Druids, Dudes and Beauty Queens: The Changing Face of Irish Theatre. Edited by Dermot Bolger. Dublin: New Island Press, 2002; pp. 302. $18.95 paper.

Abstract

At the beginning of his contribution to Druids, Dudes and Beauty Queens, Vic Merriman reminds us why Irish theatre has had a profile out of all proportion to the small, relatively sparsely populated island from which it hails. “Irish drama’s claim to social significance,” writes Merriman, “rests on the pledge that in acts of theatre something more than box office, or the reputation of an individual artist, is at stake. Theatre is part of a broader cultural conversation about who we are, how we are in the world, and who and how we would like to be” (54). Underlying most of the contributions to this collection—and they are diverse, coming from theatre artists, academics, and journalists—is a concern (sometimes fully articulated, sometimes implicit) that changes in Irish society over the past decade have eroded the conditions that once made Irish theatre “something more than box office.”