Myths in crisis? Marina Carr’s revision of feminine myths in contemporary Irish Theatre

Abstract

The use of mythology in the theatre of the leading contemporary Irish playwright Marina Carr evokes the classical antiquity in her first plays, The Mai (1994) amongst them, through characters that pursue a mythical ending and resemble Sophoclean Electra, and turns into a modern classical era in plays such as Marble (2009), in which the protagonists are unable to coexist with normative models and Trojan territories have turned into unknown dreamlands where lasting and immaculate existences that go beyond earthly life are pursued. Through a revision of the mythological content of her plays the question of the crisis or persistence of myths in contemporary society and culture can be addressed successfully as it is possible to show that Carr’s juxtaposition of myth and modernity is a technique that exposes the inability of modern materialist society to substitute the unworldly and epic life of the individual.