Interart Relations and Self-Reflexivity in Contemporary Irish Drama

Abstract

This examination of contemporary Irish artist-plays (kunstlerdrama), dramatizing artist-protagonists and/or presenting artworks (music, painting, sculpture, or theatre art and performance itself), attempts to illuminate some of the ways in which the different manifestations of the artist and art on stage are integrated into drama and theatrical performance. The discussion focuses on questions of (re)presentation, such as the dramatic and/or structural implications of having an artist protagonist and/or art works in the stage space; how one form of art becomes incorporated into another, how the boundaries between them are kept or transcended, how those art forms interact with each other and, most importantly, how such interactions enhance the self-reflexivity of drama and theatre.