Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Date of Degree

6-2026

Document Type

Doctoral Dissertation

Degree Name

Doctor of Philosophy

Program

Theatre

Advisor

James F. Wilson

Committee Members

Debra Caplan

Claudia Orenstein

Subject Categories

Cultural History | Ethnic Studies | Jewish Studies | Other Languages, Societies, and Cultures | Theatre and Performance Studies | Theatre History

Keywords

Diaspora, Irish, Jewish, Theatrical touring, language revival, nationalism

Abstract

This dissertation examines how national theatres construct and circulate narratives of collective identity through theatrical storytelling and touring in the early twentieth-century. Through a comparative study of the Abbey Theatre’s 1911 tour to the United States as the “Irish Players” and Habima’s 1926–27 tour of Europe and America, I argue that national theatre functions not simply as a cultural institution but as an ongoing storytelling process through which the nation is imagined, negotiated, and contested across homeland and diaspora. In this study, the nation is understood not as a political state but as a community formed through shared narratives, cultural practices, and emotional investment.

Both the Abbey Theatre and Habima, self-declared national theatres embedded in dense cultural nationalist discourse, sought to create artistically elevated performances that could serve as symbolic cultural centers for dispersed populations. Through repertoire, language choice, and adaptations of folklore, biblical narrative, and ethnographic material, these theatres constructed dynamic and sometimes contradictory visions of national identity. I argue that national theatres develop a repertoire that allows for multiplicity, producing a flexible and evolving story of the nation while simultaneously generating a metastory that positions the theatre itself as the nation’s authoritative storyteller.

Using touring as a methodological lens, this dissertation treats encounters between homeland theatres and diasporic audiences as prismatic moments that reveal competing visions of national belonging. By the time the Abbey and Habima arrived in the United States, Irish and Jewish diasporic communities had already developed their own nationalist narratives through newspapers, amateur theatricals, language movements, and educational initiatives. These parallel storytelling practices often stabilized more fixed images of the homeland, creating expectations that did not always align with the dynamic and experimental visions presented by the national theatres. Touring, therefore, created moments of encounter in which cultural authority was negotiated, challenged, and redefined. The dissertation examines the contentious reception of the Abbey among Irish American nationalists, Habima’s struggle to assert itself amid competing Jewish theatrical cultures, and the internal and external debates surrounding language revival in Irish and Hebrew. These encounters illuminate how theatre in both homeland and diaspora functioned pedagogically, educating audiences about belonging while shaping competing understandings of who constituted the nation.

By placing diaspora at the center of national theatre historiography, this study offers a methodological intervention that redefines national theatre as a circulating cultural practice shaped through encounter. The comparison between Irish and Jewish cases reveals both shared ambitions and structural differences, particularly in language politics and relationships to territorial homeland. Ultimately, this dissertation argues that national theatres did not simply represent preexisting nations; they participated in imagining them. Through storytelling, repetition, and reception across geographic distance, the Abbey and Habima helped construct flexible forms of collective identity, raising fundamental questions about who defines the nation and who belongs within it.

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