Arrah-na-Pogue
Arrah-na-Pogue, also known as Arrah-na-Pogue; or the Wicklow Wedding, is a play in 3 acts by Dion Boucicault. Along with The Colleen Bawn (1860) and The Shaughraun (1874), it is considered one of the three major Irish plays penned by Boucicault.[1] Set during the Irish Rebellion of 1798, the play popularized the street ballad The Wearing of the Green; a rendition of which was included in the play with lyrics by Boucicault.[2] It has had an enduring place in the canon of dramatic literature on the stage internationally, and has been adapted into other media.
History
[edit]Arrah-na-Pogue premiered on November 7, 1864, at the Theatre Royal, Dublin. The cast included Boucicault, Samuel Johnson, John Brougham and Samuel Anderson Emery among others.[3] The work had its first staging in London's West End at the Princess's Theatre, London on 22 March 1865.[4]
The United States premiere of the play was presented in New York City at the Broadway theatre Niblo's Garden on July 21, 1865, where it ran for 68 performances.[5] It has been revived twice on Broadway; first as Niblo's Garden in 1869, and then at the Fourteenth Street Theatre in 1903.[6]
The play was mounted at the Abbey Theatre in 2010.[7] The play was performed Off-Broadway in New York City by the Storm Theatre Company at the Theatre of the Church of Notre Dame in 2012.[8]
The play's central character, Shaun the Post, was both an inspiration and object of parody for James Joyce's character Shaun the Postman in his 1939 novel Finnegans Wake.[9]
Adaptations
[edit]- Arrah-na-Pogue (1911, silent film)[10]
- Shaun the Post (1924, opera by librettist R. J. Hughes and composer Harold R. White under the pseudonym "Dermot Macmurrough")[11]
- Arrah-na-Pogue, (1940, radio play by NBC Radio, broadcast February 4, 1940 with Richard Gordon as Shaun the Post)[12]
References
[edit]- ^ Thomson, p. 12
- ^ Beiner, p. 95-96
- ^ "Samuel Johnson c.1830-1900 A Life from the Grave, by Jennie Bisset". The Irving Society. November 2013. Archived from the original on 2013-12-13.
- ^ Morash & Grene, p. 148
- ^ Fisher, p. 42
- ^ Fisher, p. 420
- ^ Peter Crawley (December 23, 2010). "Arrah-na-Pogue, Abbey Theatre, Dublin". The Irish Times.
- ^ Lisa Jo Sagolla (August 15, 2012). "Arrah na Pogue (Arrah of the Kiss)". Backstage.
- ^ Van Mierlo, p. 20
- ^ MacKillop, p. 214
- ^ Ryan, Joseph J. (October 2009). "White, Harold R. ('Dermot Macmurrough')". Dictionary of Irish Biography. doi:10.3318/dib.008998.v1.
- ^ Martin Grams (2000). Radio Drama: A Comprehensive Chronicle of American Network Programs, 1932-1962. McFarland & Company. p. 204. ISBN 9780786400515.
Bibliography
[edit]- Guy Beiner (2007). Remembering the Year of the French: Irish Folk History and Social Memory. University of Wisconsin Press. ISBN 9780299218232.
- Deirdre McFeely (12 April 2012). "Music, myth, and censorship in Arrah-na-Pogue". Dion Boucicault: Irish Identity on Stage. Cambridge University Press. pp. 29–58. ISBN 9781107378254.
- James Fisher (2015). Historical Dictionary of American Theater: Beginnings. Rowman & Littlefield Publishers. ISBN 9780810878334.
- James MacKillop, ed. (1999). Contemporary Irish Cinema: From The Quiet Man to Dancing at Lughnasa. Syracuse University Press. ISBN 9780815605683.
- Chris Morash, Nicholas Grene, ed. (2005). Irish Theatre on Tour. Carysfort Press. ISBN 9781904505136.
- Dion Boucicault (6 September 1984). Peter Thomson (ed.). Plays by Dion Boucicault. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 9780521239974.
- Chrissie Van Mierlo (2017). James Joyce and Catholicism: The Apostate's Wake. Bloomsbury Publishing. ISBN 9781472585967.