CALIFORNIA STATE UNIVERSITY, NORTHRIDGE Performing Re-Imagined Memories: Signatories and the Centenary of the Easter Rising A thesis submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements For the degree of Master of Arts in Theatre By Madeline Fanton May 2018 Copyright by Madeline Fanton 2018 ii The thesis of Madeline Fanton is approved: _________________________________________ __________________ Dr. Ah-jeong Kim Date _________________________________________ __________________ Dr. Hillary Miller Date _________________________________________ __________________ Dr. J’aime Morrison, Chair Date California State University, Northridge iii Preface: Table of Monologues and Authors I have listed below the eight authors and the corresponding monologue they wrote for the play Signatories. With 8 writers, 8 characters, and the audience moving through the space of Kilmainham Gaol, it can be hard to connect each character to their individual performance. The interjections in chapters one, two, and three of this thesis that appear in brackets and italics are my personal observations from the video recording provided by UCD. These descriptions are written in hopes of giving the reader a strong sense of each character’s setting and posture. Author Signatory/Monologue Emma Donaghue Elizabeth O’Farrell Thomas Kilroy Padraig Pearse Hugo Hamilton James Connolly Frank McGuinness Éamonn Ceannt Rachel Feehily Thomas Clarke Éilís Ní Dhuibhne Séan Mac Diarmada Marina Carr Thomas MacDonagh Joseph O’Connor Joseph Mary Plunkett iv Dedication Dedicated to: Dr. J’aime Morrison, who inspired me; Dr. Hillary Miller, who challenged me; Dr. Ah-jeong Kim, who encouraged me; Mom & Dad, who supported me; and Nick, who carried me. A special thank you to Eilis O’Brien and University College Dublin for allowing me to view a video recording of the Signatories performance at Kilmainham Gaol. v Signature Page ii Copyright iii Preface: Table of Monologues and Authors iv Dedication v Abstract vii Introduction: Methodology and Review of the Literature 1 Chapter 1: The Echoing Voice, The Lingering Face 15 Traces of Cultural Narratives and Images from 1916 in 2016 Chapter 2: Something You Can Touch 33 Objects and Artifacts from 1916 in 2016 Chapter 3: Moving Through Space 50 Lingering Choreographies and Geographies of 1916 in 2016 Conclusion: Locating Signatories in the Larger Centenary Dreamscape 68 Afterword: Commemorative Dreamscapes of the Non-Western World 76 Works Cited 80 Appendix i: Easter Proclamation 86 Appendix ii: Production Still 87 Appendix iii: Photograph of the Surrender 88 vi Abstract Performing Re-Imagined Memories: Signatories and the Centenary of the Easter Rising By Madeline Fanton Master of Arts in Theatre On Easter Monday of 1916, after decades of increasing Irish nationalist sentiment, the Irish Republican Brotherhood, in tandem with the Irish Citizen Army and the Irish Volunteers, staged a short-lived rebellion against British colonial rule. Seven leaders of the independence movement signed a document, now called the Easter Proclamation. These signatories have been mainstays of the Irish cultural imagination surrounding the Rising and its subsequent cultural and political implications. 2016 marked the centenary of this insurrection, known as the Easter Rising. In commemoration of the centenary, eight of Ireland’s contemporary playwrights came together to create a performance that vii would give voice to each of the seven signatories of the Easter Proclamation and the nurse who delivered their eventual surrender. This commemorative performance project, titled Signatories, was commissioned by University College Dublin as part of the larger Decade of Centenaries state commemorations. The monologues of Signatories incorporate historical information drawn from archival materials and fill in the gaps with imagined memories, experiences, and cultural mythology drawn from the repertoire, simultaneously creating a new archival article, the text, while transmitting embodied knowledge through the performance. Signatories falls somewhere in-between archive and repertoire. This in-between space is akin to dream, where it is hard to distinguish what is real and what is imagined, where space, time, and identity are fluid, where images constructed from lived experiences mingle with images of hope, terror, and subconscious sensations not yet realized. Chapter One of this thesis addresses the ways that cultural narratives, preserved through linguistic imagery, are performed in Signatories. Chapter Two discusses the performance of artifacts and the way these more traditional archival materials interact with the live performance of the monologues. These artifacts foster an embodied semiotics that allows for consideration of how memory and history can be preserved and imagined through the handling of archival materials. Chapter Three explores the performativity of spaces that appear in the language and imagination of the characters as well as the movements that occur around and within them. The site-specific element, the staging of Signatories at Kilmainham Gaol, is also considered. viii Introduction: Methodology and Review of the Literature The 2016 play, Signatories, written by eight Irish writers to commemorate the centenary of the Easter Rising, is the center point for this study. The Signatories project was conceived as part of University College Dublin’s “Decade of Centenaries” public engagement program. The play was commissioned by the university to present a theatrical experience of what the seven signatories of the Proclamation, as well as Nurse Elizabeth O’Farrell might have thought and felt. As the anchor for my thesis, my analysis includes a literary and performative analysis of this text in relationship to the original event in 1916. Performance analysis is approached through the lens of Stanton B. Garner’s thoughts on theatrical phenomenology, explained in his book, Bodied Spaces: Phenomenology and the Performance of Modern Drama. The play is studied as a literal embodiment of the imagined cultural mythology of the seven signatories of the Easter Proclamation. Garner’s perspective is unique in that he takes theatrical texts as his study for phenomenal experience in the theatre, believing that “the text coordinates the elements of performance and puts them into play” and therefore “supports the specific needs of phenomenological analysis” (Bodied Spaces, Garner, 6). This approach is invaluable to the present study, as I am unable to experience the performance events examined here first-hand. I have been able to view a performance of Signatories that was recorded for the University and my personal observations of this viewing experience are included in my analysis. These observations are flagged in the footnotes and can also be found in several sections of bracketed and italicized text. The text that appears in the brackets includes my own description of the setting, character, and orientation of each monologue. 1 These are creative descriptions based on my viewing of the video-taped performance of Signatories at Kilmainham Gaol and are designed to connect the reader the performance experience. The frame of phenomenology put forth by Garner includes examination of both theatrical space and the body itself in performance as sites of phenomenological experience. The study of two different but interrelated sites of experience echoes the main theoretical frame of this thesis: the different but interrelated modes of cultural transmission, the archive and the repertoire. Garner and Diana Taylor provide foundational language for talking about the concrete versus ephemeral, embodied elements of the centenary celebration and the way in which Signatories occupies a unique space on the continuum between archive and repertoire, past and present, dreams and reality. The Rising has been commemorated since 1917 with ceremonies and remembrances of varying intensity, arriving at the centenary commemoration in 2016. Official commemorations have included parades, city tours, statues, pageants, televised events, and theatrical productions. In commemoration of the centenary in 2016, University College Dublin commissioned eight contemporary Irish writers (Hugo Hamilton, Frank McGuinness, Rachel Fehily, Ellis Ni Dhuibhne, Marina Carr, Emma Donaghue, Thomas Kilroy, and Joseph O’Connor), all with personal and academic ties to UCD, to create a performance that would give voice to each of the seven signatories of the Easter Proclamation: James Connolly, Eamonn Ceannt, Thomas Clarke, Sean Mac Diarmada, Thomas MacDonagh, Padraig Pearse, and Joseph Plunkett, and the nurse who delivered their eventual surrender, Elizabeth O’Farrell. Each writer chose one of the 2 historical figures and wrote a ten-minute monologue to represent them. These monologues made up the performance called Signatories, which was initially staged in Kilmainham Gaol1 where the actual signatories of the Proclamation were held and executed after their defeat. This collection of monologues is expressly not historical, rather, the writers were given license to imagine what might have been the inner thoughts of these individuals. To UCD’s Director of Communication and Marketing, Eilis O’Brien, Signatories was intended to take the audience “beyond the realm of history and political science” (Signatories Preface, x). On Easter Monday of 1916, after decades of increasing Irish nationalist sentiment, the Irish Republican Brotherhood, in tandem with the Irish Citizen Army and the Irish Volunteers, staged a short-lived