Irish Theatre and Solo Performance: How Micheál Mac Liammóir Started a Trend (Past Times Solo Performance Series Book 11)
Book Details
Author(s)
Jordan Young
Publisher
Past Times Publishing Co.
ISBN / ASIN
B008KWVVK8
ISBN-13
978B008KWVVK4
Sales Rank
#1,719,310
Marketplace
United States 🇺🇸
Description
"Inside every Irishman is a one-man show trying to get out," said Shay Duffin, the Dublin-born actor best known for his solo portrayal of Brendan Behan. Literary heritage has played a key role in the Irish trend toward theatre of the individual; Oscar Wilde, George Bernard Shaw, James Joyce and Samuel Beckett have supplied the creative backbone of innumerable one-person shows. Cultural heritage is another factor--consider the shanachie, the traditional storyteller who gathered generations of people around the fireside and entertained them long into the night with anecdotes and folktales.
Playwrights Brian Friel and Conor McPherson are the modern day embodiment of the tradition with their monologue-driven plays. But it was Micheál Mac Liammóir, who co-founded Dublin's Gate Theatre and dominated the Irish theatrical scene for half a century, who revived the tradition and ignited the trend with his first solo performance, "The Importance of Being Oscar." Mac Liammóir celebrated Oscar Wilde's genius--and brought back him back to life with such force--theatre critic Desmond Rushe noted, "No one-man show since has succeeded in being so total in its rich accomplishment, and it is doubtful if any ever will."
Also discussed here are Fionnula Flanagan's one-woman show, "James Joyce's Women," and its controversial nudity (in Kansas, a Baptist minister denounced her as "the whore of Babylon"); English actress Billie Whitelaw's experience of performing Beckett's "Not I" ("like wrestling with an octopus"); Shay Duffin's larger-than-life evocation of Behan; Donal Donnelly and Max Adrian's solo portraits of Shaw; Siobhan McKenna's anthology of W.B. Yeats, Sean O'Casey and other Irish writers; and Eamon Morrissey's solo programs based on the works of Irish humorist Myles na Gopaleen, aka Flann O'Brien.
This ebook is a bonus chapter in the revised and expanded edition of ACTING SOLO: THE ART AND CRAFT OF SOLO PERFORMANCE.
Playwrights Brian Friel and Conor McPherson are the modern day embodiment of the tradition with their monologue-driven plays. But it was Micheál Mac Liammóir, who co-founded Dublin's Gate Theatre and dominated the Irish theatrical scene for half a century, who revived the tradition and ignited the trend with his first solo performance, "The Importance of Being Oscar." Mac Liammóir celebrated Oscar Wilde's genius--and brought back him back to life with such force--theatre critic Desmond Rushe noted, "No one-man show since has succeeded in being so total in its rich accomplishment, and it is doubtful if any ever will."
Also discussed here are Fionnula Flanagan's one-woman show, "James Joyce's Women," and its controversial nudity (in Kansas, a Baptist minister denounced her as "the whore of Babylon"); English actress Billie Whitelaw's experience of performing Beckett's "Not I" ("like wrestling with an octopus"); Shay Duffin's larger-than-life evocation of Behan; Donal Donnelly and Max Adrian's solo portraits of Shaw; Siobhan McKenna's anthology of W.B. Yeats, Sean O'Casey and other Irish writers; and Eamon Morrissey's solo programs based on the works of Irish humorist Myles na Gopaleen, aka Flann O'Brien.
This ebook is a bonus chapter in the revised and expanded edition of ACTING SOLO: THE ART AND CRAFT OF SOLO PERFORMANCE.
