Abstract

By focusing on devised performance, we embrace the flexibility and fluidity of roles, the collectivity of creative processes, to recognize forgotten historical contributions and celebrate the work of diverse participants as theatre-makers past and present. Perhaps the lack of a sustained theorizing of Irish devised theatre’s goals, aesthetics and impacts up until now stems from the ways in which some of this work resists containment within linguistic parameters and, hence, is even more ‘ephemeral’ than the traditional ‘play.’ In Conway’s introduction to The Oberon Anthology of Contemporary Irish Plays, he offers, somewhat paradoxically, that the volume entails a published record of recent productions that ‘ride in no slipstream of the identifiably Irish play’ and offer ‘a commitment to become in the theatre’ (7). Our own volume seeks to explore rigorously the slipstream that Conway identifies that indeed has changed the face and working processes of Irish theatre in 2015, as well as broadening who can be credited as the ‘authors’ of contemporary Ireland as lived on the stage. This slipstream can only be navigated through a thorough historical approach to devised performance cognisant of national and international trends in theatre practice that influenced its development, and its implications for the future of Irish theatre as a genre in its own right. In navigating this history, Devised Performance in Irish Theatre’s coverage can only be partial, and it is hoped that this collection is the springboard for diverse future inquiries.