Irish theatre: A director’s theatre

Directors have been ill served by histories of Irish theatre. The dominant narrative of Contemporary Irish theatre is one that charts the development of playwrights and their contribution to a playwriting tradition in Ireland. The work of the director is at best name-checked in most theatre histories and at worst ignored entirely. In this chapter I attempt to re-inscribe the important work of the director into the narrative of contemporary Irish theatre. To survey all the many directors who have worked in Ireland, and their achievements, would require a book-length study and so this chapter does not aim to offer a comprehensive survey. Instead I re-examine some productions that have been considered as landmark achievements in contemporary Irish theatre, highlighting the contributions made by directors to their achievements. I begin by placing the director at the accepted inaugurating moments of contemporary Irish theatre, which I identify as: Samuel Beckett’s Waiting for Godot produced by the Pike Theatre in 1955 directed by Alan Simpson and Carolyn Swift and Brian Friel’s Philadelphia Here I Come! (1964) produced by the Gate Theatre directed by Hilton Edwards. I then explore the work of Joe Dowling in the Abbey’s premiere of Brian Friel’s Faith Healer(1980) and Garry Hynes’ direction of Tom Murphy’s Bailegangaire (1985), arguing that their shared commitment to a theatrical experience that is not mimetic but immersive and ritualistic has helped define the characteristics of contemporary Irish theatre. Finally, I contend that the visually immediate and arresting directorial interventions of Patrick Mason in Dancing at Lughnasa (1990) and Selina Cartmell in Woman and Scarecrow (2006) have had a lasting impact on the reception of, and continued interest in, these plays.