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The Role of Gender in Selected Irish Plays
Pichrtová, Lenka ; Wallace, Clare (advisor) ; Pilný, Ondřej (referee)
The purpose of this thesis is to examine how the turbulent changes within the Irish society affected the face of modern Irish drama. Ireland, originally a rural country bound by religious dogmas and its own colonial past, underwent a considerable amount of development in the latter half of the 20th century; it was predominantly manifested through an increased Celtic Tiger economic prosperity and decreasing influence of the Catholic Church. The central interest of Irish culture has always been the effort to define a unifying national metanarrative and identity. In the beginning of the 20th century this desire was motivated by a struggle to establish a vital opposition between Ireland and Great Britain and definitely renounce its depreciating status of a former colony. However, in the second half of the 20th century the discrepancy between the nationalist ideology driven idea of Irish identity (whose value has always been questionable to say the least) and its modern reality became unbridgeable. The introduction of this thesis is dedicated to summarizing the changes within the Irish society in the course of the 20th century. A brief characterization of this turbulent development should justify the urge of more recent artists to re-formulate the Irish national metanarrative to suit the 20th century...
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The Production History and Reception of Brian Friel's Dancing at Lughnasa in Irish and Czech contexts
Pínová, Kateřina ; Pilný, Ondřej (advisor) ; Wallace, Clare (referee)
Thesis Abstract The aim of this thesis is to compare the production history and reception of Brian Friel's Dancing at Lughnasa, arguably one of his most famous and successful plays, in Irish and Czech contexts. Following its triumphant premiere at the Abbey Theatre in 1990 directed by Patrick Mason, the production transferred to London and Broadway, where it garnered further critical acclaim and several prestigious awards. The first Czech production, directed by Jan Burian, opened at Divadlo na Vinohradech in Prague in 1993, and over the course of the next twenty years it was staged another eight times on Czech professional - mostly regional stages. The opening chapter of the thesis focuses on the analysis of Dancing at Lughnasa using the method of close reading, as well as consulting secondary literature. The following chapter is divided into two parts, the first of them attempting to outline the background of the play by focusing on the events of the 1930s in Ireland. The second part is concerned with the context of writing Dancing at Lughnasa. Chapters four and five comprise the main body of the thesis and deal with the description of the five most significant productions in Ireland and the Czech Republic. These chapters focus on the context, the directors' concept, the acting and the critical acclaim....
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Brian Friel's Conception of Forming History and Its Implications
Kantorová, Aneta ; Pilný, Ondřej (advisor) ; Wallace, Clare (referee)
Thesis Abstract The aim of this thesis is to provide a thorough overview of Brian Friel's attitude to historical writing based on an analysis of three of his plays that directly deal with the themes of Irish history and heritage - Translations, The Communication Cord, and Making History. The plays are analyzed from different perspectives, applying various sources and influences shaping Friel's understanding of the concept of history as such and its fictional representation in art. Upon this careful examination, major tendencies in Friel's historical writing are revealed offering a concise characterization of not only the plays in question but also of the Irish historical consciousness in general. The thesis is divided into four major chapters - one providing a theoretical background which would be later applied to the other three parts that deal directly with Friel's works. The theoretical part is further divided into a brief summary of the philosophy of history and a short introduction of the Field Day Theatrical Company. The former segment is based on Hayden White's Metahistory for he treats historical writing as a narrative rather than a scientific objective report. This part follows the development of the concept of history, truth, and art, and is mainly focused on Friedrich Nietzsche as an ideological...
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