Riot and Great Anger: Stage Censorship in Twentieth-century IrelandAuthor :
Paperback
Published : Sunday 15 August 2010
You may also like ...
by
Paperback
15 Aug 2010
>>
€22.00
Description
Unrestricted by Irish government censorship through much of the twentieth century, the theatre became a public space to air cultural confrontations between Church and State, individual and community, and freedom of the theatre versus the audience's righ
Although books, films, and periodicals were subject to Irish government censorship through much of the twentieth century, stage productions were not. The theater became a public space to air cultural confrontations between Church and State, individual and community, and freedom of the theatre versus the audience's right to disagree. And disagree they often did. Throughout the twentieth century, Irish performances of new plays by William Butler Yeats, John Millington Synge, and Sean O'Casey, as well as those of such lesser-known playwrights as George Birmingham, often evoked heated responses from theatergoers, sometimes resulting in riots and public denunciation of playwrights and actors. Joan FitzPatrick Dean takes the reader on a tour de force of theatrical riots, pamphleteering, manipulation, coercion, and 'indomitable Irishry' determined to bring to the floorboards something of the vision and promise of the [Gaelic] Revival. Dean demonstrates clearly how funding, politics, religion, and personality-as well as the history of Ireland's long connection to Britain-shape the public character of Irish drama. She provides an engrossing chronicle of the evolving double helix of theater and its forces of expression on one hand, and censorship and its forces of restraint and coercion on the other. -Jerome Joseph Day, New Hibernia Review [Dean's] study of the twin traditions of protest and freedom in twentieth-century Irish theater will be invaluable in collections supporting study of Irish culture, Irish literature, and modern theater in general.-Choice
Reviews