ABSTRACT
This chapter addresses four Irish theatre productions through a transcultural lens in a diachronic way: Declan Hughes’s Digging For Fire (1991), Sebastian Barry’s The Pride of Parnell Street (2007), Phillip McMahon’s Once Before I Go (2021), and Panti Bliss’s If These Wigs Could Talk (2022). The purpose of this analysis is to elucidate how theatre has focused on Irishness and queerness over time with special attention to HIV/AIDS representation, and how transcultural traits from the American stage have shaped this evolution. Key aspects of transculturality, such as spatial mobility, cultural encounters, and border-crossing are found in the four plays. However, the recent productions include direct representations of the silenced experiences of the LGBTIQA+ community in Ireland and present HIV/AIDS onstage from a place of resistance arguing for social change, activism, and memory. The scrutiny of the selected plays accounts for a redefinition of Irishness that includes queerness, HIV/AIDS and the LGBTIQA+ community.
