Enda Walsh and Martin McDonagh: Reimagining Irish theatre

Enda Walsh and Martin McDonagh have much in common - including the fact that they have significantly enhanced, and in some ways transformed, the international reputation of contemporary Irish drama. A useful starting point for that comparison, however, is with something Walsh and McDonagh have in common, which is that both of their careers began with an attempt to reimagine Irish theatre. On that opening night of Beauty Queen in 1996, McDonagh’s play had initially seemed like a story the audience had seen many times before. In defining those plays as having inaugurated a new era, O’Toole and others were influenced by the fact that Disco Pigs premiered outside Dublin, providing evidence of the development of Irish theatre beyond the nation’s capital. McDonagh’s successes were even more emphatic. Within two years of the premiere of his first play, he had moved from the Druid Theatre slush pile to Broadway run for Beauty Queen, which won four Tony Awards in 1998.