Describing Pain in Mary Raftery's Documentary Play No Escape

Authors

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.5007/2175-8026.2021.e74644

Abstract

Documentary theatre is a genre in which real sources and events are used and edited to become the form of dramatic texts and performances. The personal experiences narrated in No Escape (2010), a documentary play by Mary Raftery, have shocked many people, due to the play’s multiple graphic descriptions of child abuse which took place in industrial schools and orphanages in Ireland. This article analyses how pain is presented in No Escape, by contrasting the language used, in their respective lines in the play, by authorities, victims, and representatives of the institutions. Pain, as a physical and psychological sensation, is a subject that still needs to be examined further in discussing the history of Ireland, to provide scholars and society with an opportunity to reflect upon this subject – and, perhaps, achieve healing.

 

 

Author Biographies

Natália Elisa Pastore, Universidade Federal de Santa Catarina

Natália Elisa Lorensetti Pastore has a BA in English by Universidade Federal de Santa Catarina. Currently, she studies Translation at Pós-Graduação em Estudos da Tradução - UFSC, advised by professor Alinne Fernandes. Her research project includes analysing the translation of the book The Gathering, written by the Irish author Anne Enright, into Brazilian-Portuguese. Natália is a member of the research cluster on Irish Studies (NEI) and a member in the research cluster on feminism, literature and translation (GEFLIT) at the Universidade Federal de Santa Catarina.

Alinne Fernandes, Universidade Federal de Santa Catarina

Dr Alinne Fernandes holds a tenured position at Departamento de Língua de Literatura Estrangeiras. She is the vice-coordinator of the research cluster on Irish Studies (NEI) and coordinator of a research cluster on feminism, literature and translation (GEFLIT), at the Universidade Federal de Santa Catarina, Florianópolis, Brazil. She completed her PhD in Translation and Dramaturgy at Queen’s University Belfast in 2012. She is the translator of Marina Carr's By the Bog of Cats... in Brazil (Rafael Copetti Editor, 2017). Her academic publications include articles and chapters in both national and international peer-reviewed journals and books. Fernandes has also translated and worked as dramaturge on the production of several (unpublished) plays for performance and staged readings, such as Mary Raftery’s No Escape and Patricia Burke Brogan’s Eclipsed, as well as directed several rehearsed readings. She is also a member of the Translation, Adaptation, and Dramaturgy (TAD) working group of the International Federation for Theatre Research (IFTR).

Beatriz Kopschitz Bastos, Universidade Federal de Santa Catarina

Beatriz Kopschitz Bastos is a faculty member in the Post-graduate Programme in English at the Federal University of Santa Catarina and production director of Cia Ludens, a Brazilian theatre company dedicated to Irish theatre. She holds an MA from Northwestern University and a PhD from the University of São Paulo. She completed two post-doctoral research projects in the fields of Irish theatre and film at UFSC and was a Visiting Research Fellow at the National University of Ireland Galway. Her publications, as editor or co-editor, include: the bilingual series Ireland on Film: Screenplays and Critical Contexts (2011-present); Coleção Brian Friel (2013); Coleção Tom Murphy (2019); Vidas irlandesas: o cinema de Alan Gilsenan em contexto (2019); Ilha do Desterro 73.2 – The Irish Theatrical Diaspora (2020); and Contemporary Irish Documentary Theatre (2020).

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Published

2021-01-28

Issue

Vol. 74 No. 1 (2021): Literature

Section

Literary contexts: gender, identity and resistance

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Copyright (c) 2020 Natália Elisa Lorensetti Pastore, Alinne Fernandes, Beatriz Kopschitz Bastos

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This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

Creative Commons Licence
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.