The Concept of the Edge in the Plays of Marina Carr

María Del Mar González Chacón

doi:10.18290/rh206811-6

María Del Mar González Chacón University of Oviedo, Spain https://orcid.org/0000-0001-9722-8033

DOI: https://doi.org/10.18290/rh206811-6

Keywords: Marina Carr, Irish Theatre, space, identity, edge, margin, border, resistance, change

Abstract

Women in the plays of Marina Carr have always been on the edge of something. The Mai suffers from the loss of selfhood and tries to escape the limitations imposed by her family, Portia fights for her right to be a mother who does not love her children, Hester cannot live outside the geographical limits of the bog that is killing her and Catherine will struggle to live in a dream.

The edge in Marina Carr’s theatre is a space that can be defined as a space of the mind, a space of resistance that her characters fight to inhabit. Edges constitute marginalized sites where women find a space of their own. In her latest plays the concept of the edge has been transferred to modern life and mythological rural landscapes have receded. Spaces of urban tension and conflict create edges that are now more visible on the stage through the dramatic space, and transformations occur in the form of provocative dialogues and behaviors that hint at a reinvented edge where women continue to search for their own spaces.

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