The Methuen Drama Guide to Contemporary Irish Playwrights is an authoritative guide to the work of twenty-five playwrights from the last 50 years whose work has helped to shape and define Irish theatre. Written by a team of international scholars, it provides an illuminating survey and analysis of each writer's plays and will be invaluable to anyone interested in, studying or teaching contemporary Irish drama. The playwrights examined range from John B. Keane, Brian Friel and Tom Murphy, to the crop of writers who emerged in the 1990s and who include Martin McDonagh, Marina Carr, Emma Donoghue and Mark O'Rowe. Each essay features: a biographical sketch and introduction to the playwright a discussion of their most important plays an analysis of their stylistic and thematic traits, the critical reception and their place in the discourses of Irish theatre a bibliography of texts and critical material With a total of 190 plays discussed in detail, over half of which were written during the 1990s and 2000s, The Methuen Drama Guide to Contemporary Irish Playwrights is unrivalled in its study of recent plays and playwrights.

The Methuen Drama Guide to Contemporary Irish Playwrights is an authoritative single-volume guide to the work of twenty-five Irish playwrights from the 1960's to the present, written by a team of twenty-five eminent scholars from Ireland, the United States, Britain and Germany contributing individual studies to the work of each playwright. Each of the twenty-five chapters provides: a biographical introduction to the playwright and their work; a survey and concise analysis of each of the writer's published plays; a discussion of their style, dramaturgical concerns and the critical reception; and...

The Methuen Drama Guide to Contemporary Irish Playwrights is an authoritative guide to the work of twenty-five playwrights from the last 50 years whose work has helped to shape and define Irish theatre. Written by a team of international scholars, it provides an illuminating survey and analysis of each writer's plays and will be invaluable to anyone interested in, studying or teaching contemporary Irish drama. The playwrights examined range from John B. Keane, Brian Friel and Tom Murphy, to the crop of writers who emerged in the 1990s and who include Martin McDonagh, Marina Carr, Emma Donoghue and Mark O'Rowe. Each essay features: a biographical sketch and introduction to the playwright a discussion of their most important plays an analysis of their stylistic and thematic traits, the critical reception and their place in the discourses of Irish theatre a bibliography of texts and critical material With a total of 190 plays discussed in detail, over half of which were written during the 1990s and 2000s, The Methuen Drama Guide to Contemporary Irish Playwrights is unrivalled in its study of recent plays and playwrights.

This is an authoritative single-volume guide to the work of twenty-five British playwrights from the 1980s to the present written by an international team of twenty-five eminent scholars. It is the perfect companion for students of Theatre Studies and English Literature.

"This is the first collection of articles to be published on the theatre of Marina Carr, a major contemporary Irish playwright whose work is highly acclaimed in Ireland and internationally for its poetic energy and its remarkable theatrical imagination." "These essays examine Carr's highly original voice, and place her plays in the context of current theatre in Ireland and abroad. They raise lively debate on contemporary representation of 'Irishness' on the stage, on the current state of Irish theatre, on the impact of female authorship on the canon of Irish theatre, and on Carr's portrayal of characters who are fundamentally at odds with the world around them."--BOOK JACKET.

Martin McDonagh is one of the world's most popular dramatists. This is a highly readable and illuminating analysis of his career to date that will appeal to the legions of fans of his stage plays and the films Six Shooter and In Bruges. As a resource for students and practitioners it is unrivalled, providing an authoritative and enquiring approach to his work that moves beyond the tired discussions of national identity to offer a comprehensive critical exploration. Patrick Lonergan provides a detailed analysis of each of his plays and films, their original staging, critical reception, and the connections within and between the Leenane Trilogy, the Aran Islands plays and more recent work. It includes an interview with Garry Hynes, artistic director of Druid Theatre Company, and offers four critical essays on key features of McDonagh's work by leading international scholars: Joan Dean, Eamonn Jordan, Jose Lanters and Karen O'Brien. A series of further resources including a chronology, glossary, notes on McDonagh's use of language and a list of further reading makes this the perfect companion to one of the most exciting dramatists writing today.

The Methuen Drama Book of Plays by Black British Writers provides an essential anthology of six of the key plays that have shaped the trajectory of British black theatre from the late-1970s to the present day. In doing so it charts the journey from specialist black theatre companies to the mainstream, including West End success, while providing a cultural and racial barometer for Britain during the last forty years. It opens with Mustapha Matura's 1979 play Welcome Home Jacko which in its depiction of a group of young unemployed West Indians was one of the first to explore issues of youth culture, identity and racial and cultural identification. Jackie Kay's Chiaroscuro examines debates about the politics of black, mixed race and lesbian identities in 1980s Britain, and from the 1990s Winsome Pinnock's Talking in Tongues engages with the politics of feminism to explore issues of black women's identity in Britian and Jamaica. From the first decade of the twenty-first century the three plays include Roy Williams' seminal pub-drama Sing Yer Hearts Out for the Lads, exploring racism and identity against the backdrop of the World Cup; Kwame Kwei-Armah's National Theatre play of 2004, Fix Up, about black cultural history and progress in modern Britain, and finally Bola Agbage's terrific 2007 debut, Gone Too Far!, which examines questions of identity and tensions between Africans and Caribbeans living in Britain. Edited by Lynnette Goddard, this important anthology provides an essential introduction to the last forty years of British black theatre.

Look Back in Anger is one of the few works of drama that are indisputably central to British culture in general, and its name is one of the most well-known in postwar cultural history. Its premiere in 1956 sparked off the first "new wave" of kitchen-sink drama and the cultural phenomenon of the angry young man. The play's anti-hero, Jimmy Porter, became the spokesman of a generation. Osborne's play is a key milestone in "new writing" for British theatre, and the Royal Court-which produced the play-has since become one of the most important new writing theatres in the UK.

Gerry Adams has disguised himself as a newborn baby and successfully infiltrated my family home. Eric Miller is a Belfast Loyalist. He believes his five-week old granddaughter is Gerry Adams. His family keep telling him to stop living in the past and fighting old battles that nobody cares about anymore, but his cultural heritage is under siege. He must act. David Ireland's black comedy takes one man's identity crisis to the limits as he uncovers the modern day complexity of Ulster Loyalism. Cyprus Avenue was first performed at the Abbey Theatre, Dublin, on 11 February 2016, before transferring to the Royal Court Theatre, London in April 2016.

THE WILEY BLACKWELL COMPANION TO CONTEMPORARY BRITISH AND IRISH LITERATURE An insightful guide to the exploration of modern British and Irish literature The Wiley Blackwell Companion to Contemporary British and Irish Literature is a must-have guide for anyone hoping to navigate the world of new British and Irish writing. Including modern authors and poets from the 1960s through to the 21st century, the Companion provides a thorough overview of contemporary poetry, fiction, and drama by some of the most prominent and noteworthy writers. Seventy-three comprehensive chapters focus on individual authors as well as such topics as Englishness and identity, contemporary Science Fiction, Black writing in Britain, crime fiction, and the influence of globalization on British and Irish Literature. Written in four parts, The Wiley Blackwell Companion to Contemporary British and Irish Literature includes comprehensive examinations of individual authors, as well as a variety of themes that have come to define the contemporary period: ethnicity, gender, nationality, and more. A thorough guide to the main figures and concepts in contemporary literature from Britain and Ireland, this two-volume set: Includes studies of notable figures such as Seamus Heaney and Angela Carter, as well as more recently influential writers such as Zadie Smith and Sarah Waters. Covers topics such as LGBT fiction, androgyny in contemporary British Literature, and post-Troubles Northern Irish Fiction Features a broad range of writers and topics covered by distinguished academics Includes an analysis of the interplay between individual authors and the major themes of the day, and whether an examination of the latter enables us to appreciate the former. The Wiley Blackwell Companion to Contemporary British and Irish Literature provides essential reading for students as well as academics seeking to learn more about the history and future direction of contemporary British and Irish Literature.