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9781433103322

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A pioneering study, both scholarly and reader-friendly, this important book probes in fascinating detail the lives and works of five neglected Irish playwrights and makes a valid case for their recognition as major voices. Leeney has done the Irish theatre a magnificent service. (Christopher Murray, Emeritus Professor of Drama and Theatre History, University College Dublin) This timely and original revisioning of Irish theatre engages and challenges the gendered interpretations of text in performance. Against a rich theoretical background, Leeney explores the work of these five playwrights who, through individual innovations in theatrical space and coded language, upset theatrical conventions and unsettled the accepted interpretations of violence, culture, and politics. (Ann Saddlemyer, Emeritus Professor of English and Drama, University of Toronto) Leeney's important study of Irish women playwrights from 1900 to 1939 recuperates the five focus women and re-contextualizes their work. Her scholarship is extensive, yet the argument reads clearly. Her theatrical experience lends new perspectives on the performance potential of the plays discussed. The book reveals the strides all five women made as playwrights attempting to gain control over their art and of their place in Ireland and indeed the world. Refusing simple dichotomies, Leeney opens up the complexities of Ireland's theatrical history in its state infancy and helps us to recognize more fully some of the women who worked to make real change. (Dawn Duncan, Professor of English and Global Studies, Concordia College)

[...] Cathy Leeney's Irish Women Playwrights is a very important intervention into the field of Irish theatre studies - one that should be widely read, debated, and emulated. (Patrick Lonergan, GRAAT 2014)

"""A pioneering study, both scholarly and reader-friendly, this important book probes in fascinating detail the lives and works of five neglected Irish playwrights and makes a valid case for their recognition as major voices. Leeney has done the Irish theatre a magnificent service."" (Christopher Murray, Emeritus Professor of Drama and Theatre History, University College Dublin) ""This timely and original revisioning of Irish theatre engages and challenges the gendered interpretations of text in performance. Against a rich theoretical background, Leeney explores the work of these five playwrights who, through individual innovations in theatrical space and coded language, upset theatrical conventions and unsettled the accepted interpretations of violence, culture, and politics."" (Ann Saddlemyer, Emeritus Professor of English and Drama, University of Toronto) ""Leeney's important study of Irish women playwrights from 1900 to 1939 recuperates the five focus women and re-contextualizes their work. Her scholarship is extensive, yet the argument reads clearly. Her theatrical experience lends new perspectives on the performance potential of the plays discussed. The book reveals the strides all five women made as playwrights attempting to gain control over their art and of their place in Ireland and indeed the world. Refusing simple dichotomies, Leeney opens up the complexities of Ireland's theatrical history in its state infancy and helps us to recognize more fully some of the women who worked to make real change."" (Dawn Duncan, Professor of English and Global Studies, Concordia College)"

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Cathy Leeney lectures in drama studies at University College Dublin. She initiated the first Masters in Directing for Theatre in Ireland in 2005 and is a founding member of the Executive of the Irish Society for Theatre Research. She trained as a director with the British Theatre Association in London. Her publications include Seen and Heard: Six New Plays by Irish Women (2001), The Theatre of Marina Carr: «before rules was made» (edited with Anna McMullan, 2003), and essays and articles on twentieth century and contemporary Irish theatre, playwriting, and directing.

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