Talking with Ghosts of Irish Playwrights Past: Marina Carr's By the Bog of Cats ...

Abstract

In 1998, Marina Carr's play By Bog of Cats ... premiered at Ireland's famous Abbey Theatre as part of Dublin Theatre Festival. Carr's play was first written by a female dramatist to be produced on main stage of national theater for decades, a testimony to a new moment Irish theater, rife with potential for women dramatists, as well as a testament to this extraordinary playwright's great talent. On 31 May 2001, play premiered at Victory Gardens Theatre, presented by Irish Repertory of Chicago, but 14 September 2001 production at San Jose Repertory Theatre, with Holly Hunter lead role of Hester Swane--just three days after terrorist attacks of September 11--catapulted Carr to fame United States. Melissa Sihra has noted that the show ran for a month resulting an overall attendance of eighteen thousand people (1) play's violence was apparently appropriate to somber national mood: Sihra argues that in retrospect By Bog of Cats ... offered a sense of comfort and catharsis to audiences, where a lighter drama or comedy would certainly have been inappropriate at this time (2) Perhaps these times of war and terrorist bombings, this dark play remains appropriate to our situation. By Bog of Cats ... is a revenant drama, featuring a series of persistently questioning apparitions. These include Ghost Fancier, who appears at beginning of play for Hester Swane but who has gotten there too soon; ghost of Joseph Swane, brother of Hester Swane; and ghostly memories of figures from past such as Hester's mother, Josie, who disappeared thirty-three years ago, and Xavier Cassidy's son, who was poisoned by strychnine. While these ghosts figure specific argument that will follow, another array of spectral presences--the ghostly presences of Irish dramatists from past, whose work Cart has heavily drawn on, yet modified--suggests how best to understand comparative dramatic context of play. In her 1998 essay, Dealing with Dead, Carr casts question of literary influence ghostly terms. Discussing Odysseus's conversations with dead chapter 11 of Odyssey, The Book of Dead, she suggests that these discussions exemplify talking about writing and how to gain access to hidden knowledge, to past, to dead, to that other world. And what he seems to be saying is you must give blood, blood being sacrifice demanded for tongues or ear of dead. (3) Carr further observes that these passages from Homer demonstrate incredible bravery on part of writer. It's about courage to sit down and face ghosts and have a conversation with them. It's about going over to other side and coming back with something, new, hopefully; gold, possibly. (4) Carr, too, has had courage to face ghosts and have conversations with them. As her fellow Irish playwright Frank McGuinness observed his program note to Abbey Theatre production of By Bog of Cats ... 1998, Death is a big country. And hers is a big imagination, crossing border always between living and dead. (5) Contemporary Irish playwrights are much debt to their predecessors W. B. Yeats, John Synge, and Samuel Beckett--three of greatest playwrights of twentieth century. Carr has managed to learn from these ghosts of Irish playwrights past, borrowing from them and ultimately concocting her own inimitable theater. Although Euripides' Medea clearly influenced Carr's play, this essay will focus on specific ways which Carr's play proves Christopher Murray's thesis that in modern Irish dramatic history ... each successive writer rewrites his/her predecessors. (6) Apprehending spectral presence of these earlier Irish playwrights will enable us to gain some appreciation for continuing emphasis on language Irish drama, from its beginnings Abbey Theatre of Yeats, Gregory, and John Synge to its experimental apogee, theater of Samuel Beckett. …