Symposium: Shakespeare in Ireland

Shakespeare in Ireland: 1616/1916/2016.

This afternoon symposium celebrates the richness of Irish literature informed by Shakespeare and the often political role that Shakespeare has played in Ireland. It features director Tom Magill, Shakespeare scholar Nicholas Grene and a staged reading of Lady Augusta Gregory's plays by Fran Teague's students.

1:30 p.m.: Tom Magill, "Revenge or Reconciliation? Creating a Film Adaptation of The Tempest in Northern Ireland"



Tom Magill is an ex-prisoner who transformed his life through arts education while in prison for violence. While incarcerated, he met his enemy, an IRA volunteer, and his enemy became his teacher. In 2007, he directed Mickey B, an award-winning feature film adaptation of Shakespeare’s Macbeth, cast with prisoners from Maghaberry maximum-security prison in Northern Ireland.



He speaks about his current work-in-progress, adapting The Tempest within Northern Ireland.



2:45 p.m.: Lady Augusta Gregory staged reading



Lady Augusta Gregory was an early 20th c. Irish playwright, a central figure in the Irish Literary Revival that also included Wiliam Butler Yeats. Fran Teague's "How To Read A Play" class will present a staged reading of Lady Gregory's plays Spreading the News and The Rising of the Moon.



4 p.m.: Nicholas Grene, "Irish Shakespeares: 1916 to 2016"



Nicholas Grene is Emeritus Professor of English Literature at Trinity College Dublin, where he taught for 36 years. His books include Shakespeare’s Tragic Imagination (Macmillan, 1992), The Politics of Irish Drama (Cambridge University Press, 1999), Shakespeare’s Serial History Plays (Cambridge University Press, 2002) and Yeats's Poetic Codes(Oxford University Press, 2008). His most recent book is Home on the Stage (Cambridge University Press, 2014). 



His talk, "Irish Shakespeares: 1916 to 2016," recounts the uneasy history of Irish Shakespeares from 1916 to 2016. In April 1916, the British Empire Shakespeare Society staged Hamlet as part of the Shakespeare Tercentenary celebrations. In the period since 1922, Shakespeare, the canonical writer of the former colonial power, has been an uneasy presence in Irish theatre. For many years, Anew McMaster continued the tradition of touring the plays round Ireland, initially with those pretend Irishmen Hilton Edwards and Micheal Mac Liammóir in his company. An adventurously modernist King Lear was staged at the Abbey in 1928, directed by the playwright Denis Johnston. There have been some successful productions of the comedies with a specifically Irish dimension, such as the 1990s musical Comedy of Errors, or the 2006 Taming of the Shrew given a contemporary Irish setting. But many Irish productions have struggled to find an appropriate idiom for Shakespeare. Professor Grene's paper will explore a range of Irish stagings of the plays down to the award-winning Druid Shakespeare of 2015 and the Abbey’s 2016 production of Othello.



A buffet reception will follow.

Sponsored by: Comparative Literature, Department of, English, Department of, Richard B. Russell Special Collections Libraries, Theatre and Film Studies, Department of, Willson Center for Humanities and Arts