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Showing 1 - 2 of
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A magical and deeply compassionate play about identity and the
capacities of the human spirit. At a time when science and religion
have conspired to make freak shows shameful, Robert Riley, owner of
Riley's Odditorium, struggles to find ways to keep his company
afloat. There's no money in the coffers and they've had to eat the
horse. Only the mermaid act is bringing in the punters and she's
just holding her breath... Lynda Radley's play Futureproof was
first staged at the Traverse Theatre, Edinburgh, in August 2011, in
a co-production with Dundee Rep. It won an Edinburgh Fringe First
Award.
HEROIN by Grace Dyas, Trade by Mark O'Halloran, The Art of Swimming
by Lynda Radley, Pineapple by Phillip McMahon, I ? Alice ? I by Amy
Conroy, The Big Deal edited by Una McKevitt, Oedipus Loves You by
Simon Doyle & Gavin Quinn, The Year of Magical Wanking by Neil
Watkins Edited and introduced by Thomas Conway This anthology
comprises eight new plays by Irish playwrights premiered between
the years 2006 and 2011. These playwrights ride, however, in no
slipstream of the identifiably Irish play. Here, the enterprise of
playwriting itself is being re-imagined. Here, above all else, is a
commitment to becoming in the theatre. For all that, each play is
concerned with what is unfinished business in Ireland. How
astonishing, then, that these plays should revolve for the most
part around identity and, in particular, sexual identity. How
identity comes into play, how we open up the field of play, how we
raise into collective experience the exercise of that play - the
urgency in the playwriting would appear to lie precisely here. We
can read from the historical moment - from a narrative emphasizing
an economic bubble and its hangover - into these plays. Or we can
take these playwrights at their word and observe lives lived at the
contour of identities in the making. It is for us as readers, just
as we have as theatre-goers - frequently scandalized, enthralled,
shamed, appalled, unburdened, tickled pink - to decide.
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