“Recalled to Life”: Postmodernism in Lennox Robinson’s The Lost Leader (1918)

Abstract

Despite playing a pivotal role in the development of Irish theatre, especially through his association with the Abbey Theatre (as writer, manager, director, and member of the Board of Directors), Lennox Robinson (1886-1958), is a largely forgotten figure, both within the public domain and within Irish scholarship. As the title, “Recalled to Life”, implies, this article constitutes a reminder of the contributions this intriguing and innovative playwright made to the Irish stage. When Robinson is sporadically name-checked by scholars, he is primarily remembered for the realist plays of his early career, perpetuating a reputation that disregards the dramatist’s later, experimental and unorthodox endeavours. Focusing on the 1918 play, The Lost Leader (in which the central character, may, or may not be, the “resurrected” Charles Stewart Parnell), the article explores Robinson’s subversion of dramatic protocols, highlighting the playwright’s use of techniques, primarily associated with postmodernism (intertextuality, an open form, self-reflexivity, metatheatre). In this way, Robinson self-consciously invites comparisons between the construction and function of the play-text, and the synthesis and propagation of ideological constructs, thereby, providing a much-needed intervention in an era of political upheavals.