The poetry of W. B. Yeats came in on the last wave of Romanticism and survived the Modernist backwash. It remained of the moment but out of step, just as the life he lived was intimately of its age and supremely out of time, guided by a mystical (often mystifying) inner life – an intricately personal vision of history, symbol and myth that also inspired his poems – a vision that Yeats enlarged and renewed throughout his life.

Part of this process of renewal was rewriting: not only his poems but the story of his life. Yeats shed styles and convictions as he changed, leaving behind a series of contradictory selves. ‘Three Ages of Yeats’ is a verbatim piece, dramatising those contradictions by separating Yeats’s life into three ages, each age played by a different actor: Early Yeats, the Republican in a velvet jacket, writing dreamy love poetry for Maud Gonne; the more direct lyric poet, Middle Yeats, writing out of heartbreak and public life; and Late Yeats, indecent, unbiddable, never more experimental. In presenting his life and poetry in triptych, Dead Poets Live hope to capture Yeats in his almost infinite variety.

ANTHONY BOYLE is an Olivier Award-winning and Tony Award-nominated Northern Irish actor who trained at the Royal Welsh College of Music and Drama. This is his Gate Theatre debut. Theatre credits include Harry Potter and the Cursed Child (Olivier Award and Tony Award nomination, West End and Broadway); Herons (PintSized Productions); and East of Belfast Boy (Partisan Productions).

TV credits include House of Guinness (Netflix); Say Nothing, Shardlake (Disney+); Manhunt, Masters of the Air (Apple TV+); Danny Boy (BBC); The Plot Against America (HBO); Ordeal by Innocence (Amazon/BBC); and Derry Girls (Channel 4). Film credits include Tetris, The Journey, Victims and Tolkien.

OLWEN FOUÉRÉ is an Irish actress who works internationally in both English and French. She recently appeared in the Gate’s acclaimed production of The President by Thomas Bernhard, a co-production with Sydney Theatre Company. Other theatre credits include iGirl (Abbey Theatre); Ballyturk (Abbey Theatre, St Ann’s Warehouse); The Last Season (Force Majeure); Blood Wedding (Young Vic Theatre); Nous l’Europe, Banquet des Peuples (Avignon Festival); riverrun (Galway International Arts Festival, National Theatre London, Sydney Theatre Company); Lessness (Barbican International Beckett Festival, Project Arts Centre, Dublin) and Salomé (Gate Theatre, Dublin 1988-93)

Her film/TV credits include The Watchers; All You Need is Death; Sunrise; Cult Killer; Horrorscope; The Actor; The Northman; Texas Chainsaw Massacre; Violet Gibson, The Woman Who Shot Mussolini; Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindlewald; Sea Fever; Mandy; This Must Be The Place; The Survivalist; The Tourist S2; The Crown S5; Holding; Derry Girls S3; and The Head S2&3.

Her awards include the Irish Times Special Tribute Award 2014 and an Honorary Doctorate from Dublin City University.

PETER MCDONALD is an Irish Oscar-nominated stage and screen actor and director. He previously appeared at the Gate in Neil Jordan’s White Horses.

His recent theatre credits include Three Sisters (Almeida); Travesties (Apollo Theatre); The Weir (Donmar Theatre, London); The Days of Wines and Roses (Donmar); The Caretaker (Trafalgar Studios); Glengarry Glen Ross (Apollo Theatre); The Veil, Greenland, Exiles, The Aristocrats (National).

His film/TV credits include Woken; The Batman; Fanny Lye Deliver’d; The Dig; Bagman; England is Mine; The Stag, which he co-wrote; Wreckers, The Damned United, Nora, Saltwater; The Penguin, This Town; Mandy; Dublin Murders; The Last Kingdom; Thirteen; Virtuoso; Murder; No Offence; May Day: Moone Boy.

He was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Live Action Short Film for his short film Pentecost.

TICKETS

Tickets €31 (Including €1 Building Upkeep Levy)

OTHER DEAD POETS EVENTS AT THE GATE

Justine Mitchell is Emily Dickinson
30th January 2025

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