Performance, Modernity and the Plays of J. M. Synge

Explores concepts of performance, modernity and progress by combining performance studies and historical research with contextualised readings of Synge's plays.

Hélène Lecossois (Author)

9781108487795, Cambridge University Press

Hardback, published 26 November 2020

250 pages, 6 b/w illus.
16 x 23.5 x 2 cm, 0.49 kg

'Lecossois's fresh perspective is extremely relevant to performance studies and Irish studies … recommended.' W. S. Brockman, Choice

Irish Revivalist playwright J. M. Synge is often regarded as a realist. Yet what happens when his work is analysed through wider performance studies and situated alongside less familiar historical contexts? By addressing this question, Hélène Lecossois offers new and valuable perspectives on Synge's plays while at the same time engaging with the complexity of his treatment of a range of performance practices – from keening at rural funerals to the performances of 'native villagers' in the entertainment section of International Exhibitions. What emerges from her study is a dramatist acutely aware of the ability of theatre in performance to counteract relentless forward-moving narratives of modernity. Through detailed, contextualized case studies, the book simultaneously makes meaningful contributions to performance studies and opens up theoretical questions of performance relating to the status of the object on stage, the body on stage and theatrical time.

1. Staging authenticity
2. The spectacle of modernity
3. Performing the repertoire
4. 'Queer bodies': counter-modern modes of embodiment
5. Unresolved temporalities
6. Creative failures.

Subject Areas: Literary studies: c 1800 to c 1900 [DSBF], Literature: history & criticism [DS], Theatre studies [AN]