The Other Gates: Anglo-American Influences on and from Dublin

An important influence on the foundation of the Dublin Gate Theatre in 1928 was the London Gate Theatre Studio. This chapter offers a historiographical survey concerning how the range of connections between these theatres have been treated by theatre commentators up to the present. Alongside this re-examination is a discussion of two other theatres that were also inspired by the London Gate, but established independently by the two London co-directors, Peter Godfrey and Velona Pilcher. Godfrey revived the early programming from London in 1943 at his ‘transplanted’ theatre in Hollywood, which also connected Los Angeles emigré culture back to Ireland. In London, Pilcher worked with a group of women associates to found a ‘new Gate’, the Watergate Theatre Club in 1949, which, with its avant-garde artistic ethos, had a cultural impact on the post-war London scene similar to the achievements of the earlier Gate theatres.

The Transnational Roots of Key Figures from the Early Years of the Gate Theatre, Dublin

In Gate Theatre studies, the venue’s original artistic directors, Hilton Edwards and Micheál mac Liammóir, are commonly described as ‘Englishmen’. This chapter breaks new ground by exploring the Irish roots of Edwards and mac Liammóir, and the rumours that mac Liammóir had Spanish and Jewish ancestry. ‘The Boys’ were not the only figures associated with the early Gate to have transnational backgrounds. Coralie Carmichael, the theatre’s biggest female star in its early years, was of mixed Moroccan and Scottish ancestry, and Nancy Beckh, who worked as an actor, costume designer and milliner at the Gate between 1932 and 1956, was a Dubliner of half-German descent. Using critical theories around new interculturalism, the chapter suggests that the mixed backgrounds of these artists helped them to create intercultural performances. It further demonstrates that these performances cannot be simply dismissed as those of people condescendingly engaging in cultural imperialism or shallow cosmopolitanism.

Kismet: Hollywood, Orientalism and the Design Language of Padraic Colum’s Mogu of the Desert

The lure of the exotic ‘other’ was implicit from the early years of the Gate’s repertoire. In 1931 the Gate produced Padraic Colum’s Mogu of the Desert, designed by Micheál mac Liammóir and featuring a young Orson Welles. Exploring Mogu uncovers a broader engagement with ‘exotic’ or oriental narratives at the Gate generally. The history and subject matter of Mogu contextualizes mac Liammóir’s fascination with oriental and Middle-Eastern culture within contemporary film. Archival photos illustrate how production stills copied the iconographic styling of film publicity using ‘film-star’ portraiture to promote the Gate. Orientalist narratives require the display of the body through the eroticization of costume – legitimizing the costumed body as a to-be-looked-at space. The Gate’s fascination with oriental settings enables the visibility of ‘transgressive’ sexualities as well as understanding the tastes and appeal of popular culture.

The Brothers Čapek at the Gate: R.U.R. and The Insect Play

The chapter examines two important but hitherto largely neglected productions of famous European dramas at Dublin’s Gate Theatre, R.U.R. (1929, revived 1931) and The Insect Play (1943) by the brothers Čapek, which it attempts to reconstruct insofar as the available documentary evidence allows. In the process, it discusses the complicated textual history of the English versions produced by the Gate and compares their staging by Hilton Edwards and Micheál mac Liammóir with the celebrated original productions in Czechoslovakia. Finally, the reception of the respective productions is juxtaposed, with points of convergence being teased out and the differences brought about by the respective theatrical and political contexts being elucidated.

‘We Belong to the World’: Christine Longford’s War Plays During Irish Neutrality

Regrettably, Christine Longford is at present remembered mostly for her marriage to Lord Edward and her administrative work at the Gate Theatre. However, she was also a successful and prolific playwright. This chapter focuses on three history plays written during World War II: Lord Edward (1941), The United Brothers (1942) and Patrick Sarsfield (1943). In these works, Longford used the stage to voice strong critique of the increased state control and censorship practices during ‘the Emergency’ in Ireland. Through the female characters, Longford comments, in particular, on the static roles Irish women had while women around the world found new opportunity.

Introduction: Cultural Convergence at Dublin’s Gate Theatre

The pioneering efforts of the Dublin Gate Theatre (est. 1928) stimulated the influx of experimental plays from the European Continent and North America to Ireland and inspired Irish theatre-makers to revolutionize their dramaturgy. This book examines the Gate’s poetics over the first three decades of its existence, discussing some of its remarkable productions in the comparative contexts of avant-garde theatre and of Hollywood cinema and popular culture. It also investigates cultural exchanges pertaining to the development of Irish-language theatre and the politics of the Gate. The introduction summarizes existing research about the Gate, outlines the book’s concept of cultural convergence and its overall approach – which is intent on the exploration of wider global contexts of the work of the Gate – and outlines the argument of the authors in the subsequent chapters.

Gearóid Ó Lochlainn: The Gate Theatre’s Other Irish-Speaking Founder

The association of the Gate Theatre with the Irish language has been always conceived via Micheál mac Liammóir; however, another of its founders, Gearóid Ó Lochlainn, was also Irish-speaking. Ó Lochlainn was a versatile actor in Irish and English, wrote a series of plays in Irish and translated into Irish works by Shakespeare, Ibsen and others. This chapter seeks to fill a gap in the story of the Gate by providing a brief biographical sketch of Ó Lochlainn, including his time in Denmark, a discussion of his role in efforts to establish Irish-language theatre in Dublin (specifically, An Comhar Drámuíochta, which was hosted by the Gate Theatre in 1930-1934), a summary of his involvement with the Gate, a critique of his original plays and his translations which, in introducing Dublin’s Irish-language theatregoers to world drama, complemented the mission of the Gate, and an assessment of Ó Lochlainn’s achievement.

Prussian Discipline and Lesbian Vulnerability: Christa Winsloe’s Children in Uniform at the Gate

This chapter examines the Dublin production and critical reception of Christa Winsloe’s Children in Uniform, which ran to full houses at the Gate for three weeks in April 1934. The play, which deals with the love between a Prussian schoolgirl and her female teacher, had premiered in Leipzig (1930), run successfully in Berlin (1931), and been adapted for the screen as Mädchen in Uniform (1931) before it was translated into English for a successful London run in 1932-1933. Edwards and mac Liammóir probably saw the original German play in Berlin in 1931. Using the prompt copy, lighting plots, photographs and reviews, the chapter shows how Edwards used expressionistic lighting and sonic leitmotifs to underscore the authoritarian regime within which the relationship between the women develops. In following the Berlin staging, Edwards produced a more subversive version of the play than that seen by London audiences or cinema goers.

The Internationalist Dramaturgy of Hilton Edwards and Micheál mac Liammóir

In part because the Gate explored an experimental dramaturgy, its artistic directors Micheál mac Liammóir and Hilton Edwards often wrote, spoke and advocated for a drama that could move beyond realism. The analysis of Hilton Edwards’s dramatic commentary reaches from his early articles on dramaturgy right up to his encounter with the Berliner Ensemble in 1956 that influenced Edwards’s most elaborate statement on drama, The Mantle of Harlequin (1958). An important part of Edwards’s vision was his cosmopolitanism, his refusal to view drama within a restricted national framework. Nationality, on the other hand, was more important for the self-styled Irishman Micheál mac Liammóir. On close inspection, however, we find that his outlook did not differ much from Edwards’s. Mac Liammóir’s main concern was for Irish(-language) drama to absorb elements from abroad, to escape the straitjacket of Abbey realism and to become distinctive in a global context.