Staging Ireland Down Under

This doctoral project uses quantitative data from the AusStage database to provide an overview of the plays, playwrights and practitioners involved in staging Irish drama on the Australian stage over time. The data reveal a surge in Australian practitioner and audience interest in Irish drama and performance-making during the final decade of the twentieth century and the first decade of the twenty-first century. This period is scrutinised to reveal possible reasons for the popularity of this vein of performance in Australia at the time. The early twenty-first century is subsequently discussed as a time when the Australian academy began to recognise the vibrancy and uniqueness of Irish theatre and performance. This study then presents case studies drawn from a diverse range of performances presented by Irish and Australian mainstage and independent practitioners in Australia during and since this era. Bourdieu’s ‘Habitus’ is employed as a theoretical framework to elucidate the unique qualities of an Irish manner of being in the world that draws such practitioners and audiences to this strand of world theatre and performance in Australia. Arjun Appadurai’s theories on interculturality and his concept of a ‘community of sentiment’ are discussed in order to argue for these practitioners and their audiences as such a community drawn to an Irish habitus, as elucidated by the sociologist Tom Inglis. The study discusses mainstage Irish performances that resonated in Australia at a time of disillusionment with institutional religion. Collaborations between Irish and Australian practitioners highlighting subaltern concerns are also examined. Finally, independent theatre companies on the fringes of Australian cultural life that have benefited from the ‘cultural capital’ associated with Irishness are also identified as constituents of this community