“A Missile to the Future”: The Theatre Ecologies of Caryl Churchill’s Far Away on Spike Island

Patrick Lonergan

doi:10.1515/jcde-2022-0009

Article

“A Missile to the Future”: The Theatre Ecologies of Caryl Churchill’s Far Away on Spike Island

Patrick Lonergan
is Professor of Drama and Theatre Studies at National University of Ireland, Galway, and a member of the Royal Irish Academy. He has edited or written eleven books on Irish drama and theatre, including Theatre and Globalization (winner of the 2008 Theatre Book Prize), The Theatre and Films of Martin McDonagh (2012), Theatre and Social Media (2015), and Irish Drama and Theatre Since 1950 (2019). For Methuen Drama, he is co-editor of the Critical Companions series which has published new books on such dramatists as Brian Friel, Tom Murphy, Harold Pinter, Samuel Beckett, Caryl Churchill, David Henry Hwang, and Sarah Ruhl, and on topics including disability theatre, verse drama, and the British and American stage musical.

Published/Copyright: May 14, 2022

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From the journal Journal of Contemporary Drama in English Volume 10 Issue 1

Abstract

This article considers how processes associated with reviving well-known plays can offer new theatrical approaches to the climate crisis. Such revivals can make visible ecological or environmental features that might have gone unnoticed in the past, but which can inspire agency and instil knowledge in the present. This idea is explored in relation to an Irish production of Caryl Churchill’s Far Away (2000), which was staged on an uninhabited island off the South Coast of Ireland in 2017 by Corcadorca Theatre Company. This production can be seen as offering a practical illustration of many of the theoretical ideas associated with theatre ecologies, especially for how Corcadorca blurred distinctions between audience and performers, indoors and outdoors, performance and spectatorship, past and present, and much more. This production should thus be seen as a case study that is worthy of analysis in its own right but which also allows for the identification of viable practices for the staging of theatrical revivals more generally.

Keywords: Caryl Churchill; Far Away ; Corcadorca; ecocriticism; theatre ecologies; site-specific performance; theatrical revival

About the author

Patrick Lonergan

is Professor of Drama and Theatre Studies at National University of Ireland, Galway, and a member of the Royal Irish Academy. He has edited or written eleven books on Irish drama and theatre, including Theatre and Globalization (winner of the 2008 Theatre Book Prize), The Theatre and Films of Martin McDonagh (2012), Theatre and Social Media (2015), and Irish Drama and Theatre Since 1950 (2019). For Methuen Drama, he is co-editor of the Critical Companions series which has published new books on such dramatists as Brian Friel, Tom Murphy, Harold Pinter, Samuel Beckett, Caryl Churchill, David Henry Hwang, and Sarah Ruhl, and on topics including disability theatre, verse drama, and the British and American stage musical.

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Published Online: 2022-05-14

Published in Print: 2022-05-12

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Articles in the same Issue

https://doi.org/10.1515/jcde-2022-0009

Keywords for this article

Caryl Churchill; Far Away; Corcadorca; ecocriticism; theatre ecologies; site-specific performance; theatrical revival