Irish rebellion in-yer-face or consigned to history: Seán O’Casey’s The Plough and the Stars in 2016

Abstract

ABSTRACT This article considers two revisions of Seán O’Casey’s play The Plough and the Stars (1926) for the 2016 centenary commemoration of the 1916 Rising in Dublin: Sean Holmes’s robust new version staged at the Abbey Theatre in Dublin; and Howard Davies’s powerful yet sensitive production at the Lyttelton Theatre in London. These productions displayed contrasting directorial perspectives. Whilst Holmes emphasised serious social issues among those living below the poverty line in Dublin in the 2010s, Davies recreated the historical environment of 1916, reflecting the original context of O’Casey’s play from 1926. As this article argues, the two productions are not only important for their historic value but also because they reflect two major trends in contemporary British theatre: in-yer-face extravagance and historical documentarism. The article concludes by exploring the cultural and political significance of the expression ‘Waking the Nation’ (the title of the Abbey Theatre’s centenary programme, in which Holmes’s production appeared), and in particular its relation to these two revisions of The Plough and the Stars, a play originally written for the tenth anniversary of the Easter Rising that took place between 24th and 29 April 1916.