Waking the Feminists: Re-imagining the Space of the National Theatre in the Era of the Celtic Phoenix

Waking the NationIn October 2015 Ireland's national theatre, the Abbey, announced its 2016 program, entitled Waking the Nation.2016 constitutes the centenary of the Easter Rising and the proclamation of the Irish Republic-powerful political events that would culminate in Ireland's partition and the independence of the South from Britain.While the seeds of this moment lie in far deeper historical soil, birth of the nation rhetoric abounds in relation to 1916, and the centenary year was characterized by reflections on the history and current state of the Republic.It saw re-enactments, parades, processions, speeches, an outpouring of pride in Ireland's independence movement, as well as critical debates on Irish history and where the nation is headed next.The Irish national theatre has long been understood as a "mirror up to nation" (Murray), due, in part, to its central role in the cultural nationalist movement that informed the Easter Rising.Though the first nationally endowed theatre in the English-speaking world, the Abbey is no mouthpiece for the state.For example, in 1926, just ten years after the Easter Rising, it staged Seán O'Casey's The Plough and the Stars, a tragi-comedy about 1916 that critiques blood sacrifice and laments the death of socialism in the Irish nationalist movement as well as the effect of the rising on women and protestants.The play provoked outcry from government officials, nationalists, and the relatives of those who died in the rebellion (Morash 163-71).Theatre scholar Patrick Lonergan notes that The Plough and the Stars firstly, "established that the function of the Abbey in an independent Ireland would be to analyze the nation's sense of itself," secondly, "allowed the Abbey to emphasize its importance to-but independence from-the new Irish state," and thirdly, "provoked a series of protests that were based on the belief that national theatre is worthy of serious debate and contestation" (62).This legacy remains vibrant today.It was to be expected, therefore, that in announcing the Waking the Nation program, Fiach McConghaill, then artistic director of the Abbey, promised to "interrogate rather than celebrate the past" and encouraged Irish people, "in a year of national introspection," to "ask urgent questions