Monologue Drama in Ireland from 1964 – 2016: Form and Per(Form)Ativity
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1 “Impossible Speech” - Monologue Drama in Ireland from 1964 – 2016: Form and Per(form)ativity A thesis submitted to the School of Creative Arts, Trinity College Dublin, in fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy 2018 Tim Barrett, MPhil 2 Declaration I declare that this thesis has not been submitted as an exercise for a degree at this or any other university and it is entirely my own work. I agree to deposit this thesis in the University’s open access institutional repository or allow the library to do so on my behalf, subject to Irish Copyright Legislation and Trinity College Library conditions of use and acknowledgement. ______________________________ Tim Barrett 3 Summary This dissertation is a study of monologue drama by Irish playwrights on the island of Ireland from 1964 to 2016. The starting point of 1964 has been selected as it was the year of the first production of Brian Friel’s Philadelphia Here I Come!, a study of which opens Chapter One of the thesis. The thesis proceeds through a consideration of different productions of monologue plays across recent decades in Irish history and through different social, economic and cultural contexts. I will identify monologue drama as a topic that has received limited attention by scholars and argue that my dissertation addresses that deficit in the field. The critical methodology I have adopted is the analysis of a selection of texts of monologue plays from 1964 to 2016, including references to the first productions of those plays, their critical reception and the historical context in which those plays were produced. The texts, productions and performances have been selected according to theme and have been arranged to support an argument which seeks to interpret the prevalence of the monologue dramatic form as political, cultural and social expressions of desire to be reinstated into dominant narratives that have excluded them. The critical frames I have chosen to critique monologue drama during this period are theories of performativity, principally the work of J.L. Austin, Judith Butler and Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick. The basis of my critical approach is Austin’s and Butler’s theorisation of the performative force of language, as opposed to its descriptive function. Monologue drama, which stages the theatre and world-making performative properties of language, and with a visual and auditory emphasis on the speaking subject, offers a suitable site for analysis using these theories: monologue drama is posited as a theatricalisation of the speaking subject Austin and Butler theorise. The substitution of a diegetic, narrative mode for conventional mimetic representation is deciphered as a crisis in theatrical representation and a consequent pursuit of an alternative representational strategy which embodies and voices marginalised 4 subjects. Despite Austin’s and Butler’s respective reservations surrounding theatrical performance, their performativities are perfectly positioned to support a political reading of the growth of the monologue dramatic form over this period. The critical methodology and theoretical framework will put into dialogue theories of performativity with theatrical performance. Performativity Studies has tended to focus on monologue performance genres other than monologue drama, such as performance art. Austin’s thinking about performativity and the performative emerge from the realm of ordinary language philosophy. Subsequent scholars such as Searle, Derrida and de Man maintain focus on a linguistic, philosophical aspect to the questions of the performative. Butler, drawing on both Foucault and Derrida, introduces a political and social dimension to the genealogy of performativity, utilising its concepts in the arena of feminist activism, gender constructedness and construction. My use of Butler’s more political orientations will explore monologue drama’s constructions of gender, class and nationality and how spectators may intervene in projects of identity reconstruction. My dissertation will conclude that the body of monologue drama from 1964 to 2016 constitutes evidence of a crisis in theatrical representation, precipitating a turn to the monologic and to the enabling conditions of theatrical performance which allow for cultural self-reconstructions. However, Butler’s concepts of the performative forces’ production of legitimate and excluded domains will be deployed to analyse the efficacy of these political acts of reconstruction. At a time of much formal innovation within the theatre in Ireland, the established domain of dialogue-based drama, founded on Aristotelian principles, produced a counter-canon of monologue drama in order to sustain its own legitimacy and dominance, an ongoing dialectic which productively highlights the strengths and limitations of both dramatic forms. The monologue dramatic form’s singular capacity for lyricism and performative virtuosity continue to attract the attentions of playwrights and actors. 5 Acknowledgements I would like to thank Professor Stephen Wilmer, who was my Principal Supervisor from 2008 until 2015, and who agreed to continue to supervise me following his retirement from the School of Drama, Film and Music when he took up a fellowship at the Freie Universität Berlin from 2014-15. The opportunity to participate in Steve’s playwriting classes was also much appreciated. Dr Melissa Sihra took over my supervision for the final two years of my research. Melissa’s orientation, encouragement and feedback were essential in enabling me to complete my thesis. I am hugely grateful for her support. Professor Brian Singleton and Professor Matthew Causey made some very helpful comments and suggestions during two Ph.D. confirmation interviews which added significantly to my research. Thanks also to Dr Eric Weitz, Dr Nicholas Johnson, Dr Fintan Walsh and Dr Sara Brady for their stimulating and thought-provoking tuition and to the student body within the School of Drama, Film and Music for lively and engaging discussions during the time of my studies. I would like to express my gratitude to Dr Ruth Barton and to Dr Eamonn Jordan for their support and to Ann Mulligan and Rhona Greene who have been most helpful in dealing with any queries I have had. The Dean of Graduate Studies, Professor Neville Cox, granted me an additional year in which to complete my Doctorate, for which I am most grateful. I would like to thank Gillian Greer, Carmel Winters and Paul Mercier for permission to use their unpublished work for my studies. I would like to thank my parents John and Sheila Barrett, my brothers and sisters and extended family, my friends and colleagues, and Loraine Maher, for their support. 6 Table of Contents Introduction ................................................................................................................................................. 8 Overview ................................................................................................................................................... 8 Methodology and Primary Material ....................................................................................................... 13 Performativities: Austin, Butler and Sedgwick ....................................................................................... 21 “From Messenger Speech to Spalding Gray”: Global and Historical Monologue Performance ............ 40 Ireland’s Monologue Explosion .............................................................................................................. 59 “Am I Talking to Myself?” - A Suspect Form ........................................................................................... 64 Monologue in Performance: Production, Reception and Orientations ................................................. 69 Conclusion .............................................................................................................................................. 71 Chapter One - “Linguistic Magic”: Myth and Truth Creation in Friel’s Monologue Drama ..................... 74 Introduction ............................................................................................................................................ 74 Austin’s Magical Invocations .................................................................................................................. 83 “You Jist Keep Atalkin’ to You’self” – Philadelphia Here I Come! .......................................................... 88 “A Triumph of Unconvention”- Faith Healer ........................................................................................ 101 Miracle Molly ........................................................................................................................................ 118 “Bewitching Moves” - Dancing at Lughnasa ......................................................................................... 125 Conclusion ............................................................................................................................................ 131 Chapter Two - “Signatories”: Isolation, Exile and Sovereign Performativity ......................................... 136 Introduction .......................................................................................................................................... 136 Originary Performatives: The 1916 Proclamation ................................................................................ 140 “On the Way Out” – Rural Monologues of the Dispossessed