Body

Abstract

This chapter explores how bodies work and signify as individuals but also as stand-ins for a greater whole (both materially and representationally) within the contemporary Irish theatre and by extension, Irish society. The participation and presence of bodies in theatrical and extra-theatrical events connected to the contemporary Irish theatre as a network of individuals, practices and institutions indexes not only the aesthetic but the political and social status of the body within Irish society at any given time. Understanding the limits of theatrical representation and participation by individuals and/or communities as artists in the Irish theatre gives us deeper insight into the rights accorded to individual bodies and/or those grouped according to a shared identity such as gender, sexuality, religion, class, race/ethnicity and/or disability, as well as drawing attention to how theatre and performance as live and embodied art forms can sometimes push productively at the limits of what is legally or socially possible at the scale of the body. This chapter proposes the following frameworks for studying the body as a key vehicle towards utopian performatives in contemporary Irish theatre: Acting Bodies (Olwen Fouréré), Bodies as Tools (Panti Bliss/Rory O’Neill and the “Noble Call”), Intersectional Bodies (Christian O’Reilly’s Sanctuary with Blue Teapot Theatre and No Magic Pill).