This book sets out strategies of analysis of the award-winning tetralogy of performances (2010-14) by ANU Productions known as ‘The Monto Cycle’. Set within a quarter square mile of Dublin’s north inner city, colloquially known as The Monto, these performances featured social concerns that have blighted the area over the past 100 years, including prostitution, trafficking, asylum-seeking, heroin addiction, and the scandal of the Magdalene laundries. While placing the four productions in their social, historical, cultural and economic contexts, the book examines these performances that operated at the intersection of performance, installation, visual art, choreography, site-responsive and community arts. In doing so, it explores their concerns with time, place, history, memory, the city, ‘affect’, and the self as agent of action.

In the wake of Ireland’s recent economic rise, fall, and associated social crises, theatre and performance have played vital roles in reflecting on the past, engaging the present, and imagining possible futures. That Was Us features a wide, rich range of critical essays and artist reflections that strive to make sense of some of the most significant shifts and trends in contemporary Irish theatre and performance. Focusing on artists connected to the Dublin Theatre Festival, the book addresses work by the Abbey Theatre, ANU Productions, Brokentalkers, The Corn Exchange, Druid, Fabulous Beast Dance Theatre, the Gate Theatre, Landmark Productions, Rough Magic Theatre Company, THEATREclub, Theatre Lovett, Pan Pan, The Stomach Box and THISISPOPBABY, among others. Some of the burgeoning forms and practices discussed include: site-specific and site-responsive theatre; testimonial, documentary, and biographical performance; dance theatre; theatre for children and families; new writing; and fresh takes on canonical writing staged at home or toured internationally. In bringing together critics and artists to think side by side, That Was Us is indispensable for anyone interested in contemporary practices and cultural politics. Contents 1. The Power of the Powerless: Theatre in Turbulent Times by Fintan Walsh ONE: Theatres of Testimony 2. ANU Productions and Site-Specific Performance: The Politics of Space and Place by Brian Singleton 3. Witnessing the (Broken) Nation: Theatre of the Real and Social Fragmentation in Brokentalkers’ Silver Stars, The Blue Boy, and Have I No Mouth by Charlotte McIvor 4. You Had to be There by Louise Lowe TWO: Auto/Biographical Performance 5. Making Space: Female-Authored Queer Performance in Irish Theatre by Oonagh Murphy 6. The Writing Life by Helen Meany 7. Metaphysicians of Unnatural Chaos: Memories of Genesi by Socìetas Raffaello Sanzio by Dylan Tighe THREE: Bodies Out of Bounds 8. Insider and Outsider: Michael Keegan-Dolan in the Irish Dance Landscape by Michael Seaver 9. And the Adults Came Too! Dublin Theatre Festival and the Development of Irish Children’s Theatre by Eimear Beardmore 10. Living Inspiration by John Scott FOUR: Placing Performance 11. Representations of Working-Class Dublin at the Dublin Theatre Festival by James Hickson 12. ‘Getting Known’: Beckett, Ireland, and the Creative Industries by Trish McTighe 13. The Art of Perspective by Michael West FIVE: Touring Performances 14. Druid Cycles: The Rewards of Marathon Productions by Tanya Dean 15. Staging the National in an International Context: Druid at the Dublin Theatre Festival by Sara Keating 16. Viewed from Afar: Contemporary Irish Theatre on the World’s Stages by Peter Crawley 17. A Dance You Associate With Your Family by Gary Keegan

I am getting nearer to something. The answer to the question. Who am I? A woman who leaves her husband very suddenly for an old lover and heads to a cottage in Kerry? I needed someone strong. Someone who would sweep me along. Keep me here. In this world. Not allow me to wander down below, and I wanted a child. I dearly wanted a child. Mairead and Mal are struggling to keep their marriage together. Perhaps attending a wedding will help, or it might raise questions that are difficult to answer. Poignant, funny, and beautiful, Heaven is a new play that is full of humanity. It is presented by the Olivier Award-winning Fishamble, and written by Eugene O'Brien (winner of the Rooney Prize for Literature). This edition was published to coincide with the world premiere at the Dublin Theatre Festival, followed by an Irish tour, in Autumn 2022.

Do you still love me? Yeah. You sure? In this groundbreaking work, seven scenes drag us further down the stages of coercive-control: but who is manipulating and who is being manipulated? Only two characters appear - Sam and Charlie – played by an ensemble cast. When scenes are replayed in different combinations, do we interpret them differently? Does gender, class, age, or ethnicity, alter our perception? What does that say about how we perceive the world? How do we find solid ground to judge? Breaking is Amy Kidd's exciting debut play, commissioned by Olivier award-winning Fishamble Theatre. This edition was published to coincide with the world premiere and Fishamble tour starting in September 2024.

Some folk are impossible to buy for. Mama said it's because they are usually the ones who are impossible to know... Before is set in Clerys of Dublin, on the very day this iconic department store shuts - for good. Pontius is inside, trying to choose a gift for his estranged daughter, whom he hasn't seen for almost 20 years. He will meet her in an hour. This father's journey is both beautiful and strange, from the isolation of his Midlands home to the madness of O'Connell Street. Before is a new play with much music, which follows the runaway international success of Fishamble's Pat Kinevane Trilogy (Forgotten, Silent and Underneath), which have won Olivier, Scotsman Fringe First, Herald Angel, Argus Angel, Adelaide Fringe and Stage Raw LA awards. This edition was published to coincide with the original production which was first produced by Fishamble: The New Play Company in November 2018.

Ellen thought she’d end her life where it began – in a rundown flat in Dublin’s north inner city. Now her building is sold, and she’s being moved into a box room in her snooty sister’s house in the suburbs. When an unexpected visitor lands in her front room, Ellen is forced to delve into the past in order to lay some ghosts to rest. From the writers of Alice in Funderland, Town is Dead is a living room musical, an ode to Dublin and an exploration of how Ireland treats its people. It looks at the future of the city through the eyes of one older citizen. Town is Dead has been nominated for 5 Irish Theatre Awards 2017, including Best New Play.

When was the last time you had a lucky streak? Spanish Harlem, NYC, 1999 – A young man fleeing Dublin crash lands on the sofa of his Irish-American cousin, as this older cousin’s relationship with his Dominican girlfriend is imploding. Over the summer they cling to the last vestiges of the dying club scene and flirt with smalltime criminality as storm clouds gather... Part love triangle, crime thriller and immigrant story, Run / Don’t Run is a provocative and accessible new play first performed by Bigger Picture Projects in February 2015. This volume also includes a one-act companion play, Mission.

How to Keep an Alien is a funny and tender autobiographical tale in which Irish Sonya and Australian Kate meet and fall in love, but Kate's visa is up and she must leave the country. Together they must find a way to prove to the Department of Immigration that they have the right to live together in Ireland. The paper trail of evidence for 'the visa people' takes them on a global odyssey from County Offaly to the Queensland Bush. It's a tricky business coming from opposite ends of the earth. It takes an Olympian will and the heart of a whale, but above all else, paperwork. How to Keep an Alien is written and performed by Sonya Kelly, with Justin Murphy. Sonya Kelly's debut show, The Wheelchair on My Face, won a Scotsman Fringe First Award in 2012 and was the New York Times Critics' Pick. This edition was published to coincide with a revival of the original production, including performances at the Traverse Theatre, Edinburgh.

Irish Theatre in the Twenty-First Century is the first in-depth study of the subject. It analyses the ways in which theatre in Ireland has developed since the 1990s when emerging playwrights Martin McDonagh, Conor McPherson, and Enda Walsh turned against the tradition of lyrical eloquence with a harsh and broken dramatic language. Companies such as Blue Raincoat, the Corn Exchange, and Pan Pan pioneered an avant-garde dramaturgy that no longer privileged the playwright. This led to new styles of production of classic Irish works, including the plays of Synge, mounted in their entirety by Druid. The changed environment led to a re-imagining of past Irish history in the work of Rough Magic and ANU, plays by Owen McCafferty, Stacey Gregg, and David Ireland, dramatizing the legacy of the Troubles, and adaptations of Greek tragedy by Marina Carr and others reflecting the conditions of modern Ireland. From 2015, the movement #WakingTheFeminists led to a sharpened awareness of gender. While male playwrights showed a toxic masculinity on the stage, a generation of female dramatists including Carr, Gregg, and Nancy Harris gave voice to the experiences of women long suppressed in conservative Ireland. For three separate periods, 2006, 2016, 2020-2, the author served as one of the judges for the Irish Times Irish Theatre Awards, attending all new productions across the island of Ireland. This allowed him to provide the detailed overview of the 'state of play' of Irish theatre in each of those times which punctuate the book as one of its most innovative features. Drawing also on interviews with Ireland's leading theatre makers, Grene provides readers with a close-up understanding of Irish theatre in a period when Ireland became for the first time a fully modernized, secular, and multi-ethnic society.