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First time tragedy, second time farce: Enda Walsh's Disco pigs (1997), The New Electric Ballroom (2004) and The Walworth farce (2006)

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posted on 2023-06-08, 20:24 authored by William McEvoyWilliam McEvoy
Irish playwright Enda Walsh’s three plays Disco Pigs (1997), The New Electric Ballroom (2004) and The Walworth Farce (2006) subvert conventions of genre in order to map Walsh’s status as a diasporic writer dealing with the legacy of the avant-garde and Beckett. This generic instability evolves across Walsh’s work from experimenting with two-hander dialogues to subverting absurdism, culminating in a post-tragedy farce. The essay argues that Walsh asks important questions in his work about Irish self-mythologizing, both in terms of historical narratives and cultural representation. One of his most eloquent mechanisms for doing so is his exploration of the compulsion both to return to and escape from existing genres and forms.

History

Publication status

  • Published

File Version

  • Published version

Journal

C21: Journal of 21st-century Writings

ISSN

2045-5216

Publisher

Gylphi

Issue

1

Volume

3

Page range

1-17

Department affiliated with

  • English Publications

Full text available

  • Yes

Peer reviewed?

  • Yes

Legacy Posted Date

2015-03-24

First Open Access (FOA) Date

2020-10-22

First Compliant Deposit (FCD) Date

2020-09-25

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