Search & Browse

Produced by Yvonne Thunder and Tiernan MacBride. Edited by Gaye Lynch.

77 minutes.

With Vinny Murphy, Jack Lynch, and "Students of Jobstown Community College."

Written and directed by Tom Magill. Editor: Stuart Sloan; director of photography: Angus Mitchell

Produced by Kirsten Kearney and the Educational Shakespeare Company, 2018. 

With Susan Lynch, Duke Special, Nigel O'Neill, and Conor Brown.

Points out limitations of conceptual casting in two Irish productions. Argues that in Corcadorca's production of Merchant of Venice (dir. Pat Kiernan, q.v.), "the Polish identity of the actors [playing Jewish characters] became subsumed by the fictional Jewishness" and so did not offer an effective commentary on "the rise of anti-Polish racism in Ireland." Contends that although in Andrea Montgomery's Belfast Tempest (q.v.), "the cast reflected multiple waves of migration to the city," the play "ignor[ed] the presence of the more troubling themes of The Tempest."   

Included "intercultural betrothal masque" created by Tom Finlay. With James Doran (Prospero), Debrah Hill (Miranda) Patrick McBrearty (Ariel), Nuala McKeever (Stephana), Jo Donnelly (Antonia),Gary Crossan (Caliban), Ashley Alymann (Sebastian), Parys Jordan (Ferdinand) and Nicola Gardner (Queen Alonsa), Rob Kane (Trinculo), and Monine Dugan (Gonzala). 

Drawing on promptbook evidence, revisits Siobhán McKenna's 1957 one-woman Hamlet production in the American National Theatre and Academy (ANTA), directed by Henry Hewes, which was poorly reviewed. Positions production in terms of McKenna's career and position as both "Shakespearean actor" and "Irish actor." Points to lacunae of lost texts and productions in both archives and theatre histories.

Traces history of Irish Hamlet productions, with particular attention to Hilton Edwards and Michael MacLiammóir's series of Hamlet productions at Dublin's Gate Theatre (1932-1951). Analyzes Yaël Farber's 2018 production at the the Gate Theatre (q.v.) under Selina Cartmell's artistic directorship and starring Ruth Negga as Hamlet. Suggests that, like earlier productions, Farber's "present[ed] a commentary on Irish life" that built on audience assumptions and commented on previous productions.

Interview with Michael Barker-Caven about his Richard II (q.v.).

Recounts attending Michael Barker-Caven's production of Richard II in 2013 (q.v.), which staged "the prison-cell scene" to "the drumbeat of U2's "Sunday Bloody Sunday," exploring how the production "becomes an encounter with Irish history" (notably, Richard's Irish campaign and the twentieth-century Troubles) and "a form of historiography." 

Costume and set design by Joe Vanek; set construction by Vincent (Vinnie) Bell; hair and make-up by Val Sherlock. Stage manager, Emma Doyle. Produced by Pamela Murray and Denis Conway.

With Patrick Moy (Richard II), Des Nealon (John of Gaunt and Bishop of Carlisle), Frank McCusker (Bolingbroke), Denis Conway (Duke of York and Gardener), Jane McGrath (Queen), Rachael Dowling (Duchess of York and Duchess of Gloucester), Jonathan White (Mowbray, Scroop, and Ross), Shane O'Reilly (Aumerle).

Describes twentieth-century Irish-language translations of Shakespeare, focusing on S. Ladhrás ua Súilleabháin's (also known as J. L. O'Sullivan) Macbeth (published 1925, performed 1941) and Liam Ó Briain's Coriolanus (performed 1938, published 1945). Describes Irish-language Shakespeare productions at An Taibhdhearc, the National Irish Language Theatre in Galway.