Voices of Irish Theatre Practitioners, and: Theatre Stuff: Critical Essays on Contemporary Irish Theatre Mary Trotter Theatre Talk: Voices of Irish Theatre Practitioners. Edited by Lilian Chambers, Ger FitzGibbon, and Eamonn Jordan. Dublin: Carysfort Press, 2000, pp. xi + 496. $27.95 paper. Theatre Stuff: Critical Essays On Contemporary Irish Theatre. Edited by Eamonn Jordan. Dublin: Carysfort Press, 2000, pp. xlviii + 326. $26.95 paper. When the Irish National Theatre Society, Ltd., or the Abbey Theatre, declared itself the national theatre of Ireland a century ago this year, they professed their work, their purpose, and their ideals on the page as well as onstage. William Butler Yeats, one of the company's directors, edited Samhain, a journal proselytizing the Abbey's mission. At the same time The Cuala Press, run by Yeats's sisters, Elizabeth and Lily Yeats, published beautiful editions of Abbey plays. The Abbey's self-conscious efforts to create a record of their work spurred local and international interest, and contemporary scholars continue to mine these documents to learn not only what theatre at the Abbey was like in the early 1900s, but also how the Abbey saw itself in relation to other groups in Dublin or internationally. Carysfort Press is doing for Irish theatre in the twenty-first century something similar to what the Abbey's publishing projects did in the twentieth. Founded in 1998 by four scholars from University College Dublin (Dan Farrelly, Eamonn Jordan, Cathy Leeney, and Lilian Chambers), and aided by funding from the Arts Council of Ireland, Carysfort has already published thirteen play anthologies or critical works about contemporary Irish theatre, with the aim of making these works "high quality publications which, though written and/or edited by academics, will be made accessible to a general readership" (www.carysfortpress.com). Their publications to date, which are published in North America by Dufour Editions, paint a vibrant picture of Irish theatre for academics, practitioners, and general readers around the world. [End Page 142] Two of the first Carysfort titles, Theatre Talk (2000) and Theatre Stuff (2000), are broad and democratic texts that display the range of contemporary Irish theatre. Theatre Talk offers 500 pages of thirty-nine interviews, or "conversations," with Irish theatre practitioners. While it includes internationally recognized bigwigs like the Abbey's director Ben Barnes, playwrights Tom Kilroy and Tom Murphy, and directors Garry Hynes and Joe Dowling, Theatre Talk also offers insights into less well-known developments in Irish theatre, like Tom MacIntyre's dance-influenced plays in Dublin, Pat Kiernan's discussion of Corcadora's site-specific performances in Cork, and Daragh Carville's work with Tinderbox in Belfast. The breadth of this text makes it a rich resource—an opportunity to learn about theatre that has not yet found a market outside of Ireland or which is not text-based enough for easy critical export. And it leaves the impression of a healthy and diverse theatre scene that is holding on in some ways to its rich verbal tradition, while also beginning to explore European-influenced, physical theatre models. Several conversations discuss Complicite and Pina Bausch; Annie Ryan describes her use of Chicago-style commedia with her company, The Corn Exchange; and Raymond Keane of Barabbas describes a performance, rehearsal, and even audition process that rips apart any argument that realism alone dictates Irish aesthetics. Along with newer voices, Theatre Talk provides interviews with individuals who have been involved in Irish theatre for decades, and who continue to move their art forward, including the late playwright John B. Keane, actor Phyllis Ryan, and theatre director, designer, and administrator Tomas Mac Anna. Many of the themes running through the text will sound familiar to any theatre practitioner: the struggle between getting "bums on seats" and producing challenging theatre; competition with television and film for actors and audiences; concern that theatre training is being rooted too squarely in universities; and a nearly universal complaint about the lack of thoughtful or lengthy theatre criticism (this last concern was raised in almost every conversation by the interviewer, as if it were a required question). Since the conversations were held around 2000, there is also ample discussion about whether the...