Representing the Rising
A Seminar Discussion and Trip to the National Theatre, Friday 21 October, 5.30pm
SPACE/BISR Guilt Group Theatre Trip
Representing the Rising: A Seminar Discussion and Trip to the National Theatre, Friday 21 October, 5.30pm
This year marks the centenary of the Easter Rising, a small-scale and short-lived insurrection in Ireland that began with the seizure of public buildings in Dublin and ended with deaths of more than 400 citizens and soldiers and the execution of sixteen rebels by the British Army. The Rising was doomed, and went ahead in the full knowledge that, as a military challenge to the British authorities in Ireland, it was bound to fail. But it set Ireland on a bloody course to independence and became a legitimating myth of the Irish Free State and later of the Irish Republic.
This event begins with a seminar discussion of literary representations of the Rising before a trip to the National Theatre to see Seán O’Casey’s The Plough and the Stars. This play embodies an arresting socialist critique of popular nationalism. Its premier at Dublin’s Abbey Theatre in February 1926 led to protests from the Republican women’s organization, Cumann na mBan and a riot led by the widows of several leading figures in the Rising. Taking to the stage to defend O’Casey, the poet William Butler Yeats cried ‘You have disgraced yourself again. Is this to be the recurring celebration of the arrival of Irish genius?’
The production we’re seeing at the National Theatre will almost certainly be received more respectfully. It’s painstaking in the historical realism with which it communicates O’Casey’s sideways view of events in Dublin in 1915 and 1916. But it’s possible to wonder whether it isn’t England that now stands in greater need of a warning against the excesses of populist nationalism.
Places at this event must be booked here in advance. There is a non-refundable charge of £20 for attending this event to cover the cost of theatre tickets and a limited number of spaces are available. For further details, please contact Dr Dermot Hodson (d.hodson@bbk.ac.uk) or Dr James Brown (jpc.brown@bbk.ac.uk)
This event is organized by Birkbeck’s Seminars on Politics, the Arts, Culture and Entertainment (SPACE) series and the BISR Guilt Group.