Performing Modernity
Culture and Experiment in the Irish Free State
1st Edition
Published on 11. December 2025
288 pages
978-1-350-25808-2 (ISBN)
Description
This book is an exploration of metropolitan bohemian and counter-cultural movements in theatre, design and popular culture in the Irish Free State.
Were there flappers in Ireland? Was there really a Cabaret Club in Dublin in 1926? Using photographs, theatre and costume designs, letters, newspaper accounts, novels and other historical sources, Performing Modernity offers a wholly new perspective on metropolitan life in the Irish Free State where people listen to jazz and go dancing, watch German Expressionist theatre, are interested in Soviet design, and attend pageants, cabarets and fancy dress balls.
The early years of Irish independence are often characterised as isolated and conservative as the country recovered from the effects of the Civil War. This book argues that there was also ambition and optimism among the citizens of the new State as they embraced the promise of modernity in theatre, film and popular culture during the 1920s and 1930s.
Were there flappers in Ireland? Was there really a Cabaret Club in Dublin in 1926? Using photographs, theatre and costume designs, letters, newspaper accounts, novels and other historical sources, Performing Modernity offers a wholly new perspective on metropolitan life in the Irish Free State where people listen to jazz and go dancing, watch German Expressionist theatre, are interested in Soviet design, and attend pageants, cabarets and fancy dress balls.
The early years of Irish independence are often characterised as isolated and conservative as the country recovered from the effects of the Civil War. This book argues that there was also ambition and optimism among the citizens of the new State as they embraced the promise of modernity in theatre, film and popular culture during the 1920s and 1930s.
More details
Series
Edition
1. Auflage
Language
English
Place of publication
London
United Kingdom
Publishing group
Bloomsbury Publishing PLC
Target group
Professional and scholarly
Illustrations
26 bw illus
ISBN-13
978-1-350-25808-2 (9781350258082)
Copyright in bibliographic data and cover images is held by Nielsen Book Services Limited or by the publishers or by their respective licensors: all rights reserved.
Schweitzer Classification
Other editions
Additional editions
Book
approx. 01/2026
Methuen Drama
€118.50
Not yet published
Persons
Elaine Sisson is Senior Lecturer in Visual Culture in the Faculty of Film, Art and Creative Technologies at the Institute of Art, Design and Technology, Dublin, Ireland. Her publications include Ireland, Design and Visual Culture: Negotiating Modernity 1922-1992, edited with L. King (2007) and Pearse's Patriots: The Cult of Boyhood at St. Enda's (2005).
Content
List of Illustrations
Introduction
1. Experimental Theatre and the New State: The Dublin Drama League, the Peacock Theatre to the Beginnings of the Gate Theatre Studio (1919-1928)
2. Radicals and Cabarets: Toto Bannard Cogley's Counter-cultural Networks (1924-1930)
3. Continental Stagecraft: Visual Style, Stage Design and Modernism
4. MacLiammóir as Costume Designer: Performing Sexual Identities at the Gate Theatre
5. Fashion, Performance and American Popular Culture (1927-1937)
6. Bright Young People: Fancy Dress Balls and Social Identity
7. Narrating the State: Spectacle and Nation-Building (1926-1936)
Conclusion
References
Index
Introduction
1. Experimental Theatre and the New State: The Dublin Drama League, the Peacock Theatre to the Beginnings of the Gate Theatre Studio (1919-1928)
2. Radicals and Cabarets: Toto Bannard Cogley's Counter-cultural Networks (1924-1930)
3. Continental Stagecraft: Visual Style, Stage Design and Modernism
4. MacLiammóir as Costume Designer: Performing Sexual Identities at the Gate Theatre
5. Fashion, Performance and American Popular Culture (1927-1937)
6. Bright Young People: Fancy Dress Balls and Social Identity
7. Narrating the State: Spectacle and Nation-Building (1926-1936)
Conclusion
References
Index
