Performing the Body in Irish Theatre

Performing the Body in Irish Theatre charts a performance tradition that lives alongside a literary legacy and offers a highly original and contemporary analysis of Irish theater. Productions of plays by renowned Irish playwrights Friel, MacIntyre and others are investigated to highlight the staged body, issues of representation, transformation and recovery of tradition. Each chapter focuses on performance and identity, postcolonialism and gender, to interrogate the chosen texts as performance, rather than primarily dramatic texts, and the book's conclusion addresses the performance of the body in recent Irish productions.

Bernadette Sweeney lectures in Drama and Theatre Studies at University College Cork, Republic of Ireland.

Introduction * The Absent Body? Performing Tradition * The Inanimate Body--The Great Hunger * The Savage Body--The Saxon Shore * The Dancing Body--Dancing at Lughnasa * The Troubled Body--At the Black Pig's Dyke * The Indeterminate Body--Low in the Dark * The Present Body? Evolving Tradition * Index Introduction * The Absent Body? Performing Tradition * The Inanimate Body--The Great Hunger * The Savage Body--The Saxon Shore * The Dancing Body--Dancing at Lughnasa * The Troubled Body--At the Black Pig's Dyke * The Indeterminate Body--Low in the Dark * The Present Body? Evolving Tradition * Index