Into That Rinsing Glare?: Field Day's Irish Tragedies

Abstract

At a symposium named "Writers on Stage" (Peacock Theatre, Dublin, July 1997), Seamus Deane commented that while many contemporary Irish playwrights may refer to the political situation in works that "can have great emotional appeal," they are still limited in that "they do not involve, or the manifestation of such feeling does not involve, an analysis of the power situation." Deane used the Field Day Theatre Company's production of Stewart Parker's Pentecost (1987) as an example of his overall point that while such works may make audiences feel pity for the onstage victims of the political system, they do not inform them as to the extent to which "[t]he political system isn't something that is separate or apart from them. They are the inhabitors of it and they are the creators of it in many ways.” But when riot and sectarian violence erupt in the province, the term adopted by commentators is "tragedy" — a term that functions equally as a description of political situation and theatrical genre. In both instances, powerlessness in the face of suffering is dominant.

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