Reviewed by:

• Irish Drama and Theatre Since 1950 by Patrick Lonergan
• Brice Ezell

Patrick Lonergan's history of Irish drama and theatre in the second half of the twentieth century begins where one might expect it to: the Abbey Theatre. But Lonergan does not start by calling back to the Irish Literary Revival, or the Abbey's epochal first few decades, when playwrights like J. M. Synge and W. B. Yeats premiered their new plays. Rather, he draws our attention to the hashtagged present, specifically the movement arising from #WakingTheFeminists (#WTF) that emerged following the programming announcement for the Abbey's 2016 season, a centenary remembrance of the 1916 Easter Rising. When this lineup of plays featured just one work by a female dramatist, Irish feminists mobilized to raise awareness about the underrepresentation of women in Irish theatre. As the novelist and playwright Katy Hayes told Lonergan, "We thought we could change the world … but the world went back to its old tricks" (4). Well into the new millennium, the Abbey Theatre found itself surrounded by conversations not about how it would progress forward but rather about how it served as a platform for issues in Irish theatre and society that have not yet gone away.

At the core of Irish Drama and Theatre Since 1950 is a careful mapping of the repetitive patterns of Irish theatre, of how it "moves cyclically rather than teleologically" (110). The #WTF movement is one of many examples in this meticulous study wherein Irish dramatists and theatremakers turn to the past. Lonergan carefully illustrates, however, that "cyclicality" does not mean stale repetition or remaining stuck in place. Rather, these cycles build upon and advance the cycles that came before them. For example, Irish theatrical responses to restrictive Catholic sexual prohibitions in the ostensibly "lost" decade of the 1950s were renewed at the turn of the twentieth century when playwrights and theatre companies tackled the scandal of abuse by priests in the Catholic Church. For Lonergan, the continued return to signature subjects of Irish theatre is a rewarding repetition.

This can be seen most vividly in his book's fourth chapter, "Repeat and Revise," [End Page 214] which functions as the cornerstone of Lonergan's larger argument about cyclicality. Here, he examines leading playwrights of the latter half of the twentieth century, such as Marina Carr and Martin McDonagh, and surveys stage reimaginings of canonical Irish writers like Synge and James Joyce. Building on the discussion of #WTF in the introduction, Lonergan centers women playwrights and directors in this chapter, even when discussing adaptations of male writers. Post-1950 Irish theatre and drama, Lonergan asserts, would not be the same without the work of director Garry Hynes, who "transform[ed]" Synge on the stage through her direction of McDongah's Leenane Trilogy (1997), which formed the bedrock of the 2004–2006 DruidSynge project at the Druid Theatre. "Repeat and Revise" solidifies the book's feminist comments and demonstrates that Irish theatre "does not have a clear beginning, middle and end" but should instead be thought of as a series of repetitions of key themes in Irish culture (204). This "Repeat and Revise" concept structures the whole of Irish Drama and Theatre Since 1950. Lonergan employs several methodological strategies throughout the text, including robust archival research, close readings of dramatic texts, and performance histories.

The book begins with 1950, despite Lonergan's aversion to straight chronology, joining recent scholarship in challenging the notion that the 1950s were a stale period in Irish theatre. The first chapter isolates three case studies to demonstrate the theatrical innovations happening in Ireland at this time, including An Taibhdhearc's 1949 commission of Siobhán McKenna to put on her Irishlanguage translation of George Bernard Shaw's Saint Joan, retitled San Siobhán to rebrand the work as uniquely belonging to both McKenna and Ireland. The second chapter's approach to the trend of "post-Catholicism" that emerged in Ireland after the 1950s, for instance, includes a detailed account of Frank Carney's 1946 The Righteous Are Bold. Lonergan reveals this drama...

审核人：

• 自 1950 年以来的爱尔兰戏剧和戏剧作者 Patrick Lonergan
• 布莱斯·埃泽尔

帕特里克·罗纳根 (Patrick Lonergan) 的 20 世纪下半叶爱尔兰戏剧史始于人们可能期待的地方：修道院剧院。但洛纳根并没有从回溯爱尔兰文学复兴开始，也不是回到修道院最初几十年的时代，当时 JM Synge 和 WB Yeats 等剧作家首演了他们的新剧。相反，他将我们的注意力吸引到带有标签的礼物上，特别是由#WakingTheFeminists (#WTF) 引发的运动，该运动是在修道院 2016 赛季的节目公告之后出现的，这是对 1916 年复活节起义的百年纪念。当这一系列剧目中只有一位女剧作家的作品时，爱尔兰女权主义者动员起来，提高人们对爱尔兰戏剧中女性代表性不足的认识。正如小说家兼剧作家凯蒂·海耶斯对洛纳根所说，“

自 1950 年以来一直是爱尔兰戏剧和剧院的核心是对爱尔兰戏剧重复模式的仔细映射，它如何“循环而不是目的论”（110）。#WTF 运动是这项细致研究中的众多例子之一，其中爱尔兰剧作家和戏剧制作人转向过去。然而，洛纳根仔细地说明，“周期性”并不意味着陈旧的重复或停留在原地。相反，这些周期建立在并推进它们之前的周期。例如，在 1950 年代表面上“失落”的十年中，爱尔兰对限制性天主教性禁令的戏剧反应在 20 世纪之交得到了更新，当时剧作家和剧院公司处理了天主教会牧师虐待的丑闻。对于隆根来说，

这一点在他的书的第四章“重复和修改” [End Page 214]中体现得最为生动，它是 Lonergan 关于周期性的更大论点的基石。在这里，他考察了 20 世纪下半叶的主要剧作家，如玛丽娜·卡尔和马丁·麦克唐纳，并调查了对辛格和詹姆斯·乔伊斯等爱尔兰经典作家的舞台重新想象。在引言中对#WTF 的讨论的基础上，罗纳根在本章中以女性剧作家和导演为中心，即使在讨论男性作家的改编时也是如此。Lonergan 断言，如果没有导演Garry Hynes 的作品，1950 年后的爱尔兰戏剧和戏剧就不会一样了三部曲（1997 年），它构成了德鲁伊剧院2004-2006年 DruidSynge项目的基石。“重复和修改”巩固了该书的女权主义评论，并表明爱尔兰戏剧“没有明确的开始、中间和结束”，而是应该被视为爱尔兰文化中关键主题的一系列重复（204）。自 1950 年以来，这种“重复和修改”概念构成了整个爱尔兰戏剧和剧院。Lonergan 在整本书中采用了几种方法论策略，包括强大的档案研究、戏剧文本的仔细阅读和表演历史。

这本书从 1950 年开始，尽管 Lonergan 不喜欢直接的年表，但他加入了最近的学术研究，挑战 1950 年代是爱尔兰戏剧陈旧时期的观念。第一章分离出三个案例研究，以展示此时爱尔兰发生的戏剧创新，包括 An Taibhdhearc 于 1949 年委托 Siobhán McKenna 对萧伯纳的《圣琼》进行爱尔兰语翻译，将其重新命名为San Siobhán，将作品重新命名为独一无二的作品麦肯纳和爱尔兰。例如，第二章对 1950 年代后在爱尔兰出现的“后天主教”趋势的处理包括对弗兰克·卡尼 1946 年的《义人是大胆的》的详细描述。