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This House, a Home? A practice-based analysis of Irish community theatre and its potential for politicisation
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Date
0023
Authors
O'Callaghan, Angela
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
University College Cork
Published Version
Abstract
This practice-as-research project analyses the status of community theatre in a wider Irish context through the creation of headphone theatre piece This House a Home - an audio performance through Cork Opera House which explores themes of inclusion, belonging and homebuilding. The script for This House a Home was co-created over a two-month workshop series with vulnerable adults from Cork City who rarely spent time in Cork Opera House. Using arts-based research techniques in the tradition of verbatim/testimony theatre, these participants were recorded each week as they grew confident to critique the efficacy of Cork cultural spaces in making them feel at home. These recordings, dramaturged together to create an audio tour of Cork Opera House, highlight the ways in which these project participants came to feel at home in the space, and conversely, the ways in which they were further marginalised. Aligning the present with the past through archival research on Cork Opera House’s history, specifically the burning of Cork Opera House in 1955 and its subsequent rebuilding, the piece asks of its audience, through the participants: does this house need to be burned down again, to be rebuilt as a home? This distinction between house and home, discomfort and belonging, destruction and renewal, is further posed in this thesis through a three-pronged analysis of the form of the piece, this workshop series and the writing process. I will therein pose two understandings of community theatre making - a ‘romantic’ perception which prioritises a final product and pre-existing audiences and a ‘radical’ perception which emphasises the process of making (a home) and uplifts the marginalised. In posing these two readings of community theatre and applying them both to the creation of this piece and the wider Irish context of community theatre making (which, I argue, is dominated by a romantic understanding of community theatre), this project demonstrates the importance of fusing the radical with the romantic; breaking down of barriers to inclusion for marginalised people in both theatre making and cultural spaces, starting with Cork Opera House.
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Keywords
Practice-as-research , Testimony theatre , Verbatim theatre , Headphone theatre , Cork Opera House , Community , Community theatre , Theatre making , Radical
Citation
O'Callaghan, A. 2023. This House, a Home? A practice-based analysis of Irish community theatre and its potential for politicisation. MRes Thesis, University College Cork.