Nation

Abstract

Arguably the nation and its many anti-colonial, postcolonial, Troubles-era, post-conflict and early twenty-first-century permutations remain the defining thematic obsession of contemporary Irish theatre. This chapter contributes elucidating frameworks for navigating how contemporary Irish theatre continues to dramatise and negotiate these complex and contested dimensions of the nation from the perspective of past, present and future. The three frameworks and accompanying case studies that model the application of these critical lenses to key theatre productions are: Theatre and the political work of nation-building (Michael West/Corn Exchange’s Dublin By Lamplight), Woman and/as nation (Anne Devlin’s Ourselves Alone), Interrogating national histories through the Irish history play (Frank McGuinness’s Observe the Sons of Ulster Marching Towards the Somme).