Beauty in a Broken Place

Colm Tóibín

Lilliput Press, 2004 - Drama - 77 pages

Toibin's drama brilliantly re-enacts and evokes the personalities and workings of the Abbey Theatre in 1926. Lady Gregory, Yeats and O'Casey defend their daring play against the stifling mores of the day and the rule of the rabble and the widows of the 1916 leaders. It is a timely reminder of the perennial conflict between the demands of art and of politics in Irish cultural life. As Sean O'Casey addresses the ghost of Lady Gregory he recalls Yeats' Monday evening gatherings and early visits to Coole Park, and the staging, rehearsal and enacting of The Plough and the Stars, itself commissioned for the tenth anniversary of the 1916 Rising. This inner drama has walk-on parts for the principals: Abbey manager Lennox Robinson, directors WB and Mrs Yeats, government-appointed board-member George O'Brien, actors Shelagh Delaney, Ria Mooney, Miss Crowe and McCormack, and street demagogues Hannah Sheehy Skeffington, Mrs Tom Pearse and Maud Gonne protesting the mockery of martyrs.

Contents

• Section 1: 4
• Section 2: 6
• Section 3: 9

About the author

Colm Tóibín was born in Enniscorthy, Ireland in 1955. He studied history and English at University College Dublin, earning his B.A. in 1975. After graduating he moved to Barcelona for three years and taught at the Dublin School of English. In 1978 he returned to Dublin and began working on an M.A. in Modern English and American Literature. He wrote for In Dublin, Hibernia, and The Sunday Tribune. He became the Features Editor of In Dublin in 1981, and then a year later accepted the position of Editor for the Irish current affairs magazine Magill. His first book, Walking Along the Border, was published in 1987 and his first novel, The South, was published in 1990. He wrote for The Sunday Independent as a drama or television critic and political commentator. He writes regularly for The London Review of Books. He has written several other novels including The Story of the Night, The Blackwater Lightship, Brooklyn, The Testament of Mary, and Nora Webster. The Heather Blazing received the 1993 Encore Award and The Master received the 2006 International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award, the Stonewall Book Award, and the Lambda Literary Award. He was short listed for the 2015 Folio Prize for his title Nora Webster.

Bibliographic information

• Title: Beauty in a Broken Place; Abbey Theatre playscript series
• Author: Colm Tóibín
• Publisher: Lilliput Press, 2004
• Original from: the University of Michigan
• Digitized: May 29, 2008
• ISBN: 1843510545, 9781843510543
• Length: 77 pages
• Subjects: Drama / European / English, Irish, Scottish, Welsh; Drama / General