Staging Intercultural Ireland New Plays and Practitioner Perspectives -- Book Review

http://www.corkuniversitypress.com/Staging-Intercultural-Ireland-p/9781782051046.htm

Staging Intercultural Ireland New Plays and Practitioner Perspectives

by 

Charlotte McIvor and Matthew Spangler

This collection features eight plays and six interviews with migrant and Irish-born theatre artists who are producing work at the intersection of interculturalism and inward-migration in Ireland during the first decades of the 21st Century.


Plays covered:

Cave Dwellers (2002) by Nicola McCartney

Hurl (2003) by Charlie O’Neill

Orpheus Road (2003) by Ursula Rani Sarma

The Cambria (2005) by Donal O’Kelly

Once Upon a Time & Not So Long Ago (2006) by Bisi Adigun

Mushroom (2007) by Paul Meade

Rings (2012) by Rosaleen McDonagh

Broken Promise Land (2013) by Mirjana Rendulic


The Celtic Tiger era witnessed a dramatic increase in the number of transnational migrants entering Ireland. By the 2011 Census, 17% of the population was born outside of Ireland and much of what had been assumed about Irish identity (and theatre) could no longer hold. This groundbreaking anthology brings together six interviews and eight plays by migrant and Irish-born theatre artists who probe the impact of inward-migration and interculturalism in post-1990s Ireland. The interviews and plays collected here, all available in print for the first time, model a range of devising strategies, dramaturgical frameworks, and literary forms. To date, the work documented here has been produced at a wide range of venues from the Abbey Theatre and New York’s La MaMa Experimental Theatre to mid-sized theatre companies, community centres, street theatres, and even refugee accommodation centres throughout Ireland. This book represents established as well as emerging theatre artists and includes work by Donal O’Kelly, Bisi Adigun, Charlie O’Neill, Rosaleen McDonagh, Paul Meade, Nicola McCartney, Ursula Rani Sarma, and Mirjana Rendulic. Additionally, there are interviews with Bairbre Ní Chaoimh, Anna Wolf, Kasia Lech, John Currivan, Alicja Ayres, José Miguel Jimenéz, Declan Gorman, Declan Mallon, and John Scott. Staging Intercultural Ireland offers a snapshot of Ireland’s long-term intercultural process in its early stages and contributes to transnational migration studies and intercultural theatre research in a global context.


Charlotte McIvor is Lecturer in Drama, National University of Ireland, Galway and Matthew Spangler is Associate Professor of Performance Studies at San José State University in California, USA.

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This book review appeared in Stylus: Trade, Academic, and Professional Books - Fall 2014, book catalogue. For more information about, and to place an order of "Staging Intercultural Ireland New Plays and Practitioner Perspectives," please check Stylus/Cork University Press website.