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A century ago this year, productions of W. B. Yeats's The Countess Cathleen and Edward Martyn's The Heather Field inaugurated the Irish Literary Theatre, which was to take its name from its home in Abbey Street, Dublin. Despite riot, fire, and critical controversy, the Abbey Theatre has housed ...

A century ago this year, productions of W. B. Yeats's The Countess Cathleen and Edward Martyn's The Heather Field inaugurated the Irish Literary Theatre, which was to take its name from its home in Abbey Street, Dublin. Despite riot, fire, and critical controversy, the Abbey Theatre has housed Ireland's National Theatre ever since: at once the catalyst and focus for the almost unprecedented renaissance of drama witnessed by Ireland in the twentieth century. This is the first history of the Abbey to discuss the plays and the personalities in their underlying historical and political context, to give due weight to the theatre's work in Irish, and to take stock of its artistic and financial development up to the present. The research for the book draws extensively on archive sources, especially the manuscript holdings on the Abbey at the National Library of Ireland. Many outstanding plays are examined, with detailed analysis of their form and their affective and emotional content; and persistent themes in the Abbey's output are identified - visions of an ideal community; the revival of Irish; the hunger for land and money; the restrictions of a society undergoing profound change. But these are integrated with accounts of the Abbey's people, from Yeats, Martyn, and Lady Gregory, whose brainchild it was, to the actors, playwrights, directors, and managers who have followed - among them the Fays, Synge, O'Casey, Murray, Robinson, Shiels, Johnston, Murphy, Molloy, Friel, McGuiness, Deevy, Carr, and many others. The role of directors and policy-makers, and the struggle for financial security, subsidy, and new-style 'partnerships', is discussed as a crucial part of the theatre's continuing evolution.

Written at Derek Walcott's suggestion, and based on interviews with the playwright and actors, this is the first detailed study of a post-colonial theatre company and the problems of creating `serious' theatre in the former colonies. The book shows how Walcott strove to create a world class theatre ...

Written at Derek Walcott's suggestion, and based on interviews with the playwright and actors, this is the first detailed study of a post-colonial theatre company and the problems of creating `serious' theatre in the former colonies. The book shows how Walcott strove to create a world class theatre ensemble in the West Indies - a Trinidadian Brecht Berliner ensemble - and traces his life and career in West Indian theatre, and the history of the Trinidad Theatre Workshop. Beginning with an actors' studio and the vision of a West Indian theatre company of international standards with its own style of acting, Derek Walcott developed the most important theatre company in the West Indies. This was the company which first performed his Dream on Monkey Mountain, the musical version of Ti-Jean and his Brothers, The Joker of Seville, and O Babylon! A major contribution to West Indian history and theatre, Bruce King's study reveals the heroic will of Derek Walcott and his actors, and their determination to prove that West Indian drama was a force with which to be reckoned.