Reflections on classic Gate plays by Mary Manning, Christine Longford, and Maura Laverty (Pre-published version)

Abstract

Last June, the Waking the Feminists organisation published Gender Counts (its eagerly-anticipated report on gender representation in Irish theatre), and the report confirmed what many Irish theatre fans suspected: during the period under scrutiny (2006-2015), Dublin’s Gate Theatre put on fewer plays by women than any other Arts Council-funded theatre organisation in the country.1 While it is wonderful that light has been shone on this egregious manifestation of conscious and unconscious gender bias, it is also important to note that the Gate was not always resistant to staging the work of female playwrights. Indeed, during the theatre’s early decades, many of its most important and successful new plays were written by women, and the outstanding work by these playwrights has been underappreciated for far too long.