Abstract

Like the pattern of tartan, and like its etymology, practices coming from Europe to Ireland to Scotland, and going back in the opposite direction, can be traced between Molly MacEwen’s work at Dublin’s Gate Theatre and a range of events in Scotland – several of which were largescale European initiatives. Erika Fischer-Lichte also uses textile metaphors across several books and journal articles to illuminate historical genealogies of transnational performance traffic. The history of European theatre is, as Fischer-Lichte discusses, replete with examples of ‘the interweaving of neighbouring cultures that share a number of features.’ Modern European theatre was also increasingly influenced by Asian performing arts practices from the mid-nineteenth century, and theatre artists such as Max Reinhardt, Edward Gordon Craig, Vsevolod Meyerhold and Bertolt Brecht appropriated ‘certain elements and practices’ from Chinese and Japanese performing arts troupes who toured to Europe during the early twentieth century. This particular interweaving of performance cultures, according to Fischer-Lichte, ‘created entirely new theatre forms’ in Europe.

This chapter advocates for MacEwen’s importance as a designer and situates her practice within a set of interwoven influences, including mac Liammóir’s mentorship at the Gate Theatre, twentieth-century revivals of Early Modern stagecraft, design for large-scale outdoor and/or site-responsive events, and the modern European theatrical innovations of Craig, Adolphe Appia, and Leopold Jessner. I draw on a range of archival research, mainly involving The Dublin Gate Theatre Papers at the Charles Deering McCormick Library, Northwestern University, Illinois, and the Molly MacEwen Collection at the University of Glasgow’s Scottish Theatre Archive. Analysis of these materials reveals that MacEwen’s work at Dublin’s Gate Theatre can be situated within wider international contexts in terms of both its influences and its legacies, thus building on existing feminist historical revisionism that illuminates the often overlooked (and probably monumental) roles of women in the development of Irish and Scottish theatre practice.