Cycnos | Numéros | Volume 18.1 - Le théâtre britannique au tournant du millénaire

Résumé :

Irish playwrights have long had pride of place on the London stage. This article analyses the recent emergence of two dramatic voices from Belfast in the English capital, and the reasons for their somewhat unexpected triumphant reception by a most eager audience. Marie Jones’s Stones in His Pockets, due to transfer to Broadway in the spring, skilfully mixes pathos and humour in a celebration of theatricality. A small-budget, two-actor production, this play exposes the impact of the Hollywood film industry and its exploitative, distorting nature, on a small rural Irish community. In a radically different mode, Gary Mitchell, who also hails from the Protestant heartlands of Belfast, has brought to the Royal Court audiences plays of unremitting darkness, stark portrayals of a community under siege threatened by its own fears and violence. Mitchell’s talent resides partly in his ability to devise very tight plots addressing burning issues like the ongoing reform of the R.U.C. in The Force of Change. London spectators and critics have so far reacted very warmly to such works for different reasons, ranging from sheer curiosity — in particular in the case of Mitchell’s forays into the largely unexplored loyalist consciousness — to the romantic attraction of somewhat worn-out clichés of Irishness revisited by Jones. At a time when English theatre seems to be looking for new ways forward, those two Belfast voices come to testify to the impressive vitality of Irish theatre, of the Northern variety, offering London audiences both entertainment and food for thought.

Date de publication : 2008-09-19