The transnational roots of key figures from the early years of the Gate Theatre, Dublin (Pre-published)

Abstract

When considering the avant-garde nature of the early Gate Theatre, critics rightly focus on the queer sexuality and liberal politics of many of the people associated with the theatre at the time. However, it is also important to consider the transnational backgrounds of so many based at the Gate then – especially those individuals whose outsider status and interest in the outré could be linked not simply to foreign origins but also to ethnic and cultural hybridity. This chapter will fill in many gaps and correct various misconceptions regarding the ethnic and cultural backgrounds of four key, English-born figures associated with the early the under-regarded actor, costume designer and milliner Nancy Beckh. It will be made clear that the work of these four artists at the Gate cannot be dismissed as examples of people from comfortable English backgrounds condescendingly engaging in cultural imperialism (i.e. treating the ‘exotic’ cultures of people from marginalized countries like Ireland and various states in Africa and Asia as artistic ‘raw material’) or shallow cosmopolitanism (Stewart 330). Rather, the mixed backgrounds of these artists helped them to create what scholars in the emerging field of ‘new interculturalism’ call ‘intercultural performances’.