Irish Drama, Modernity and the Passion Play

1. Front Matter

   Pages i-xii

   PDF

2. Introduction

   • Alexandra Poulain

   Pages 1-11

3. Synge, Irish Modernity and the Passion Play

   1. Front Matter

      Pages 13-13

      PDF

   2. “Unseen Forms of Violence”: J. M. Synge and the Playboy of the Modern World

      • Alexandra Poulain

      Pages 15-30

4. The Passion of 1916

   1. Front Matter

      Pages 31-31

      PDF

   2. Anticipating the Rising: Pedagogy, Sacrifice and Theatre in Padraic Pearse’s Plays

      • Alexandra Poulain

      Pages 33-49

   3. Framing the Rising: W. B. Yeats’s Calvary and Lady Gregory’s The Story Brought by Brigit

      • Alexandra Poulain

      Pages 51-74

   4. Saint Joan’s Unheard Voices: G. B. Shaw and the Passion Play

      • Alexandra Poulain

      Pages 75-91

   5. Re-Directing the Passion Play: Seán O’Casey’s The Silver Tassie and Red Roses for Me

      • Alexandra Poulain

      Pages 93-118

5. After Revolution: Re-inventing Ireland

   1. Front Matter

      Pages 119-119

      PDF

   2. Reclaiming Robert Emmet: Denis Johnston’s The Old Lady Says “No!”

      • Alexandra Poulain

      Pages 121-138

   3. Nationalism, Abjection and the Reinvention of Ireland in Behan’s The Hostage

      • Alexandra Poulain

      Pages 139-155

   4. Intimate Passions: Thomas Kilroy’s The Death and Resurrection of Mr Roche and Talbot’s Box

      • Alexandra Poulain

      Pages 157-180

   5. Open Mouths: Brian Friel’s Faith Healer and Tom Murphy’s A Thief of a Christmas/Bailegangaire

      • Alexandra Poulain

      Pages 181-198

6. The Artist’s Passion

   1. Front Matter

      Pages 199-199

      PDF

   2. Torture and Passion: Opened Bodies in Samuel Beckett’s Rough for Radio II, Words and Music and Cascando

      • Alexandra Poulain

      Pages 201-222

   3. The Seduction of Silence: Ethical Interpellations in W. B. Yeats’s The King’s Threshold, Samuel Beckett’s Endgame and David Lloyd’s The Press

      • Alexandra Poulain

      Pages 223-240

7. Back Matter

   Pages 241-264

   PDF

This book discusses Irish Passion plays (plays that rewrite or parody the story of the Passion of Christ) in modern Irish drama from the Irish Literary Revival to the present day. It offers innovative readings of such canonical plays as J. M. Synge’s The Playboy of the Western World, W. B. Yeats’s Calvary, Brendan Behan’s The Hostage, Samuel Beckett’s Endgame, Brian Friel’s Faith Healer and Tom Murphy’s Bailegangaire, as well as of less well-known plays by Padraic Pearse, Lady Gregory, G. B. Shaw, Seán O’Casey, Denis Johnston, Samuel Beckett and David Lloyd. Challenging revisionist readings of the rhetoric of “blood sacrifice” and martyrdom in the Irish Republican tradition, it argues that the Passion play is a powerful political genre which centres on the staged death of the (usually male) protagonist, and makes visible the usually invisible violence perpetrated both by colonial power and by the postcolonial state in the name ofmodernity.

• Irish theatre
• Irish literature
• Irish Catholicism
• Irish nationalism
• the Troubles
• Easter Rising
• nineteenth-century melodrama
• twentieth century theatre
• independent Ireland
• oral culture
• British imperialism
• Padraic Pearse
• Samuel Beckett
• W. B. Yeats
• J. M. Synge
• The Playboy of the Western World
• David Lloyd
• British and Irish Literature
• religion and society

“Alexandra Poulain has discovered a riveting new theme which runs through twentieth century Irish drama, that of the Passion play or crucifixion of Jesus Christ, often presented ironically or parodically. By investigating the spectacle of the sacrificed male body from Synge to Friel, Kilroy and beyond, which makes visceral and visible modes of violence perpetrated by hegemonic ideologies and practices of state or colonial powers, she produces exhilarating new insights into both canonical and less familiar plays. A delight to read, this book opens up new territory in Irish theatre studies and contributes to wider debates in theatre on the gaze of the spectator and the body in performance.” (Anna McMullan, Professor of Theatre, University of Reading, UK)

• Université of Paris 3-Sorbonne nouvelle, Paris, France

  Alexandra Poulain

Alexandra Poulain is Professor of Irish Studies at Paris 3-Sorbonne nouvelle, France. She has written extensively on modern and contemporary Irish drama, in particular Yeats, Beckett and Tom Murphy. 

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