No CrossRef data available.
Article contents
Evacuating the Museum: the Crisis of Playwriting in Ulster
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 15 January 2009
Abstract
When the current spate of ‘Troubles’ began in Northern Ireland over a decade ago. it was fashionable to lament the lack of plays about the political and military situation there. Now there is no shortage of plays, but a persistent worry – here articulated by Philomena Muinzer – that most of them do little to analyze the events. let alone to suggest a resolution of a crisis which is coming to be accepted as somehow endemic and inevitable. This fatalism, she suggests, is because the plays either fit all too easily into old forms which sanctify antiquated assumptions, or mould no less constricting new ‘conventions’ – thus creating a dramaturgical vicious circle which perpetuates the political. Taking a cross-section of recent plays about Ulster, she thus suggests how they share a body of themes and concerns which ‘become part of an inherited dramatic fabric, which then prejudices new political analysis and new creative thinking alike’. Philomena Muinzer herself grew up in Northern Ireland, and subsequently attended the Universities of Princeton. Essex, and Yale. In 1982 she received an Arts Council bursary on the strength of her play Together Against Him. and she is currently working on a new play about the Troubles.
- Type
- Research Article
- Information
- Copyright
- Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1987
References
Notes and References
1. Glendinning, Robin, Condemning Violence (unpulished play, 1984), p. 37–8Google Scholar. Hereafter cited as Glendinning (1984).
2. Glendinning (1984), p. 52.
3. Tim Pat Coogan, quoted in Ritchie, Rob, ‘Out of the North’, in Hutchinson, Ron, Rat in the Skull (London: Methuen, 1984), p. 4Google Scholar. Hereafter cited as Ritchie.
4. Ritchie, p. 4.
5. Triesman, Sue, ‘Caught by the Goolies’, Platform Magazine (1983), p. 5Google Scholar.
6. Johnston, Jennifer, Shadows on our Skin, C Television, transmitted 20 03 1980Google Scholar.
7. Reid, Graham, McCabe's Wall, BBC Television, transmitted 12 11 1985Google Scholar.
8. See, for example, the poem ‘Roisin Dubh’ in 1,000 Years of Irish Poetry, ed. Hoaglund, Kathleen (New York: Devin-Adair, 1942), or cfGoogle Scholar. Montague, John on Aisling poems in The Faber Book of Irish Verse (London: Faber and Faber, 1974), p. 26–7Google Scholar.
9. Rudkin, David, Across the Water, BBC Television, transmitted 10 01 1983Google Scholar.
10. Ritchie, p. 4.
11. Paulin, Tom, Ireland and the English Crisis, (Newcastle-upon-Tyne: Bloodaxe Books, 1984), p. 18Google Scholar. Hereafter cited as Paulin.
12. Paulin. p. 19.
13. Behan, Brendan, The Hostage, in Complete Plays (London: Eyre Methuen, 1978)Google Scholar. Hereafter cited as Behan.
14. Heaney, Seamus, ‘The Betrothal of Cavehill’, in North, (London: Faber and Faber, 1975), p. 51Google Scholar.
15. McBride, Steve, Peace by Peace Magazine, 12 02 1982, p. 6Google Scholar.
16. Devlin, Anne, Ourselves Alone, unpulished play (performed at the Royal Court), 1985, p. 52Google Scholar. Hereafter cited as Devlin.
17. Finnegan, Seamus, Act of Union, (London: J. F. Publications, 1980), p. 27Google Scholar. Hereafter cited as Finnegan.
18. Glendinning (1984), p. 32.
19. Mornin, Daniel, The Murderers, unpulished play (performed at the National Theatre), 1985, p. 20Google Scholar. Hereafter cited as Mornin.
20. Rudkin, DavidAshes, in Plays and Players (1984), p. 165Google Scholar. Hereafter cited as Rudkin.
21. Rudkin, p. 165.
22. Haire, Wilson John, Bloom of the Diamond Stone (London: Pluto Plays, 1975), p. 53Google Scholar. Hereafter cited as Haire.
23. Hutchinson, Ron, Rat in the Skull (London: Methuen, 1984), p. 53Google Scholar. Hereafter cited as Hutchinson (1984).
24. Bennett, Colin, Night Moves by Armour (London: C.B. Pulications, 1977), p. 5Google Scholar. Hereafter cited as Bennett.
25. Glendinning, Robin, Mumbo Jumbo, unpublished play (performed at the Royal Exchange, Manchester), 1986, p. 27Google Scholar.
26. Bennett, p. 30.
27. Howard, Roger, ‘Theses on the Material Method’, in Contradictory Theatres (Colchester: Theatre Action Press, 1984), p. 171Google Scholar.
28. Hutchinson (1984), p. 20.
29. Robins, Dave, ‘We Do It for Love’, Plays and Players (08 1976), p. 24Google Scholar.
30. Momin, p. 45.
31. Momin, p. 44.
32. Lynch, Martin, Dockers (Holywood, Co. Down: Farset Co-Operative Press, 1982), p. 52Google Scholar.
33. Devlin, p. 93.
34. Bennett, p. 35.
35. Behan, op. cit.
36. Finnegan, p. 17.
37. Hutchinson (1984), p. 15.
38. Hutchinson (1984), p. 23.
39. Bennett, p. 11.
40. Parker, Stewart, ‘Spokesong’, Plays and Players (12 1976), p. 44Google Scholar.
41. Rudkin, p. 64.
42. Momin, p. 67.
43. Momin, p. 70.
44. Bennett, p. 11.
45. Parker, Stewart, ‘Spokesong’, Plays and Players (01 1977), p. 44Google Scholar. Hereafter cited as Parker (1977).
46. Glendinning (1984), p. 27–8.
47. Finnegan, p. 9.
48. Momin, p. 70.
49. Hutchinson (1984), p. 14.
50. Bennett, p. 36.
51. Momin, p. 97.
52. Finnegan, p. 27.
53. Hutchinson (1984), p. 20.
54. Finnegan, p. 24.
55. Hutchinson (1984), p. 18.
56. Hutchinson (1984), p. 31.
57. Momin, p. 71.
58. Devlin, p. 66.
59. Devlin, p. 60–1.
60. Bennett, p. 25.
61. Momin, p. 63.
62. Hutchinson (1984), p. 18.
63. Rudkin, p. 65.
64. Haire, p. 54.
65. Momin, p. 63.
66. Hutchinson, Ron, ‘Says I, Says He’, Plays and Players (1978), p. 50Google Scholar.
67. Hutchinson (1984), p. 15.
68. Behan, p. 137.
69. Bennett, p. 15.
70. Devlin, p. 94.
71. Parker (1977), p. 50.
72. Glendinning (1984), p. 17.
73. Momin, p. 80.
74. Vallely, Paul, ‘Ulster Talents’, The listener, 18 06 1981Google Scholar.
75. Robbins, Dave, ‘We Do It for Love’, Plays and Players (08 1976), p. 24Google Scholar.
76. Bentley, Eric, ‘From Protest to Resistance’, in Theatre of War (New York: Viking Press, 1960), p. 357Google Scholar. I have adapted his version of the song.
77. Ritchie, p. 3.