Abstract

This lecture examines how contemporary Irish playwrights depict and how they engage the cinematic and narrative patterns we’ve come to associate with American movies. Donal O’Kelly’s Catalpa (1995), Martin McDonagh’s The Cripple of Inishmaan (1996), Marie Jones’s Stones in His Pockets (1999), and Geraldine Hughes’s Belfast Blues (2003) grapple with the effects of Hollywood on their characters and on Irish society. Despite frequently depicting individuals thwarted in their pursuit of big screen success, these plays maintain a surprising optimism about Hollywood. This suggests the American film industry provides a productive tool for exploring Irish identity and history in a moment of rapidly changing, globalized popular culture.

Paige Reynolds

Paige Reynolds is an associate professor in the English Department of the College of the Holy Cross in Worcester, Massachusetts. She is the author of Modernism, Drama, and the Audience for Irish Spectacle (Cambridge UP, 2007), and has published on topics related to Irish literature and theatre, modernism, and film audiences. She is at work on a project examining women’s modernist practice in Ireland.