Marina Carr Plays 1: Low in the Dark; The Mai; Portia Coughlan; By the Bog of Cats...

by Marina Carr

The first collection of plays by Marina Carr introduces the work of a major new voice in playwriting.

Love in the Dark
'One of the most exciting, new and absolutely original aspects of Carr's writing is the manner in which the sexism of the language and religious imagery is exposed... Marina Carr is a playwright to be watched.' Sunday Tribune

The Mai
'The writing is at once gentle and raucous... capable of articulating deep-seated woes and resentments in a manner you rarely find outside Eugene O'Neill.' Observer

Portia Coughlan
'A play of precocious maturity and accomplishment.' Irish Times
'Portia Coughlan packs a hell of a punch. It hurts to look at it. But it has to be seen.' Irish Independent

By the Bog of Cats . . .
'A poetic realism steeped in the past . . . Carr has an extraordinary ability to move between the mythic and the real.' Guardian
'A great play . . . a great work of poetry . . . the word should soon carry across both sides of the Atlantic.' Independent

Genres: Plays, Drama, Ireland, Theatre, Irish Literature, College, Fiction

356 pages, Kindle Edition

First published November 1, 2000

About the author

Marina Carr was brought up in County Offaly. A graduate of University College Dublin, she has written extensively for the theatre. She has taught at Villanova, Princeton, and currently teaches in the School of English, Dublin City University. Awards include the Susan Smith Blackburn Prize, the Macaulay Fellowship, the E. M. Forster Prize from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, and the Wyndham Campbell Prize. She lives in Dublin with her husband and four children.

Reviews

[amyleigh]

Marina Carr summons the hurt that submerges women's lives. Her plays are full of guts, witchcraft, worlds trying to coexist but there are always gaps, mothers and daughters and the rifts and tetherings between them, lakes with deep histories pulling characters into their currents. I love all of it.

[Zoe Worth]

Portia made me ball my eyes out when I saw it at the Abbey a few weeks ago, and now By the Bog of Cats has me crying in Waterstones... such important plays, motherhood is de-idealised and the myths around it are picked apart.

[yasmina]

I've only read The Mai, and it is one of my favourite readings so far this semester! I have very much enjoyed reading this play despite my reservations about certain scenes. And I got so engrossed in the play that I teared up at the end.
Such a shame that this play was cancelled at the last minute and never had the chance to properly discuss it with my professor. I'd rate it 3.5 out of 5 though, might change it later when I begin to draft my analysis for it:)

[Jenna]

Another class book for Irish Lit - I was not sure how I would feel as plays are not usually my thing. But, Carr's writing is brilliant! So much so that I ended up doing some additional research on the plays and she retells class Greek myths in this series of 4 plays, centered around more contemporary Irish women. I loved it!

[DarrenBrennan]

2.5 stars for 'Low in the Dark.'

My least favourite play by Carr

The sexism aspect and the exposure of the traditional roles of male and female were interesting but this lacks Carr's distinctive style in later plays such as The Mai.

[Bea]

What an exceptionally talented playwright. Wasn't big on Low in the Dark - felt too experimental to me. The other plays in the collection are the voice of hers that I recognise best though, and love. It is so refreshing to have women's rage honestly discussed and not just self-effaced.

[Catie]

Carr did a fantastic job with these plays. I loved By the Bog of Cats so much that I wrote my final on it!

[Róisín Ní Riain]

By the Bog of Cats...

[Nicole Jesson]

Brilliant plays. Riveting drama.

[E]

tak zajebiste że chcę się zabić

[candelaria]

increíblemente profundo

[Leif]

So she started writing a Master's thesis on Samuel Beckett but, oh I don't know, maybe got bored with old Sammy B. and decided to write a play about it instead. Which was as it turns out a good decision. She's fascinated by the Gothic, classical tragedy, fatalism, and a bunch of interesting things. By the Bog of Cats first played to coincide with Halloween at the Abbey Theatre. What more do you want to read?

Look, I'm not going to say: "just read Marina Carr!" But, you know, just read Marina Carr.

[Phillip]

I initially read By the Bog of Cats to write about it in my dissertation (I've now written that chapter), but it took me a while to get to the other plays in this collection. I really love By the Bog of Cats, and I liked Portia Coughlan, but I found Low in the Dark and The Mai difficult to follow. Especially with The Mai, I think if I saw it performed I might understand it better, but it didn't seem to me like much of anything happened and what did happen seemed rather random.

Across these four plays however are some pretty consistent themes, especially issues of motherhood, marriage, and depressed women. My sense is that before Carr, these types of concerns had little place on major Irish stages, and it was really Carr's drama that began bringing female voices and issues to the forefront of Irish theatre.

[Sarah]

Carr is a contemporary Irish playwright who manages to handle the Irish identity crisis by reusing the Greek tragedies. Her provocative and honest approach to Celtic society is refreshing--no shamrocks or rainbows here!

[Rachel]

Marina Carr is amazing. Her progression from novice to playwrighting powerhouse is evident in this first volume of her work.
I didn't particularly like Low in the dark but I liked the idea behind it. It was a tad confusing, just like it's subject matter I guess.