Arrah-na-Pogue, also known as Arrah-na-Pogue; or the Wicklow Wedding, is a play in 3 acts by Dion Boucicault. Along with The Colleen Bawn (1860) and The Shaughraun (1874), it is considered one of the three major Irish plays penned by Boucicault. Set during the Irish Rebellion of 1798, the play popularized the street ballad The Wearing of the Green; a rendition of which was included in the play with lyrics by Boucicault. It has had an enduring place in the canon of dramatic literature on the stage internationally, and has been adapted into other media.
History
Arrah-na-Pogue premiered on November 7, 1864, at the Theatre Royal, Dublin. The cast included Boucicault, Samuel Johnson, John Brougham and Samuel Anderson Emery among others. The work had its first staging in London's West End at the Princess's Theatre, London on 22 March 1865.
The United States premiere of the play was presented in New York City at the Broadway theatre Niblo's Garden on July 21, 1865, where it ran for 68 performances. It has been revived twice on Broadway; first as Niblo's Garden in 1869, and then at the Fourteenth Street Theatre in 1903.
The play was mounted at the Abbey Theatre in 2010. The play was performed Off-Broadway in New York City by the Storm Theatre Company at the Theatre of the Church of Notre Dame in 2012.
The play's central character, Shaun the Post, was both an inspiration and object of parody for James Joyce's character Shaun the Postman in his 1939 novel Finnegans Wake.
Adaptations
- Arrah-na-Pogue (1911, silent film)
- Shaun the Post (1924, opera by librettist R. J. Hughes and composer Harold R. White under the pseudonym "Dermot Macmurrough")
- Arrah-na-Pogue, (1940, radio play by NBC Radio, broadcast February 4, 1940 with Richard Gordon as Shaun the Post)
References
- Thomson, p. 12
- Beiner, p. 95-96
- "Samuel Johnson c.1830-1900 A Life from the Grave, by Jennie Bisset". The Irving Society. November 2013. Archived from the original on 2013-12-13.
- Morash & Grene, p. 148
- Fisher, p. 42
- Fisher, p. 420
- Peter Crawley (December 23, 2010). "Arrah-na-Pogue, Abbey Theatre, Dublin". The Irish Times.
- Lisa Jo Sagolla (August 15, 2012). "Arrah na Pogue (Arrah of the Kiss)". Backstage.
- Van Mierlo, p. 20
- MacKillop, p. 214
- Ryan, Joseph J. (October 2009). "White, Harold R. ('Dermot Macmurrough')". Dictionary of Irish Biography. doi:10.3318/dib.008998.v1.
- Martin Grams (2000). Radio Drama: A Comprehensive Chronicle of American Network Programs, 1932-1962. McFarland & Company. p. 204. ISBN 9780786400515.
Bibliography
- Guy Beiner (2007). Remembering the Year of the French: Irish Folk History and Social Memory. University of Wisconsin Press. ISBN 9780299218232.
- Deirdre McFeely (12 April 2012). "Music, myth, and censorship in Arrah-na-Pogue". Dion Boucicault: Irish Identity on Stage. Cambridge University Press. pp. 29–58. ISBN 9781107378254.
- James Fisher (2015). Historical Dictionary of American Theater: Beginnings. Rowman & Littlefield Publishers. ISBN 9780810878334.
- James MacKillop, ed. (1999). Contemporary Irish Cinema: From The Quiet Man to Dancing at Lughnasa. Syracuse University Press. ISBN 9780815605683.
- Chris Morash, Nicholas Grene, ed. (2005). Irish Theatre on Tour. Carysfort Press. ISBN 9781904505136.
- Dion Boucicault (6 September 1984). Peter Thomson (ed.). Plays by Dion Boucicault. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 9780521239974.
- Chrissie Van Mierlo (2017). James Joyce and Catholicism: The Apostate's Wake. Bloomsbury Publishing. ISBN 9781472585967.