16th November 2006

Email this Page |

The portrayal of violence in modern Irish theatre will be the focus of debate at the University’s Magee campus this weekend.

Acts of Aggression: The Performance of Violence on the Contemporary Irish Stage, is a two-day event hosted by the Drama Department, School of Creative Arts. 

Experts from across the UK and Ireland will explore issues such as the staging of violence, the performance of power and political violence.

Dr Lisa Fitzpatrick, lecturer in Drama at Magee said: “The portrayal of violence on stage is an issue that is increasingly coming to the fore. In the past decade a theatrical movement known as “in-yer-face theatre” or the “theatre of cruelty” has emerged powerfully onto the stage. 

“In Ireland, for example, Gary Mitchell’s representation of loyalist paramiliarism, contemporary tragedy based on both classical Greek and Irish Legends, and the popularity of a violent sub-genre of monodrama, raise questions about the representation of violence and its bodily effects.”

Dr Tom Maguire, lecturer in Drama, also based at the Magee campus, will be focusing on the ethical dimensions of violence on stage. 

“In Conor McPherson’s Rum and Vodka and The Good Thief, the male narrators recount violent sprees – the decision to represent violence through narration disrupt any straightforward reading of it as shocking.”

Ulster playwright Martin Lynch will be taking part in an ‘In Conversation’ event and formally launching a new book by Dr Tom Maguire entitled: Making Theatre in Northern Ireland: Through and Beyond the Troubles, as part of the conference proceedings. 
Acts of Aggression: The Performance of Violence on the Contemporary Irish Stage, runs from Friday 17 – Saturday 18 November, Foyle Arts Building, University of Ulster, Magee campus.

For further information, please contact:

Trina Porter
Telephone: 028 71675511
Email: Trina Porter