Emer McHugh. Performing Shakespeare in Ireland in 2016: Othello at the Abbey by History Hub published on 2016-09-14T07:37:44Z 'Performing Shakespeare in Ireland in 2016: Othello at the Abbey Theatre' by Emer McHugh (National University of Ireland Galway). As part of this Shakespeare and Ireland panel, my paper will be exploring contemporary Irish Shakespeare performance in this special anniversary year. What I am aiming to do with this paper is to offer up some thoughts on how Irish Shakespeare performance allows us to explore issues surrounding authenticity, traditionalism, and iconoclasm in early modern performance history and practice – the question is, what would we consider as ‘traditional’ or ‘iconoclastic’ in an Irish or Shakespearean context? And, should Irish and Shakespearean be two distinct categories? I cannot promise concrete answers to these questions, but I am hoping to start a conversation at least. I will be using the Abbey Theatre’s recent production of Othello, directed by Joe Dowling and starring Marty Rea, as my case study, using it as a way to explore these issues. The 6th Annual Tudor & Stuart Ireland Interdisciplinary Conference took place at NUI Galway in August, 2016. The conference was generously supported by: an NUI Galway President's Award for Research Excellence (awarded to Prof. Steven Ellis); the Moore Institute, NUI Galway; the Discipline of History, NUI Galway and the Society for Renaissance Studies. As in previous years the majority of papers were recorded for podcasting by https://soundcloud.com/real-smart-media in association with www.historyhub.ie. There are now more than 140 podcasts from previous Tudor and Stuart Ireland conferences freely available. To access this archive go to www.historyhub.ie/podcasts or visit tudorstuartireland.com
