BIODATA

Ondřej Pilný is Professor of English and American Literature and Director of the Centre for Irish Studies at Charles University, Prague, as well as a Distinguished Senior Lecturer at the Anglo-American University in Prague. His recent publications include Ireland: Interfaces and Dialogues (ed. with Radvan Markus, Daniela Theinová and James Little; WVT Trier, 2022),  Cultural Convergence: The Dublin Gate Theatre, 1928-1960 (ed. with Ruud van den Beuken and Ian R. Walsh; Palgrave, 2021), The Grotesque in Contemporary Anglophone Drama (Palgrave, 2016) and the thematic journal issue “Revisiting Brendan Behan” (ed. with Nathalie Lamprecht, Litteraria Pragensia 34.67, 2024). Ondřej Pilný’s translations into Czech include plays by authors from J.M. Synge to Enda Walsh, and Flann O’Brien’s The Third Policeman. He is a past Chairperson of IASIL (International Association for the Studies of Irish Literatures) and a former Vice-President of EFACIS (European Federation of Associations and Centres of Irish Studies).

ABSTRACT

The lecture will offer a survey of the work of John Millington Synge, a principal playwright associated with the Irish Literary Revival, discussing the controversial reception of his plays in the broad political and aesthetic context of the Ireland of his day, including the notorious ‘Playboy riots’. Finally it hopes to position Synge’s work in the European context, discussing early productions of his plays in the Czech Lands and Germany, as well as the discussions of the national theatre between the Abbey Theatre directors and Karel Mušek, Synge’s Czech translator and producer of his dramas in Prague.