Theatre of Crisis

As with every other aspect of Ireland’s cultural history in the early modern period, the history of theatrical production and performance has suffered grievously from the destruction of vitally important records. At the beginning of the twentieth century the amateur theatre historian W. J. Lawrence inadvertently did the subject an enormous service by compiling an archive of copies of hundreds of documents soon to be destroyed in the Irish Public Record Office during the civil war. Lawrence’s extensive collection, which ended up in the library of the University of Cincinnati, inspired the American scholar W.S. Clark to attempt, in The Early Irish Stage: The Beginnings to 1720 (1955), the most thorough study of all the materials available. Recognised as definitive at the time of its appearance, Clark’s study retains its authoritative status. And while in the present study Patrick Tuite offers some corrections and additions to Clark’s list of plays performed, and further develops Clark’s findings—particularly through his extensive use of the Carte MSS in the Bodleian, his book in no way supplants Clark

Aesthetics · Amateur · Archaeology · Art · Art history · Irish · Library science · Period (music · Power (physics · Spanish Civil War · Subject (documents · Classics · History · Irish and British Studies · Philosophy