The multi-award winning playwright, novelist, and short story writer John Arden, and the film maker, activist, and playwright Margarette D’Arcy will read from their work at the Westside Library next week.
The reading takes place on Tuesday at 6.30pm. It is organised by the Western Writers’ Centre as part of this year’s Westside Arts Festival.
Arden and D’Arcy’s work on the Ralagine Co-operative of 1832 has just received a full-house performance on Inis Oirr, at the Áras Eanna Centre, and previously was premiered at The Forge at Gort literature festival.
According to The Guardian: “John Arden was at the forefront of innovative drama in the 1960s yet has made little money from his work. Said to be the heir of the English literary dissident tradition of Blake and Shelley, he fell out with the UK theatrical establishment and moved to Ireland with his wife and artistic collaborator Margaretta D’Arcy. There he continues to write challenging plays and novels."
Margaretta D’Arcy came under the influence of anarchist and pacifist community ideologies, using theatre and film to forward these. She began conceptualising and practising ‘house theatre’, in which artists, neighbours, and friends bring theatre into homes in a vibrant, living mix of life, art, and activism.
