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UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, SAN DIEGO UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, IRVINE Rupturing the Stage: Performing Women in Brian Friel’s Theatre A Dissertation submitted in partial satisfaction of the Requirements for the degree Doctor of Philosophy in Drama and Theatre by Heather Lynn Donahoe LaForge Committee in charge: Professor Marianne McDonald, Chair Professor Robert Cancel Professor Daphne Lei Professor Emily Roxworthy Professor Janet Smarr 2008 Copyright Heather Lynn Donahoe LaForge, 2008 All rights reserved. The Dissertation of Heather Lynn Donahoe LaForge is approved, and it is acceptable in quality and form for publication on microfilm: Chair University of California, San Diego University of California, Irvine 2008 iii DEDICATION I dedicate this dissertation to my husband, Andrew; without his editing, support, and love I would not have made it. iv TABLE OF CONTENTS Signature Page……………………………………………………………... iii Dedication………………………………………………………….............. iv Table of Contents…………………………………………………………... v List of Photographs………………………………………………………… vi Acknowledgements………………………………………………………… vii Vita, Publications, and Fields of Study…………………………………….. viii Abstract…………………………………………………………………….. ix Introduction: “This Erasure was Absolute’”: the Traumas of Ireland……... 1 Chapter One: “Free (Wo)man of the City, Sure that Means Nothing”: Rupturing Identity for the Colonized Female in The Freedom of the City…………………………………………… 39 Chapter Two: “Something is Being Eroded”: The Subaltern Speaks in Translations………………………………………………………... 69 Chapter Three: “Mature Women, Dancing?”: Communal Freedom in Dancing at Lughnasa……………..................................................... 105 Chapter Four: “They’re Much More Pure, My People”: Friel in Context… 140 Conclusion…………………………………………………………………. 174 Works Cited………………………………………………………………... 180 Bibliography……………………………………………………………….. 186 v LIST OF PHOTOGRAPHS Fig. 1.1: Peace Line in Belfast…………………………………………………... 10 Fig. 1.2: Belfast Mural…………………………………………………………... 11 Fig. 1.3: Sign directing tourists to St. Stephen’s Green…………………………. 14 Fig. 1.4: Sign at Trinity College in Dublin……………………………………… 15 Fig. 2.1: Father Daly waving a bloodied handkerchief………………………….. 47 Fig. 2.2: Father Daly administers the Last Rites………………………………… 48 Fig. 3.1: A map of the principal triangulation of Ireland………………………... 79 vi ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I would like to take this opportunity to thank the following institutions critical to the success of this work: The UCSD Department of Theatre and Dance and The UCI Department of Drama. I would like to express my gratitude for my advisor and mentor, Marianne McDonald, for her guidance, wisdom, and encouragement throughout my graduate career. I would also like to thank my committee members and faculty at UCSD and UCI who have taught and supported me, particularly: Robert Cancel, Jim Carmody, Nadine George, Jorge Huerta, Daphne Lei, John Rouse, Janelle Reinert, Emily Roxworthy, and Janet Smarr. Also many thanks to Lee Montano, Walt Jones, and Charlie Oates. A huge thank you to my fellow UCSD students who have laughed along with me the whole way: Amy, Ashley, Summer, Michael, Rai, Zack, Phil, Terry, and Aimee; and at UCI to Greg, Allison, and Karen. Thank you also to the Modified-Child Theatre Group for bringing much joy into the theatre space. In Ireland, I owe a huge debt of gratitude to Eamonn Jordan and Ashley Taggart for introducing me to the work of Brian Friel. Thank you also to Melissa Sihra, Tony O’Dalaigh, Seamus Deane, Rosaleen Linehan, and Marie-Louise O’Donnell for interviews and guidance. Finally, thank you to my family and friends who have believed in me the whole way, especially my amazing husband, Andrew; and my baby girl, Clara, who will someday read this and hopefully be proud of her mother. vii VITA 2003 B.A., University of Puget Sound 2003-2007 Teaching Assistant, Department of Theatre and Dance University of California, San Diego 2007 Associate-In, Department of Theatre and Dance University of California, San Diego 2008 Graduate Instructor, Muir Writing Program University of California, San Diego 2008 Ph.D., University of California, San Diego PUBLICATIONS LaForge, Heather Donahoe. “Out of the Mold and Into the Event: Atlanta’s Out of Hand Theater.” TheatreForum, Summer/Fall 2007, 50-57. FIELDS OF STUDY Major Field: Theatre and Drama Studies in Irish Theatre Professor Marianne McDonald, University of California, San Diego Studies in Post-Colonialism Professor Daphne Lei, University of California, Irvine Professor Jody Blanco, University of California, San Diego Studies in Feminism Professor Nadine George, University of California, San Diego Studies in Trauma Theory Professor Emily Roxworthy, University of California, San Diego viii ABSTRACT OF THE DISSERTATION Rupturing the Stage: Performing Women in Brian Friel’s Theatre by Heather Lynn Donahoe LaForge Doctor of Philosophy in Drama and Theatre University of California, San Diego, 2008 University of California, Irvine, 2008 Professor Marianne McDonald, Chair This dissertation analyzes contemporary Irish playwright Brian Friel’s dramatization of the doubly oppressed Irish female who is victimized not only by the British colonizer, but also by the Irish men who seek compensation for their own colonized status. Friel uses the stage to speak to this question by representing the trauma of the doubly oppressed female and giving voice to this otherwise silenced figure. Despite scholarly attention to Friel, little work has been done to examine the treatment of women in his plays. Through the use of feminist, post-colonial, and trauma theory, I examine Friel’s use of a specific theatrical technique, the moment of rupture, where his female characters break out of their normal speech patterns to enter into an awareness of their trauma. This dissertation explores how Friel employs this device in The Freedom of ix the City, Translations, and Dancing at Lughnasa to steer his audience to and through the moral and political issue of women’s disempowerment. x INTRODUCTION “THIS ERASURE WAS ABSOLUTE”1: THE TRAUMAS OF IRELAND [Brian Friel] paints families, love affairs, jealousies, reconciliations. His skill is gently wielded and is closely allied to music. His texts are easily learned because the rhythms are so natural – onomatopoetic – and alliterative. He gives the actor clues. We adore him. Rosaleen Linehan A letter to the author, 13 April 2006 In 1971 Irish playwright Brian Friel broadcast a “self-portrait” for BBC Northern Ireland, in which he discussed his decision to become a writer: I began to survey and analyse the mixed holding I had inherited – the personal, traditional, and acquired knowledge that cocooned me: an Irish Catholic teacher with a nationalist background, living in a schizophrenic community. (Corbett 107) The schizophrenic, split community, of which Friel was a part, provides the background for many of his plays. His scripts give insight into the Irish landscape, less beautiful than the American tourist would be led to believe, by writing about the “gaps between word and deed, between thought and feeling, between action and memory, and between the heart and the head” (Corbett 108). It is in these gaps that Friel locates the voice of his Irish characters. Friel has his characters speak from the gaps in theatrical moments of rupture; through these moments he tells the forgotten narratives left behind by years of violence and trauma. In the late 1960s violence erupted in Northern Ireland as a clash of ideals and allegiance came to a head for the two opposing communities sharing the small country. The roots of the conflict stretch back many centuries through a history passed on from 1 Friel, Brian. The Faith Healer, pp. 344. 1 2 generation to generation; it is a painful legacy given to Ireland’s youth. Ireland has never been considered a nation at peace; its history is wrought with violence, oppression, and occupation, and its citizens have internalized this history as part of their national identity. Catholic in religion since the fifth century, the island endured various occupations leading up to the most recent in the early fifteenth century. These incursions began as early as the sixth century BC with the invasion of the Celts, and continued through the ninth and tenth centuries with Viking raids; the Normans settled soon after, and England and Wales established colonies during the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries. The region had little rest between invasions, with little time for recovery or the formation of identity outside of the trauma of war and occupation. Today the island is split into two separate nation-states, the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland, and for the past eighty years these countries have had separate histories. One is defined by aggression, the other by rebirth. Prior to 1922,2 however, the island was united, and the people of Ireland shared a common and traumatic history. This trauma is locatable in specific historical events— events that had a profound effect on the island and those who call it home. I examine the effect of the traumatic events through the idea of rupture. Throughout Ireland’s history traumatic events metaphorically ruptured the Irish cultural landscape. As each traumatic event occurred, a breach or a crevasse was created in the Irish identity, separating communities and dividing histories. And, as the metaphorical crevasse formed, a void 2 The division into two separate countries was long and arduous. A brief explanation of the events between 1922 (when partition occurred)