Contemporary Irish Theatre

Wei H. Kao, who holds a doctorate from the University of Kent, now lectures at National Taiwan University. He is the author of The Formation of an Irish Literary Canon in the Midtwentieth Century (2007). His articles on Irish writers and culture have appeared in Journal of Beckett Studies, Irish Studies Review, Essays on Modern Irish Literature (2007), Iris Murdoch and Moral Imaginations (2010), and Irish Women at War (2010).

• Content: I. When Incest Is Not A Taboo: Desire and the Land in Eugene O’Neill’s Desire Under the Elms and Marina Carr’s On Raftery’s Hill – II. Remaking the Stage Irishman in the New World: Dion Boucicault’s The Shaughraun, Edward Harrigan’s The Mulligan Guard Ball, and Sebastian Barry’s White Woman Street – III. Migrant Workers on Stage: Tom Murphy’s Conversations on a Homecoming and Jimmy Murphy’s The Kings of the Kilburn High Road – IV. A Russian Mirror to Ireland: Migration in Tom Murphy’s The House and Anton Chekhov’s The Cherry Orchard – V. South Africa, Racism, and Irish Sectarianism in Dolores Walshe’s In the Talking Dark and Damian Smyth’s Soldiers of the Queen – VI. Transnational Ireland on Stage: America to Middle East in Three Texts – VII. Peace and Beyond in the Middle East: Colin Teevan’s War Trilogy – VIII. Voices from Two Theatrical Others: Labor Issues in the Theatres of Ireland and Taiwan – IX. Samuel Beckett in Taiwan: Cross-cultural Innovations and Significance – X. The Irish at Home and Abroad: Transnational Practices.