Theatre Of Crisis: The Performance of Power in the Kingdom of Ireland, 1662-1692

Theatre of Crisis, part of The Apple-Zimmerman Series in Early Modern Culture, investigates how soldiers, statesmen, printers, and playwrights attempted to define Ireland’s history and the identity of its inhabitants during a period of rapid and dynamic change. From the Restoration to the end of the Jacobite rebellion the kingdom’s subjects suffered the consequences of war, confiscation, and religious persecution. Its leaders dramatized the most important of these events in printed materials that promoted different versions of the past. They also staged theatrical displays to communicate their narratives to the kingdom’s diverse population. This book explains how different groups performed their identity in response to changing circumstances. It identifies how the productions at Dublin’s Smock Alley Theatre and other dramatic displays of power, including state-sponsored pageants, civic rituals, religious ceremonies, and school dramas, articulated Ireland’s social structure. Each chapter details how these public performances worked alongside the products of other media to reinforce or contest the colonial discourse that supported the kingdom’s Protestant establishment. Patrick Tuite heads the Master of Arts Program in Theatre History and Criticism at The Catholic University of America.