The Urban Plays of the Early Abbey Theatre - 9780815633679

The Abbey Theatre was a crucible for the development of Irish plays and playwrights, beginning in 1904. Sean O'Casey is generally considered to have been the first playwright to write about the Irish urban working classes, in three plays produced at the Abbey in the 1920s. However, author Mannion here describes a tradition of urban drama that the Abbey mounted in the decades before O'Casey came to the fore. She notes 13 plays, or 7% of all first-time productions, set in urban Ireland before O'Casey. In Chapter 2 she groups ten plays set in Belfast, Cork and Galway, which examine sociopolitical and economic concerns, as did Casey's plays. Chapter 3 starts on the plays set in Dublin by W.F. Casey. Chapter 4 considers the connections of Sean O'Casey's and other, later plays to Cathleen Ni Houlihan, a canonical modern Irish play that opened in 1902. Chapter 5 examines some plays set in public arenas, including a modern version of Sheridan's The Critic, or a Tragedy Rehearsed, set in the Abbey Theatre. Chapter 6 reviews plays with domestic settings. Chapter 7 discusses plays where organized labor is central and Chapter 8 considers biodramas, about the lives of historical figures, in particular Jonathan Swift and Clarence Mangan. Annotation ©2015 Ringgold, Inc., Portland, OR (protoview.com)