After Sheridan, the next Irish dramatist of historical importance was Dion Boucicault (1820 –1890 ). Boucicault was born in Dublin but was sent to England to complete his eduction. At school, he began writing dramatic sketches and soon took up acting under the stage name of Lee Moreton. His first play was Legend of Devil's Dyke 1838 in which he acted himself in Brighton . His first London production was London Assurance 1841 . This was a great success and he seemed set to become the major writer of comedies of his day. However, his next few plays were not as successful and Boucicault found himself in debt. He recovered some of his reputation with The Corsican Brothers ( 1852 ), a well constructed melodrama.
In 1853 , he moved to New York , where he soon became a hit with plays like The Poor of New York (1857 ), Dot ( 1859 , based on Charles Dickens 's The Cricket on the Hearth) and The Octoroon (1859). These plays tackled issues such as urban poverty and slavery . Boucicault was also involved in getting the 1856 law on copyright passed through Congress . His last New York play was The Colleen Bawn ( 1860 ). In that year, Boucicault returned to London to stage The Colleen Bawn and the play ran for 247 performances at The Adelphi Theatre. He wrote several more successful plays, including The Shaughran ( 1875 ) and Robert Emmet (1884 ). These later plays helped perpetuate the stereotype of the drunken, hotheaded, garrulous Irishman that had been common on the British stage since the time of Shakespeare. Other Irish dramatists of the period include John Banim and Gerald Griffin , whose novel The Collegians formed the basis for The Colleen Bawn.
Boucicault is widely regarded as the wittiest Irish dramatist between Sheridan and Oscar Wilde (1845 –1900 ). Wilde was born in Dublin into a literary family and studied at Trinity College, where he had a brilliant career. In 1874 he won a scholarship to Magdalen College, Oxford . Here he began his career as a writer, winning the Newdigate Prize for his poem Ravenna. His studies were cut short during his second year at Oxford when his father died leaving large debts.
During a short but glittering literary career, Wilde wrote poetry, short stories, criticism and a novel, but his plays probably represent his most enduring legacy. Wilde's first stage success came with Lady Windemere's Fan (1892 ), which resulted in his becoming the most talked about dramatist in London. He followed this up with A Woman of No Importance ( 1893 ), An Ideal Husband ( 1895 ) and his most famous play The Importance of Being Earnest that same year.
With these plays, Wilde came to dominate late- Victorian era British theatre. His plays are noted for the lightness of their wit, but he also contrived to address some serious issues around sexual and class roles and identity, as he wrote himself 'treating the serious things lightly and the light things seriously'. Events in Wilde's personal life were to overtake his literary success and he died in Paris in 1900. He remains one of the great figures in the history of Irish theatre and his plays are frequently performed all over the English-speaking world.
Wilde's contemporary George Bernard Shaw (1856 –1950 ) was a very different kind of writer. Born in Dublin, Shaw moved to London in 1876 intending to become a novelist. Here he became active in socialist politics and became a member of the Fabian Society . He was also a very public vegetarian . His writing for the stage was influenced by Henrik Ibsen . His early political plays were not popular, but he made a breakthrough with John Bull's Other Island ( 1904 ). Shaw was extremely prolific, and his collected writings filled 36 volumes. Many of his plays are now forgotten, but a number, including Major Barbara , Saint Joan (usually considered his masterpiece) and Pygmalion are still regularly performed. Pygmalion was the basis for the movie My Fair Lady, a fact which benefitted the National Gallery of Ireland as Shaw had left the royalties of the play to the gallery. A statue to the playwright now stands outside the gallery entrance. He won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1924
A sea change in the history of the Irish theatre came with the establishment in Dublin in 1899 of the Irish Literary Theatre, later to become the Abbey Theatre . The history of this theatre is well documented, and its importance can be seen from the list of writers whose plays were first performed here in the early days of the 20th century. These included W.B. Yeats , Lady Gregory , John Millington Synge , George Moore , and Sean O'Casey . Equally importantly, through the introduction by Yeats, via Ezra Pound , of elements of the Noh theatre of Japan , a tendency to mythologise quotidian situations, and a particularly strong focus on writings in dialects of Hiberno-English, the Abbey was to create a style that held a strong fascination for future Irish dramatists. Indeed, it could almost be said that the Abbey created the basic elements of a national theatrical style.
This period also saw a rise in the writing of plays in Irish, especially after the formation, in 1928 , of An Taidhbhearc , a theatre dedicated to the Irish language. The Gate Theatre , also founded in 1928 under the direction of Hilton Edwards and Micheál MacLiammoir , introduced Irish audiences to many of the classics of the European stage.
The twentieth century saw a number of Irish playwrights come to prominence. Samuel Beckett is probably the most significant of these. Beckett had a long career as a novelist and poet before his first play, Waiting for Godot (1953 ) made him famous. This play, along with his second, Endgame , is one of the great works of absurdist theatre. Beckett won the Nobel Prize in 1969 .
The
Lyric Theatre
, founded in 1944
by
Austin Clarke
was based in the Abbey until
1951
and produced many of Clarke's own
verse plays
. From the mid 1950s, the
Unitarian Church
at St Stephen's Green, Dublin was home to Amharclann an Damer/The
Damer Theatre
. The Damer produced both professional and amateur Irish language theatre.
The world premier of
Brendan Behan
's An Giall (The Hostage) took place here in 1957. The
theatre closed in the late 1970s. Behan went on to be an extremely popular
dramatist, particularly through his work with
Joan Littlewood
's
Theatre Royal
in Stratford, East London
Other important Irish dramatists of this period include: Denis Johnston , Thomas Kilroy , Tom Murphy , Hugh Leonard , and John B. Keane .
In general, the Abbey was the dominant influence in theatre in Ireland across the 20th century. Beckett's example has been almost entirely ignored, although his plays are regularly performed on the Irish stage. Behan, in his use of song and direct address to the audience, was influenced by Brecht and Denis Johnston used modernist techniques including found texts and collage , but their works had little impact on the dramatists who came after them. Since the 1970s, a number of companies have emerged to challenge the Abbey's dominance and introduce different styles and approaches. These include Focus Theatre , The Children's T Company , the Project Theatre Company , Druid Theatre , TEAM and Field Day . These companies have nurtured a number of writers, actors, and directors who have since gone on to be successful in London, Broadway and Hollywood or in other literary fields. These include Roddy Doyle , Peter Sheridan , Brian Friel , Stephen Rea , Gary Hynes and Gabriel Byrne .