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

Abstract

The theatre of Marina Carr evokes Sophocles’ Electra in The Mai (1994), through female characters that pursue a mythical ending. It turns to classical modernity in Marble (2009), when women are unable to coexist with normative models, Trojan territories turn into unknown dreamlands, lasting and immaculate existences, that go beyond earthly life, are pursued, and the protagonists echo Greek heroines. Through a revision of the mythological content of her plays, the question of the crisis or persistence of myths in contemporary Irish society and culture can be addressed successfully: Irish and Greek female myths survive in the plays of Carr, and this technique highlights the relevance of mythology in today’s Irish theatre as a strategy to question the role of women in society. On the other hand, this use of myth continues revealing the inability of modern materialist society to substitute the epic life of the individual.