Comedy, Comic Traditions, and the Troubles in the Works of Women Playwrights in Northern Ireland, 1980-2000
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THE COMIC CONTROL OF LIFE: COMEDY, COMIC TRADITIONS, AND THE TROUBLES IN THE WORKS OF WOMEN PLAYWRIGHTS IN NORTHERN IRELAND, 1980-2000 LINDA BURKHARDT A DISSERTATION SUBMITTED TO THE FACULTY OF GRADUATE STUDIES IN PARTIAL FULFILMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY GRADUATE PROGRAM IN ENGLISH YORK UNIVERSITY, TORONTO, ONTARIO NOVEMBER 2011 Library and Archives Bibliotheque et Canada Archives Canada Published Heritage Direction du Branch Patrimoine de I'edition 395 Wellington Street 395, rue Wellington Ottawa ON K1A0N4 Ottawa ON K1A 0N4 Canada Canada Your file Votre reference ISBN: 978-0-494-88683-0 Our file Notre reference ISBN: 978-0-494-88683-0 NOTICE: AVIS: The author has granted a non L'auteur a accorde une licence non exclusive exclusive license allowing Library and permettant a la Bibliotheque et Archives Archives Canada to reproduce, Canada de reproduire, publier, archiver, publish, archive, preserve, conserve, sauvegarder, conserver, transmettre au public communicate to the public by par telecommunication ou par I'lnternet, preter, telecommunication or on the Internet, distribuer et vendre des theses partout dans le loan, distrbute and sell theses monde, a des fins commerciales ou autres, sur worldwide, for commercial or non support microforme, papier, electronique et/ou commercial purposes, in microform, autres formats. paper, electronic and/or any other formats. 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Canada iv ABSTRACT This study addresses the ways in which women playwrights use comedy and comic devices to simultaneously capture and deconstruct the absurdities and tragedies of the contemporary Troubles in Northern Ireland. Anne Devlin, Christina Reid, Marie Jones, and Jennifer Johnston invoke the manifold and multivalent forms and devices of comedy, including Western stage comedy, Irish comedy, the carnivalesque, and feminist comedy. The comic play-spirit evident throughout the plays in this study captures the acerbic humour that is central to Northern Irish life, culture, and theatre and that ultimately serves to interrupt the tragedies of the war-torn province. Through alienation and meta-laughter comedy creates vital distance by displacing the immediacy and tragedy of the Troubles; comic estrangement enables the women playwrights in this study to critically examine the sociohistorical context of their troubled society. Devlin, Reid, Jones, and Johnston employ comedy and humour to underscore and thereby challenge the absurdities of seemingly intractable ideologies and identities. While comedy has the power to ridicule, satirize, or exclude, the women playwrights in this study most often use comedy and humour to invoke the communal, uniting characters and their audiences in shared laughter and stories and offering glimmers of hope and imaginative possibility beyond the divisions, the despair, and the tragedies of late twentieth-century Northern Ireland. Their troubles drama constitutes not only a significant contribution to theatre in Northern Ireland but also important alternatives to the dominant, androcentric narratives of the Troubles. V There is a comic road to wisdom, as well as a tragic road. There is a comic as well as a tragic control of life. And the comic control may be more usable, more relevant to the human condition in all its normalcy and confusion, its many unreconciled directions. - Wylie Sypher vi To Mike and Dean, my comic duo vii Acknow ledgemen ts This Ph.D. dissertation could not have been written without the support, advice, and encouragement of a number of people. I would like to thank my supervisor, Cynthia Zimmerman, for her steadfast support, advice, and encouragement throughout the research, writing, and revising phases of my work. I would also like to thank my committee members, Christopher Innes and Darren Gobert, for their insights and encouragement during the revision process. I would like to thank Darren, in particular, for his meticulous readings and revision notes as well as his wise counsel, which greatly helped me to strengthen, polish, and refine my dissertation. I am grateful to the librarians in the interlibrary loans department at Scott library for the numerous articles and books that they helped to retrieve from other institutions in Canada and abroad. I am indebted to a number of friends and colleagues at Seneca College for their support. In particular, Dr. John Adames' insights on Beckett during our numerous discussions, along with his suggestion that I revisit Beckett's Proust, provided the grounding for my fourth chapter. Maria Vasilodimitrakis was a very good friend and provided support and counsel at critical moments throughout the writing and revising process. I would also like to extend a special thanks to family and friends who have offered help and support throughout my Ph.D. I am grateful to my mother, my sister, Lisa, and my very good friend Amber, who have always had great faith in my work. A special thank you to Mike, whose unconditional support and patience granted me the time and focus to research and write. And finally to Dean, whose sense of play has been a constant reminder of the importance of laughter and fun in my life and work. viii CONTENTS Abstract iv Acknowledgements vii Notes to the text ix 1. Introduction: Comic Traditions and Women Playwrights in Northern Ireland 1 2. (Un)Making (the) Trouble(s) in the Plays of Anne Devlin 39 3. Did You Hear the One By the Irish Woman?: Comedy and Comedians in the Plays of Christina Reid 102 4. Transgressing the Divides: Marie Jones' Camivalesque Subversions of Northern Ireland's Troubled Status Quo 173 5. "You have to have a laugh:" Comic Necessity in the Tragicomic Landscape of Jennifer Johnston's Northern Ireland 231 6. Conclusion: The Comic Play-ground 288 Selected Bibliography 296 ix Notes to the text The dates listed in parentheses in the text of my dissertation refer to the original production date for the plays. In the bibliography, the dates listed refer to their publication date. 1 Introduction: Comic Traditions and Women Playwrights in Northern Ireland The bitter, the hollow and—Haw! Haw!—the mirthless. The bitter laugh laughs at that which is not good, it is the ethical laugh. The hollow laugh laughs at that which is not true, it is the intellectual laugh. Not good! Not true! Well well. But the mirthless laugh is the dianoetic laugh, down the snout—Haw!—so. It is the laugh of laughs, the risus purus, the laugh laughing at the laugh, the beholding, the saluting of the highest joke, in a word the laugh that laughs—silence please— at that which is unhappy. (Beckett Watt 48) Ludo ergo sum: I play therefore lam. (Stewart Parker, Dramatis Personae 6) The fundamentally theatrical nature of life amid the contemporary Troubles in Northern Ireland has been noted by several critics.1 John P. Harrington and Elizabeth J. Mitchell begin their introduction to Politics and Performance in Contemporary Northern Ireland with a telling anecdote: "Youngsters in Northern Ireland who exaggerate a hurt are apt to be urged by their parents to 'stop that playactin'!(1). While this underscores the dramatic nature of everyday life in Northern Ireland, it also highlights an underlying connection between theatre and the play-spirit of comedy. Contemporary Northern Irish playwright Stewart Parker believes that play is central to both life and theatre and that theatre becomes an educational tool "If for the word Drama we substitute the word Play." Citing Johan Huizinga's study, Homo Ludens, Stewart insists that "Play is how we test the world and register its realities. Play is how we experiment, imagine, invent, and move forward. Play is above all how we enjoy the earth and celebrate our life upon it" (.Dramatis Personae 6). Despite and perhaps because of the tragic nature of the Troubles, this play-spirit mixed with a fundamentally acerbic humour is one of the essential mainstays of Northern Irish life, culture, and theatre. Ashley Taggart notes that a mordant 1 See Harrington and Mitchell; Maguire, Making Theatre; Murray; and Roche, Contemporary. 2 humour "informs Northern Irish life, and... pervades the work of all its writers" (67). She suggests that playwrights from Northern Ireland "retain a keen sense of the absurd," and "We may be watching the comedy of desperation, but the glimmer of wit never quite dies." Taggart insists that "Playwrights must give voice to the instinctive dark humour which crosses the divide, and which, consciously or otherwise, unites its people" (82). This underlying dark humour and play-spirit are evident throughout the Troubles drama of Anne Devlin, Christina Reid, Marie Jones, and Jennifer Johnston. These playwrights invoke the manifold and multivalent forms and devices of comedy to simultaneously capture and deconstruct the absurdities and tragedies of their divided society. Through alienation and meta-laughter comedy creates a vital distance by displacing the immediacy and the tragedy of the Troubles; comic estrangement enables the women playwrights in this study to critically examine the sociohistorical contexts of the Troubles. Nevertheless, the play-spirit of comedy in the works of Devlin, Reid, Jones, and Johnston also often serves to unite characters and audiences in shared stories and laughter, offering glimmers of hope and imaginative possibility amid the despair and tragedies of their troubled society.