Owen McCafferty's first collection brings together one short- and four full-length plays set in the author's home city of Belfast. Shoot The Crow 'Tragicomedy of character and circumstance that makes McCafferty look like a ribald Northern Irish Chekov.' Guardian. Scenes From The Big Picture 'An epic that attempts to put the whole of human life on stage - birth, death, love, sex, work, families - the whole damn thing... McCafferty offers us a wise and compassionate view of the human heart.' Telegraph Closing Time 'The existence of a writer as good as McCafferty induces a perverse, paradoxical hope.' Guardian Mojo Mikibo 'A razor sharp evocation of time and place.' Irish Times
Belfast is a place where things need to be said. Following the 1998 Good Friday Agreement, the guns were silenced but the chasm between the Republican and Unionist sides remains wide and bitter. Tonight, in a small back-street bar, while Northern Ireland plays Poland on the TV, Jimmy and Ian will meet for the first time. They share a violent past, and their conversation has been brewing for more than twenty years…
what if i'm not funny though - what if i go out there and i'm not funny Steve Johnston, guided and inspired by his girlfriend, is a small-time comedian, raw, original and true. Until he's spotted by an agent, who suggests he could be so much more: his act just needs to change. It's a Faustian pact. As tension builds over the course of four gigs, so too do the audiences. But at what cost? Death of a Comedian by Owen McCafferty premiered at the Lyric Theatre, Belfast, in February 2015 in a co-production with the the Abbey Theatre, Dublin, and Soho Theatre, London.
Irish Theatre in the Twenty-First Century is the first in-depth study of the subject. It analyses the ways in which theatre in Ireland has developed since the 1990s when emerging playwrights Martin McDonagh, Conor McPherson, and Enda Walsh turned against the tradition of lyrical eloquence with a harsh and broken dramatic language. Companies such as Blue Raincoat, the Corn Exchange, and Pan Pan pioneered an avant-garde dramaturgy that no longer privileged the playwright. This led to new styles of production of classic Irish works, including the plays of Synge, mounted in their entirety by Druid. The changed environment led to a re-imagining of past Irish history in the work of Rough Magic and ANU, plays by Owen McCafferty, Stacey Gregg, and David Ireland, dramatizing the legacy of the Troubles, and adaptations of Greek tragedy by Marina Carr and others reflecting the conditions of modern Ireland. From 2015, the movement #WakingTheFeminists led to a sharpened awareness of gender. While male playwrights showed a toxic masculinity on the stage, a generation of female dramatists including Carr, Gregg, and Nancy Harris gave voice to the experiences of women long suppressed in conservative Ireland. For three separate periods, 2006, 2016, 2020-2, the author served as one of the judges for the Irish Times Irish Theatre Awards, attending all new productions across the island of Ireland. This allowed him to provide the detailed overview of the 'state of play' of Irish theatre in each of those times which punctuate the book as one of its most innovative features. Drawing also on interviews with Ireland's leading theatre makers, Grene provides readers with a close-up understanding of Irish theatre in a period when Ireland became for the first time a fully modernized, secular, and multi-ethnic society.
we're still ourselves when we lieJoan and Tom have been married for nearly thirty years. Tara lies alone while Peter works nights. How far will people go to hear their heart beat again? What does it mean to be unfaithful to those you love?A stark and searing glimpse into two tangled relationships, the unspoken desires, the piercing regrets, and the postponed conversations.Owen McCafferty's Unfaithful premiered at the Traverse Theatre, Edinburgh, in August 2014.
Absence of Women'A fine example of theatre at its small-scale best.' Evening StandardTitanic'Owen McCafferty's rigorous verbatim play provides an antidote to Titanic fatigue... Two months of hearings from 97 witnesses are whittled down to nine... What remains, even after a century, is a disturbing sense of moral ambiguity: 1, 517 dead and no one to blame.' GuardianQuietly'Vibrates with a violent tension so taut that if you were a bystander... you'd hardly dare to breathe.' New York Times'Remarkable. inspired. The piece packs sweeping questions about forgiveness and accountability into a tightly plotted encounter.' Daily Telegraph'The most powerful theatrical production I have had the privilege of seeing... McCafferty's script is perfectly taut... This play is extraordinary and completely unmissable.' Metro HeraldUnfaithful'McCafferty excels with tight plotting and pithy, painful dialogue.' The Times'McCafferty writes with empathy and a wry humour that makes for an absorbing - if painful - hour.' Financial Times'Owen McCafferty is a sly observer of the human heart.' GuardianDeath of a Comedian'Despite the humour, McCafferty's play is a tragedy. his most accomplished work to date.' Belfast Telegraph
"Michael Pierse is Lecturer in Irish literature at Queen's University Belfast. His research mainly explores the writing and cultural production of Irish working-class life. Over recent years this work has expanded into new multidisciplinary themes and international contexts, including the study of festivals, digital methodologies in public humanities and theatre-as-research practices. Michael has contributed to a range of national and international publications, is the author of Writing Ireland's Working Class: Dublin after O'Casey (2011), and has been awarded several Arts and Humanities Research Council awards and the Vice Chancellor's Award at Queen's"--
