#ReadIreland 2020 Irish Theatre

Set Design by Francis O’Connor  for  play “The Big House” (Abbey Theatre)

 

• Author:  H. Lojek
  
• Title: The Spaces of Irish Drama (135 pg)
  
• Published: 2011
  
• Genre:  non-fiction
  
• List of Challenges 2020
• Monthly plan
• #ReadingIrelandMonth20
• #Begorrathon20

 

Introduction:

1. There is so much to learn from Helen Lojek’s essays.
2. I have selected a few ideas to share with you.
3. I learned to think more about the title of a play.
4. You would be surprised what the author had hidden in it!
5. I learned to look carefully at the setting.
6. Who knew you could compare a bar (pub) with purgatory!

 

The Gates of Gold by Frank McGuinnes

1. Setting: the domestic interior
2. Stage: divided in “living room” and bedroom (“dying room) – EMPHASIS ON THEMES
3. Title: explore meaning ‘The Gate’ is the theatre the partners founded in Dublin.
4. On a metaphysical level the title frames Gabriel’s looming death.
5. Stage directions: Silence: there is a definite significance of silence and lack of action
6. Silence and lack of motion can be just as powerful as dialogue and action
7. Irony: characters… Conrad  is teaching Gabriel how to die
8. …and Gabriel is teaching  his partner how to live!!
9. Dialogue: overlapping it is a
10. …challenge to read or follow but provides a reflective commentary.
11. Major threat: inescapable biological reality of death
12. Ireland: the Irish future has arrived with
13. …neither priest nor colleen nor greenfield in sight.

 

 

 

The Weir by C. McPherson

1. Setting: local bar
2. Bar = sacred place or even purgatorial where people
3. can tell the truth b/c no one will return here.
4. People ease their loneliness by sharing their interior lives.
5. Stage: aging photos on the wall, barflys are male, the fire is peat and
   
6. …the preferred drink is Guinness.
7. Titel: is a metaphor The Wier for damned up emotion/feelings
8. that will spill out in their stories…
9. “on one side it is quite calm on the other side water is being squeezed through.”
10. Lots under the surface is coming out.
11. Stage directions: Silence: TV and radio are present but not turned on.
12. Patrons  would rather tell stories.
13. Irony: Valerie….the ‘intruder’ is  leaving the city for rural Irish landscape
14. ….while other characters are rushing to the city!
15. Dialogue: no indication that is bar has a window so exterior space
16. …is only what the characters describe.
17. Major threat: never-seen-but-often-discussed toerists (modernity)
18. Ireland: rural area…a place for lonely bachelors and nonworking bathrooms
19. …where Valerie comes to heal.