“The play is set in the theatre”: Conor McPherson and the late-modern humanism of the theatrical event

Abstract

The plays of Conor McPherson emphasise a sociality of story, language, and theatre. His theatre demands both that a storyteller be heard and that storytellers acknowledge the reality of their words existing in a social space. Meaning-making in McPherson's monologues must thus be social, shared either between the monologists and the theatrical audience, or between a storyteller and the in-play audience. This essay argues that the dynamic of storytelling in McPherson's theatre epitomises a late-modern humanist pursuit. We encounter his characters on loosely defined linguistic journeys of ontological becoming, and are called upon as audience to become interlocutors, supporting and advancing this humanist process. Ultimately, McPherson's work suggests that dramatic characters and theatrical audience exist in a reciprocal relationship of soliciting and supporting a becoming from one another.

Keywords::

• Conor McPherson
• humanism
• late-modern
• monologue drama
• performance studies
• theatre studies

Correction Statement

This article has been corrected with minor changes. These changes do not impact the academic content of the article.

Notes

^1. McPherson, Plays, 137.

^2. This is not the case for McPherson's latest play, The Night Alive (2013), which focuses almost exclusively on the short, halting speeches that McPherson often employs. While the stress on long speeches is missing, The Night Alive is certainly concerned with the process of self-discovery that this essay argues is central to McPherson's work.

^3. Said, Humanism and Democratic Criticism, 26.

^4. Honig, Antigone, Interrupted, 17.

^5. Wallace, “shame shame shame,” 94–5.

^6. White, Ethos, 3.

^7. Ibid.

^8. Ibid., 25.

^9. Wallace, “A Micronarrative Imperative,” 1.

^10. Ibid.

^11. Cummings, “Homo Fabulator,” 303.

^12. Wallace, “A Micronarrative Imperative,” 5–6.

^13. Wood, Conor McPherson, 111.

^14. For a discussion of the term as period see Genter, Late Modernism; for an example of its stylistic use, see “Bernard MacLaverty: The ‘Troubles,’ Late Modernism, and the Beckettian” in Watt, Beckett and Contemporary Irish Writing, 92–124.

^15. White, Ethos, 3.

^16. Ibid.

^17. See also White, “Weak Ontology.”

^18. Said, Humanism and Democratic Criticism, 9.

^19. Ibid., 10.

^20. Ibid.

^21. Butler, Precarious Life, xii.

^22. Ibid., 20, 26.

^23. Ibid., 44.

^24. Butler, Giving an Account, 33.

^25. Honig, Antigone, Interrupted, 19.

^26. Ibid.

^27. Ibid., 147.

^28. Austin, How To, 11.

^29. Roach, Cities of the Dead, 28.

^30. Wallace, “Art of Disclosure,” 44–45.

^31. Cummings, “Homo Fabulator,” 305.

^32. Colleary, “Conor McPherson's St. Nicholas,” 82.

^33. McPherson, The Weir and Other Plays, 244.

^34. Ibid., 256.

^35. Ibid., 259.

^36. Ibid., 288.

^37. Ibid., 243.

^38. Ibid.

^39. Ibid.

^40. Ibid., 244.

^41. Ibid., 273–4.

^42. Wood, Conor McPherson, 10.

^43. Grene, “Ireland in Two Minds,” 311.

^44. Grobe, “Love and Loneliness,” 695.

^45. Szabo, “Issues of Narrative,” 127.

^46. McPherson, The Weir and Other Plays, 254.

^47. Ibid., 257.

^48. Ibid., 260.

^49. Ibid., 268, 269.

^50. Ibid., 243.

^51. Ibid., 246, 247.

^52. Butler, Precarious Life, 44.

^53. Ibid.

^54. McPherson, The Weir and Other Plays, 266.

^55. Ibid.

^56. Ibid., 245.

^57. Wood, Conor McPherson, 14.

^58. McPherson, Shining City, 11.

^59. McPherson, The Weir and Other Plays, 236.

^60. Ibid., 237.

^61. Ibid.

^62. Ibid., 238.

^63. Trench, “The Measure of a Pub Spirit,” 167.

^64. Ibid.

^65. McPherson, Shining City, 12.

^66. Ibid., 15.

^67. McPherson, The Seafarer, 51.

^68. Ibid., 102–3.