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As Ireland changes, how should we think about the works of familiar figures - writers like Synge, O´Casey, Friel, Murphy, Carr and McGuinness? Is the distinction between popular and literary drama tenable in a Celtic Tiger Ireland where the arts and economics are becoming increasingly intertwined.

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This collection of fourteen new essays explores Irish theatre from exciting new perspectives. How has Irish theatre been received internationally - and, as the country becomes more multicultural, how will international theatre influence the development of drama in Ireland? As Ireland changes, how should we think about the works of familiar figures - writers like Synge, O´Casey, Friel, Murphy, Carr, and McGuinness? Is the distinction between popular and literary drama tenable in a Celtic Tiger Ireland where the arts and economics are becoming increasingly intertwined? And is it time to remember less established Irish writers? Drawing together a range of international experts, this book aims to answer these and many other important questions.

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CONTENTS: Christopher Murray: "Echoes Down the Corridor": The Abbey Theatre 1904-2004 - Mary C. King: A Synge for Our Times? Yeats´s enquiring man revisited - Joan FitzPatrick Dean: Staging the Aesthetic: The Vagrant Artists of Padraic Colum and Seumas O´Kelly - Chiaki Kojima: Shoyo Matsui, A Japanese Lennox Robinson: The Irish National Theatre and Japanese New Drama - Irina Ruppo: Wessex to Geesala: Hardy and Synge - Paul O´Brien: Sean O´Casey and The Abbey Theatre: A Conflicted Relationship - Helen Lojek: Observe the Sons of Ulster : Historical Stages - Christa Velten-Mrowka: "Am I a con man?": Brian Friel´s idea of the self-reflective artist, viewed in the light of Adorno´s aesthetic theory - Alexandra Poulain: "A Voice and little else": talking, writing and singing in The Gigli Concert - Mária Kurdi: Spatializing the Renewal of Female Subjectivity in Marie Jones´s Women on the Verge of HRT - Donal E. Morse: The Present through the Prism of the Past: Frank McGuinness´s Dolly West´s Kitchen - Mika Funahashi: "Grow a Mermaid": A Subtext for Marina Carr´s Dramatic Works - Jason King: Beyond Ryanga: The Image of Africa in Contemporary Irish Theatre - Lisa Fitzpatrick: Nation and Myth in the Age of the Celtic Tiger: Muide Éire?

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