Navigating Ireland's Theatre Archive

Barry Houlihan

Navigating Ireland’s
Theatre Archive

Theory, Practice, Performance

PETER LANG

Oxford • Bern • Berlin • Bruxelles • New York • Wien

Bibliographic information published by Die Deutsche Nationalbibliothek.

Die Deutsche Nationalbibliothek lists this publication in the Deutsche Nationalbibliografie; detailed bibliographic data is available on the Internet at http://dnb.d-nb.de.

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data:

Names: Houlihan, Barry, author.

Title: Navigating Ireland’s theatre archive : theory, practice, performance / Barry Houlihan.

Description: Oxford ; New York : Peter Lang, [2019] | Includes bibliographical references and index.

Identifiers: LCCN 2018002491 | ISBN 9781787073722 (alk. paper)

Subjects: LCSH: Theater--Ireland--History. | Theater--Historiography. | History--Methodology.

Classification: LCC PN2601 .H68 2018 | DDC 792.09415--dc23 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2018002491

ISSN: 1662-9094

ISBN 978-1-78707-372-2 (print)   • eISBN 978-1-78874-282-5 (ePDF)

eISBN 978-1-78874-283-2 (ePub) • eISBN 978-1-78874-284-9 (Mobi)

Cover image: T13/B/355 Image of Ninette de Valois, Abbey Theatre Dublin,
c. 1928. © Arthur Shields Archive, James Hardiman Library, NUI Galway.

Cover design by Peter Lang Ltd.

© Peter Lang AG 2019

Published by Peter Lang Ltd, International Academic Publishers,

52 St Giles, Oxford, OX1 3LU, United Kingdom

oxford@peterlang.com, www.peterlang.com

Barry Houlihan has asserted his right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988, to be identified as the Author of this Work.

All rights reserved.

All parts of this publication are protected by copyright.

Any utilisation outside the strict limits of the copyright law, without the permission of the publisher, is forbidden and liable to prosecution. This applies in particular to reproductions, translations, microfilming, and storage and processing in electronic retrieval systems.

This publication has been peer reviewed.

About the author

Barry Houlihan is an archivist at the James Hardiman Library, NUI Galway, and teaches Irish theatre history at the O’Donoghue Centre for Drama, Theatre and Performance, NUI Galway. He holds a PhD on Irish theatre and social engagement. His research interests include theatre historiography, political and social theatre, archival and cultural theory and digital humanities. He is also a project team member of the Abbey Theatre and Gate Theatre Digital Archive Projects.

About the book

The historiography of Irish theatre has largely been dependent on in-depth studies of the play-text as the definitive primary source. This volume explores the processes of engaging with the documented and undocumented record of Irish theatre and broadens the concept of evidential study of performance through the use of increasingly diverse sources. The archive is regarded here as a broad repository of evidence including annotated scripts, photographs, correspondence, administrative documents, recordings and other remnants of the mechanics of producing theatre. It is an invaluable resource for scholars and artists in interrogating Ireland’s performance history.

This collection brings together key thinkers, scholars and practitioners who engage with the archive of Irish theatre and performance in terms of its creation, management and scholarly as well as artistic interpretation. New technological advances and mass digitization allow for new interventions in this field. The essays gathered here present new critical thought and detailed case studies from archivists, theatre scholars, historians and artists, each working in different ways to uncover and reconstruct the past practice of Irish performance through new means.

This eBook can be cited

This edition of the eBook can be cited. To enable this we have marked the start and end of a page. In cases where a word straddles a page break, the marker is placed inside the word at exactly the same position as in the physical book. This means that occasionally a word might be bifurcated by this marker.

Figures

Figure 1.1. Screenshot of the Abbey Theatre Minute Books 1904–1939 Digital Transcription Project, NUI Galway.

Figure 2.1. Image from Between Trees and Water, produced by Painted Bird Productions and directed by Fiona McGeown.

Figure 4.1. Artist’s impression of the Theatre Royal.

Figure 4.2. Surviving remains – theatrical masks and statues.

Figure 4.3. Longitudinal section, Theatre Royal, March 1934. Post-conservation diazotype print. Photograph reproduced courtesy of the National Archives of Ireland © (Archival Ref.: OPW/5HC/4/955/21).

Figure 4.4. Front elevation, Theatre Royal, November 1934.Post-conservation diazotype print. Photograph reproduced courtesy of the National Archives of Ireland © (Archival Ref.: OPW/5HC/4/955/22).

Figure 4.5. Theatre Royal massing model, view of auditorium.

Figure 4.6. Preliminary digital model of Theatre Royal façade.

Figure 4.7. Preliminary digital model, view of the auditorium.

Figure 4.8. Preliminary digital model of Theatre Royal organ.

Figure 4.9. Digital model wireframe showing complexity.

Figure 4.10. Preliminary digital model, stall arches and auditorium.

Figure 6.1. Fiach Mac Conghail, Michael D. Higgins, President of Ireland, Sabina Higgins, Gregory Doran, pictured at Stratford-upon-Avon. 2014.←xi | xii→

Figure 6.2. Poster from Hamlet, 21 April 1983 [poster]. Abbey Theatre Digital Archive at National University of Ireland, Galway, 0746_PO_0001, p1.

Figure 7.1. Gate Theatre. Youth’s the Season–?, 8 December 1931 [programme]. Gate Theatre Digital Archive at National University of Ireland, Galway, 1613_MPG_0001, p1.

Figure 7.2. Image from Happy Family by Mary Manning. Courtesy of Gate Theatre Archive, Northwestern University.

Figure 8.1. From left to right, Dr Tanya Dean, Dr Brenda Donohue, Dr Ciara Conway, Ciara Murphy, pictured at the launch of the Gender Counts report, commissioned by the #WakingTheFeminists, 2017.

Figure 9.1. Cork Courthouse during the promenade production of The Merchant of Venice by Corcadorca Theatre Company, 2005.

Figure 11.1. Members of Red Kettle Theatre Company, courtesy of Red Kettle Theatre Archive, Waterford IT Library.←xii | xiii→

Tables

Table 1.1. Roles of partners within digital transcription project, NUI Galway

Table 8.1. Overview of archive content for companies included with Gender Counts report, with analysis of female representation←xiii | xiv→ ←xiv | 1→

Acknowledgements

Working on this volume has been made possible by so many people. It has grown from a conference, ‘Performing the Archive’, held at NUI Galway in July 2015. This success of this conference came from working with and being inspired by my colleagues and conference co-organisers, Dr Charlotte McIvor, Dr Ian Walsh and Dr Ciara Conway. This volume simply would not exist without all their long and hard work on bringing the conference together and without their expert guidance and support through various ventures over the past few years. To have your support as colleagues and friends, I am hugely grateful.