John P. Harrington - Böcker

This revised and expanded Norton Critical Edition reprints the complete texts of fourteen plays by the major Irish playwrights: W. B. Yeats, Lady Gregory, J. M. Synge, Bernard Shaw, Sean O’Casey, Samuel Beckett, Brian Friel, Conor McPherson, and Marina Carr. The texts are accompanied by John Harrington’s introduction to the volume and by his detailed explanatory annotations.“Backgrounds and Criticism” is chronologically organized by playwright and includes prefaces, letters, journal entries, program notes, and interpretative essays for each play in the volume. In order to provide additional context for readers, these materials are preceded by five essays on the early-twentieth-century “The Irish Dramatic Revival” and followed by four essays on the current state of “Theater in Ireland.”A Chronology and a Selected Bibliography are included.

Over the years American -- especially New York -- audiences have evolved a consistent set of expectations for the "Irish play." Traditionally the term implied a specific subject matter, invariably rural and Catholic, and embodied a reductive notion of Irish drama and society. This view continues to influence the types of Irish drama produced in the United States today. By examining seven different opening nights in New York theaters over the course of the last century, John Harrington considers the reception of Irish drama on the American stage and explores the complex interplay between drama and audience expectations. All of these productions provoked some form of public disagreement when they were first staged in New York, ranging from the confrontation between Shaw and the Society for the Suppression of Vice to the intellectual outcry provoked by billing Waiting for Godot as "the laugh sensation of two continents." The inaugural volume in the series Irish Literature, History, and Culture, The Irish Play on the New York Stage explores the New York premieres of The Shaughraun (1874), Mrs. Warren's Profession (1905), The Playboy of the Western World (1911), Exiles (1925), Within the Gates (1934), Waiting for Godot (1956), and Philadelphia, Here I Come! (1966).

For more than 150 years, Irish playwrights, beginning with Dion Boucicault, have been celebrated by American audiences. However, Irish theater as represented on the American stage is merely a sampling of the national drama, and the underlying causes of Irish dramatic success in America illuminate the cultural state of both countries at specific historical moments. ""Irish Theater in America"" is the first book devoted entirely to the long history of this transatlantic exchange.Born out of the Irish Theatrical Diaspora project, this collection brings together leading American and Irish scholars with established theater critics. The contributors explore the history of Irish theater in America, from Harrigan and Hart to the recent productions of senior Irish playwrights such as Brian Friel and younger writers such as Martin McDonagh and Conor McPherson. Examining the complexity of the relationship between Irish theater and American audiences, this volume goes beyond analyses of plays to include examinations of company dynamics, tours of companies and actors, audience reception, and the production history of individual works.