Staging Beckett in Ireland and Northern Ireland

This is the first full-length study to focus on the staging of Samuel Beckett’s drama in Ireland and Northern Ireland.

Beckett’s relationship with his native land was a complex one, but the importance of his drama as a creative force both historically and in contemporary practice in Ireland and Northern Ireland cannot be underestimated. Drawing on previously unpublished archival materials and re-examining familiar narratives, this volume traces the history of Beckett’s drama at Dublin’s Abbey and Gate Theatres as well as bringing to light unexamined and little-known productions such as those performed in the Irish language, Druid Theatre Company’s productions, and those of Dublin’s Focus Theatre. Leading scholars in Beckett studies and in Irish drama, including Anna McMullan and Anthony Roche, and renowned interpreters of Beckett’s dramatic work such as Barry McGovern, explore Beckett’s drama within the context of Irish creative theatrical practice and heritage, and analyse its legacies.
As with its companion volume, Staging Beckett in Great Britain, production analyses are underpinned by a consideration of the political, economic and cultural contexts. Readers are invited to experience Beckett’s drama as resonating in new ways, through theatre practice, against the complex and connected histories of Ireland, north and south.

Trish McTighe is Lecturer in Theatre at the University of Birmingham. Her book, The Haptic Aesthetic in Samuel Beckett’s Drama, was published with Palgrave in 2013, and she recently co-edited the double volume Staging Beckett in Ireland and Northern Ireland and Staging Beckett in Great Britain (Bloomsbury-Methuen, 2016). She has published in the journals Modern Drama, Samuel Beckett Today/Aujourd’hui, and the Irish University Review, on topics such as Beckett’s drama, embodiment, and Irish culture and performance histories. She is theatre reviews editor for the Journal of Beckett Studies.


David Tucker is a Postdoctoral Researcher at the University of Chester, UK. He is the author of a number of publications on Beckett, including Samuel Beckett and Arnold Geulincx: Tracing ‘a literary fantasia’ (Bloomsbury, 2012), and is co-editor with Mark Nixon and Dirk Van Hulle of Samuel Beckett Today/Aujourd’hui, Vol. 26 (2014): ‘Revisiting Molloy, Malone muert/Malone Dies and L’Innommable/The Unnamable’.