Princeton University receives collection on Irish theater

Gift in honor of poet Paul Muldoon

By: Hilary Parker
   In honor of Nobel Prize-winning poet and Princeton University Professor Paul Muldoon, Leonard L. Milberg, a 1953 Princeton graduate, recently donated a sizable collection centered on the Irish theater to the university.
   The gift of over 1,000 plays, playbills and other memorabilia from the past 160 years will be celebrated from Oct. 13 to 15 in a symposium featuring numerous actors — including Oscar nominee Stephen Rea, Gabriel Byrne and Fiona Shaw — and Tony Award-winning director Garry Hynes, among others.
   At the same time, Firestone Library will open an exhibition of the collection, to continue through April 22, and publish a special issue of the "Princeton University Library Chronicle" about the collection and Irish theater. Also concurrent with the symposium, a production of "Translations," written by Brian Friel and directed by Mr. Hynes, will open Oct. 13 at McCarter Theatre.
   On the heels of the "Translations" production, university students will stage "The Playboy of the Western World," by John Millington Synge in November.
   "For Irish theater, I don’t think there is anything else like this, especially outside of Ireland," Mr. Milberg said of the collection in a written release. "I know people may be interested in a lot of other things, but if it’s Irish theater, they’ll call Princeton."
   In addition to the recent Irish theater donation, Mr. Milberg donated a modern American poetry collection to Princeton in 1998, followed by an Irish poetry collection in 1994 and a collection of works by Jewish American writers in 2001.
   The new collection includes works by a number of Irish notables, including Dion Boucicault, John Millington Synge, Samuel Beckett, Graham Reed and Marina Carr. Two notable pieces in the collection include "The Cooing of Doves," an unpublished play by Sean O’Casey, and the first edition of Beckett’s "En attendant Godot" ("Waiting for Godot") from 1952.
   "The fact is, that there’s nothing quite like this in Ireland itself," Professor Muldoon said of the collection. "It’s an extraordinary resource for our local scholars — students and faculty — who are more and more interested in Irish theater. It turns out that anyone interested in what’s happening on Broadway, for example, is by definition interested in Irish theater."
   A complete symposium schedule will be available in late September.