Oxford Handbook of Modern Irish Theatre

The Oxford Handbook of Modern Irish Theatre provides the single most comprehensive survey of the field to be found in a single volume. Drawing on more than forty contributors from around the world, the book addresses a full range of topics relating to modern Irish theatre from the late nineteenth-century to the most recent works of postdramatic devised theatre. Ireland has long had an importance in the world of theatre out of all proportion to the size ofthe country, and has been home to four Nobel Laureates (Yeats, Shaw, and Beckett; Seamus Heaney, while primarily a poet, also wrote for the stage). This collection begins with the influence of melodrama, and looks at arguably the first modern Irish playwright, Oscar Wilde, before moving into a series ofconsiderations of the Abbey Theatre, and Irish modernism. Arranged chronologically, it explores areas such as women in theatre, Irish-language theatre, and alternative theatres, before reaching the major writers of more recent Irish theatre, including Brian Friel and Tom Murphy, and their successors. There are also individual chapters focusing on Beckett and Shaw, as well as a series of chapters looking at design, acting, and theatre architecture. The book concludes with an extended surveyof the critical literature on the field. In each chapter, the author does not simply rehearse accepted wisdom; all of the contributors push the boundaries of their respective fields, so that each chapter is a significant contribution to scholarship in its own right.

Chris Morash and Nicholas Grene have made an immeasurable contribution to academic writing on theatre in general and contemporary Irish theatre in particular., It is an essential work for academics, students and members of the theatrical profession., The Oxford Handbook of Modern Irish Theatre ... reads engagingly when consumed straight through. ... readers who make their way through it will find themselves well-oriented as to the outlines of and debates surrounding Irish dramatic production and consumption of the past 125 years. Indeed, with its critical depth and range, generous collection of photographs, useful chronology, and exhaustive bibliography of more than 700 source texts on Irish theatre, this volume is required reading for anyone with a serious interest in the subject., covers an enormous amount of theatrical territory ... [which] should enrich our understanding and appreciation of the subject. Theatre in Ireland is well served by this imposing volume.

Nicholas Grene is Emeritus Professor of English at Trinity College, Dublin. He has published extensively on a range of topics, including Irish theatre, Shakespeare, Yeats, Shaw and Indian literature in English. His impact on Irish theatre research extends back to Synge: A Critical Study of the Plays (1975); his study of modern Irish theatre, The Politics of Irish Drama (1999) has been highly influential, and his most recent book is Home on theStage (2014). He is a founding director of both the Synge Summer School and the Irish Theatre Diaspora Project. He is a Member of the Royal Irish Academy.Chris Morash is Seamus Heaney Professor of Irish Writing at Trinity College, Dublin; he was previously Professor of English in Maynooth University. Born in Canada, he has published widely on Irish literature and cultural history, including Writing the Irish Famine (1996), A History of Irish Theatre 1601-2000 (2002), A History of the Media in Ireland (2009), and Mapping Irish Theatre (with Shaun Richards, 2013). His History of Irish Theatre won theTheatre Book Prize in 2003, and is widely regarded as the standard history in the field. He is a Member of the Royal Irish Academy.