Find publications (beta)

This article explores how Micheál MacLiammóir and Denis Johnston attempted to perform cultural memories of the Easter Rising at the Dublin Gate Theatre and thereby articulated their respective views on a colonial past that had to be reassessed anew, on the one hand, and a postcolonial future that still had to be made possible, on the other. By analysing how these two prominent Gate Theatre playwrights sought to commemorate the Rising through mediated performances, this article argues that the Gate Theatre did not simply serve as a playground for disinterested aestheticists but also created a stylised forum where the perceived strain between Ireland's traumatic history and its uncertain future could be addressed and reconfigured into a meaningful teleology. In doing so, this article attempts to demonstrate that the Gate Theatre served as a cultural counterweight to the Abbey's ostensible hegemony as a theatrical force in Irish identity formation.