Publication at Faculty of Arts |
2021
Abstract
Central to the playwriting success of the early National Theatre, Augusta Gregory is still frequently seen as a facilitator of other work rather than examined as an author in her own right (though see Remport 2021). This paper uses the concept of a ‘collaborative institution’ to track the complex networks behind the composition (and recomposition) of Gregory’s 1908 play The Workhouse Ward, which arose out of a dramatic scenario she offered to Douglas Hyde as the basis for his Teach na mbocht (1903) – translated by Gregory as The Poorhouse.
Five years later, she reworked the scenario for her own play, and continued to edit the political and aesthetic contours of the text in future editions.