In this chapter, the interview with Pat Kinevane brings to the fore the career of the internation... more In this chapter, the interview with Pat Kinevane brings to the fore the career of the internationally-awarded physical actor. The conversation gives insights into the training and contemporary conditions of Irish actors, collaborations with directors, and his work as a writer-performer of his solo pieces.
This chapter considers the critically overlooked work of Corcadorca Theatre Company. Focusing on ... more This chapter considers the critically overlooked work of Corcadorca Theatre Company. Focusing on their production of Ray Scannell’s Losing Steam (2004), Anne Etienne uses new material to highlight aspects of creation and reception. The study explores Scannell’s political play as a unique instance of Corcadorca’s interests in site-specific performance and development of new writing. Her analysis permits to revisit the economic history of Ireland, to look at a key production of the 2004 Cork Midsummer Festival, and to outline Corcadorca’s artistic vision.
This article investigates two theatre works in order to reflect upon the evolving meaning of spec... more This article investigates two theatre works in order to reflect upon the evolving meaning of spectatorship when taken out of the traditional venues, as well as upon the elusive experience of attending site-specific work. In Corcadorca's production of Enda Walsh's How These Desperate Men Talk at the Kinsale Arts Festival (2014) and ANU's Vardo (2014) at the Dublin Theatre Festival, the notion of a passive spectator is under attack. The fact that both companies are devoted to developing innovative 'off-site' performances (i.e. outside theatre venues) and creating new exchanges with audiences offers a common ground for a practice which proves most heterogeneous and destabilising for spectators and researchers alike. The shows play with the wide range of possibilities to be accessed via a tentatively termed 'site-specificity' to focus on the engagement with a community or a one-on-one audience and to modify narrative expectations. In order to question what tends to be involved in this relationship between work, site and spectator(s), the contexts and nature of the constructed journeys are explored in the first place. It is suggested that the different kinds of exchange with the site (from neutral off-site to site-exclusive performances) impact on the form of reception and therefore the role, status and limits of the spectators. Finally, approaching the two plays via the spectator allows for a reading of the theatre experience that opens up on aesthetic and political considerations.
In this chapter, the interview with Pat Kinevane brings to the fore the career of the internation... more In this chapter, the interview with Pat Kinevane brings to the fore the career of the internationally-awarded physical actor. The conversation gives insights into the training and contemporary conditions of Irish actors, collaborations with directors, and his work as a writer-performer of his solo pieces.
Theatre censorship was introduced by statute in 1737 to protect the Prime Minister from the drama... more Theatre censorship was introduced by statute in 1737 to protect the Prime Minister from the dramatists' satirical attacks. From that date to 1968, it was governed by the Lord Chamberlain. Theatre censorship was officially justified by the necessity to control morals on the stage. However, it was political by nature. The system was secret and adapted itself to remain invisible and to avoid being abolished. This article presents the unpublished results of research carried out in archival holdings (British Library, National Archives, House of Lords Library, Bodleian, and various private collections) as well as of interviews conducted in 2002-3 with the MPs and dramatists involved in the censorship debates of the 1960s. It first aims at explaining the process of licensing and banning plays through representative examples of religious, political and moral censorship. It also traces the changes which characterized 20th century censorship, thereby accounting for the growing tendency towards permissiveness. Finally, archival material which was recently opened under the thirty-year rule enables us to establish the interlocking relationship between the Lord Chamberlain and the Government.
Between the late 1950s and mid-1970s, British cinema experienced an explosion of X-certificated f... more Between the late 1950s and mid-1970s, British cinema experienced an explosion of X-certificated films. In parallel with an era marked by social, political, and sexual ferment and upheaval, British filmmakers and censors pushed and guarded the permissible limits of violence, horror, revolt, and sexuality on screen. Adult Themes is the first volume entirely devoted to the exploration of British X certificate films across this transformative period, since identified as ‘the long 1960s’. How did the British Board of Film Censors, harried on one side by the censorious and moralistic, and beset on the other by demands for greater artistic freedom, oversee and manage this provocative body of films? How did the freedoms and restrictions of the X certificate hasten, determine, and reshape post-war British cinema into an artistic, exploitational, and unapologetically adult medium? Contributors to this collection consider these central questions as they take us to swinging parties, on youthful...
In this chapter, the interview with Aisling Ghear’s artistic director Brid O Gallchoir presents h... more In this chapter, the interview with Aisling Ghear’s artistic director Brid O Gallchoir presents her path as a director from the Abbey to Belfast via Moscow. It explores how her work reflects her political stance in developing theatre in Irish and how reception of theatre in Irish varies among local audiences within the island.
Timeline. Statutory Theatre Censorship 1. Theatre Censorship under the Royal Prerogative 2. Statu... more Timeline. Statutory Theatre Censorship 1. Theatre Censorship under the Royal Prerogative 2. Statutory Theatre Censorship: 1737-1892 3. The 1909 Challenge to Statutory Theatre Censorship 4. The Inter-War Years 5. The 1949 Bid to end Statutory Theatre Censorship 6. Further Attempts to end Statutory Theatre Censorship 7. The 1960s and the 1968 Theatres Act 8. The Aftermath: British Theatre following the Abolition of Statutory Censorship Conclusion
In this chapter, the interview with Pat Kinevane brings to the fore the career of the internation... more In this chapter, the interview with Pat Kinevane brings to the fore the career of the internationally-awarded physical actor. The conversation gives insights into the training and contemporary conditions of Irish actors, collaborations with directors, and his work as a writer-performer of his solo pieces.
This chapter considers the critically overlooked work of Corcadorca Theatre Company. Focusing on ... more This chapter considers the critically overlooked work of Corcadorca Theatre Company. Focusing on their production of Ray Scannell’s Losing Steam (2004), Anne Etienne uses new material to highlight aspects of creation and reception. The study explores Scannell’s political play as a unique instance of Corcadorca’s interests in site-specific performance and development of new writing. Her analysis permits to revisit the economic history of Ireland, to look at a key production of the 2004 Cork Midsummer Festival, and to outline Corcadorca’s artistic vision.
This article investigates two theatre works in order to reflect upon the evolving meaning of spec... more This article investigates two theatre works in order to reflect upon the evolving meaning of spectatorship when taken out of the traditional venues, as well as upon the elusive experience of attending site-specific work. In Corcadorca's production of Enda Walsh's How These Desperate Men Talk at the Kinsale Arts Festival (2014) and ANU's Vardo (2014) at the Dublin Theatre Festival, the notion of a passive spectator is under attack. The fact that both companies are devoted to developing innovative 'off-site' performances (i.e. outside theatre venues) and creating new exchanges with audiences offers a common ground for a practice which proves most heterogeneous and destabilising for spectators and researchers alike. The shows play with the wide range of possibilities to be accessed via a tentatively termed 'site-specificity' to focus on the engagement with a community or a one-on-one audience and to modify narrative expectations. In order to question what tends to be involved in this relationship between work, site and spectator(s), the contexts and nature of the constructed journeys are explored in the first place. It is suggested that the different kinds of exchange with the site (from neutral off-site to site-exclusive performances) impact on the form of reception and therefore the role, status and limits of the spectators. Finally, approaching the two plays via the spectator allows for a reading of the theatre experience that opens up on aesthetic and political considerations.
In this chapter, the interview with Pat Kinevane brings to the fore the career of the internation... more In this chapter, the interview with Pat Kinevane brings to the fore the career of the internationally-awarded physical actor. The conversation gives insights into the training and contemporary conditions of Irish actors, collaborations with directors, and his work as a writer-performer of his solo pieces.
Theatre censorship was introduced by statute in 1737 to protect the Prime Minister from the drama... more Theatre censorship was introduced by statute in 1737 to protect the Prime Minister from the dramatists' satirical attacks. From that date to 1968, it was governed by the Lord Chamberlain. Theatre censorship was officially justified by the necessity to control morals on the stage. However, it was political by nature. The system was secret and adapted itself to remain invisible and to avoid being abolished. This article presents the unpublished results of research carried out in archival holdings (British Library, National Archives, House of Lords Library, Bodleian, and various private collections) as well as of interviews conducted in 2002-3 with the MPs and dramatists involved in the censorship debates of the 1960s. It first aims at explaining the process of licensing and banning plays through representative examples of religious, political and moral censorship. It also traces the changes which characterized 20th century censorship, thereby accounting for the growing tendency towards permissiveness. Finally, archival material which was recently opened under the thirty-year rule enables us to establish the interlocking relationship between the Lord Chamberlain and the Government.
Between the late 1950s and mid-1970s, British cinema experienced an explosion of X-certificated f... more Between the late 1950s and mid-1970s, British cinema experienced an explosion of X-certificated films. In parallel with an era marked by social, political, and sexual ferment and upheaval, British filmmakers and censors pushed and guarded the permissible limits of violence, horror, revolt, and sexuality on screen. Adult Themes is the first volume entirely devoted to the exploration of British X certificate films across this transformative period, since identified as ‘the long 1960s’. How did the British Board of Film Censors, harried on one side by the censorious and moralistic, and beset on the other by demands for greater artistic freedom, oversee and manage this provocative body of films? How did the freedoms and restrictions of the X certificate hasten, determine, and reshape post-war British cinema into an artistic, exploitational, and unapologetically adult medium? Contributors to this collection consider these central questions as they take us to swinging parties, on youthful...
In this chapter, the interview with Aisling Ghear’s artistic director Brid O Gallchoir presents h... more In this chapter, the interview with Aisling Ghear’s artistic director Brid O Gallchoir presents her path as a director from the Abbey to Belfast via Moscow. It explores how her work reflects her political stance in developing theatre in Irish and how reception of theatre in Irish varies among local audiences within the island.
Timeline. Statutory Theatre Censorship 1. Theatre Censorship under the Royal Prerogative 2. Statu... more Timeline. Statutory Theatre Censorship 1. Theatre Censorship under the Royal Prerogative 2. Statutory Theatre Censorship: 1737-1892 3. The 1909 Challenge to Statutory Theatre Censorship 4. The Inter-War Years 5. The 1949 Bid to end Statutory Theatre Censorship 6. Further Attempts to end Statutory Theatre Censorship 7. The 1960s and the 1968 Theatres Act 8. The Aftermath: British Theatre following the Abolition of Statutory Censorship Conclusion
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