Life
1941-1988; b. Sydenham, East Belfast; ed. Ashfield Boys’ Sch., Sydenham;
Sullivan Sch., Holywood; and QUB, 1959-64, with MA in poetic drama; taught
at Hamilton college and Cornell Univ., 1969-74; worked as freelance writer
in Belfast to 1978; contrib. column on pop music to Irish Times;
moved to Edinburgh, then London; contrib. 6 radio plays and 1 TV play
to BBC; edited and introduced Sam Thompson’s Over the Bridge (1970);
Spokesong (1975), produced successfully in 1975 Dublin Theatre
Festival, playing in John Player Theatre, S. Circular Rd., Dublin, then
in London, winning the Evening Standard Drama Award, and then Belgium;
received Thames Television grant, 1976; The Actress and the Bishop (1976);
Catchpenny Twist (Peacock, 25 Aug. 1977), a satirical fantasy,
soon after televised; Evening Standard Award, 1977; Ewart Biggs
award, 1979; Nightshade (1980), black comedy; ; Pratt’s
Fall (1982); Northern Star (1984), commissioned by Belfast
Lyric, deals with Henry Joy McCracken; Heavenly Bodies (1986);
Pentecost (1987), concerning the ghost of Lily Matthews, a decent
Protestant woman with a secret, whose house comes to be occupied by Marian,
who is joined by Lenny and his friend Peter returned from Birmingham,
all besieged during the worst of the modern troubles in Belfast; dir.
for Field Day by Patrick Mason with Stephen Rea, played in John Player
Theatre during Dublin Theatre Festival, 1987, later winning the Harvey’s
Best Play of the Year Award; also radio plays, The Iceberg (1975);
The Kamikaze Ground Staff Reunion Dinner (1980). TV plays, I’m
A Dreamer, Montreal (1979), winner of the Christopher Ewart-Biggs
Memorial Prize; Iris in the Traffic, Ruby in the Rain (1981); Joyce
in June (1981); Radio Pictures (1985); Blue Money (1985);
Lost Belongings (1987), version of the Deirdre story as C4 series
set in 1980s; Pentecost was revived by Rough Magic at the Project,
Oct 1995, with Eleanor Methven as Marian; and played again at St. Andrew’s
Lane, Dublin, July 1996; Northern Star was revived by Rough Magic
under direction of Lynne Parker at the Dublin Theatre Festival, Oct. 1997,
in the Samuel Beckett Centre, TCD; d. of cancer; commemorated by Stewart
Parker Trust. DIW DIL FDA OCIL
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Works
Plays, Spokesong (Samuel French 1979); Nightshade
(Dublin Co-Op Books 1980); Catchpenny Twist (Gallery Press 1980);
Three Plays for Ireland: Northern Star, Heavenly Bodies,
Pentecost (London: Oberon Books 1989), with an Introduction by
the author.
Playscripts, Irish in the Traffic; Ruby in the Rain (tv.); The Kamikaze Ground Staff Reunion Dinner; The Traveller; I’m a Dreamer Montreal (all radio), and Pratt’s Fall (stage); also ‘The Iceberg’, in The Honest Ulsterman, 50 (Winter 1975), pp.4-64 [radio play].
Poetry, The Casualty’s Meditation (Belfast: Festival Publ. 1966), and Maw (Belfast: Fest. Publ. 1968), both pamphs. Also, Dramatis Personae, John Malone memorial Lecture (QUB 1986). See also Parker’s ‘Introduction’ to Sam Thompson, Over the Bridge (Gill & Macmilllan 1970), rep. in Honest Ulsterman (Autumn 1994), pp.20-24.
Criticism
Andrew Parkin, ‘Metaphor as Dramatic Structure in Some Plays of Stewart
Parker’ in M Sekine ed., Irish Writers and the Theatre (Gerrards
Cross 1986);, pp.135-50.
M. Etherton, Contemporary Irish Dramatists (Macmillan 1989), pp.15-25.
Elmer Kennedy-Andrews, ‘The Power of Play: Stewart Parker’ s Theatre’, Theatre Ireland No. 18, April-June 1989, p.24.
Elmer Kennedy-Andrews, ‘The Will to Freedom: Politics in the Theatre of Stewart Parker,’ in O[kifumi] Komesu and M[asaru] Sekine, eds., Irish Writers and Politics (Gerrards Cross: Colin Smythe 1990) [var. 1989], c.p.268.
Claudia W. Harris, ‘From Pastness to Wholeness: Stewart Parker’s Reinventing Theatre’, in Colby Quarterly [Contemporary Irish Drama Special Issue, ed. Anthony Roche], Vol. XXVII, No. 4 (Dec. 1991), pp.233-41.
Anthony Roche, ‘Northern Irish Drama: Imaging Alternatives’, in Contemporary Irish Drama From Beckett to McGuinness (Dublin: Gill & Macmillan 1995), pp.216-78, espec. 216-28.
Philip Hobsbaum, ‘The Belfast Group: A Recollection’, Éire-Ireland 32, 2&3 (Summer/Autumn 1997), pp.173-82.
Gerald Dawe, The Rest is History (Newry: Abbey Press 1998) [influence of Belfast culture on Parker and Van Morrison].
Nelson Pressley, ‘Raising the Curtain on Modern Ireland’, in Washington Post (Sunday 22 Oct. 2000), p.G9 [notices Lynne Parker dir, Stewart Parker, Pentecost, Kennedy Centre, May 2000].
Terence Brown, ‘The Drama of Stewart Parker’ in Nicholas Allen & Aaron Kelly, ed., & intro., The Cities of Belfast (Four Courts Press 2003) [q.pp.].
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Notes
Brian Cleeve & Ann Brady, A Dictionary of Irish Writers
(Dublin: Lilliput 1985) also lists The Traveller, radio (1985);
The Iceberg appeared in Honest Ulsterman 50 (Winter 1975)
[DIL]. FDA3 selects Catchpenny Twist; BIOG, 1306 [as supra], and
REMS 633n, 1139, 1140.
Edward Lucie-Smith, ed., and intro., British Poetry Since 1945 (Harmondsworth: Penguin 1970), incls. Stewart Parker, ‘Health’, ‘Paddy Dies’ (pp.346-47), with introductory remark: ‘A rawer, rougher, more unformed writer than either of the other two Belfast poets represented here [Heaney and Mahon], Stewart Parker seems to show considerable promise.’ ANTH, Andrew Carpenter and Peter Fallon, eds., The Writers: Sense of Ireland, O’Brien Press, 1980), contains two scenes from Catchpenny Twist: A Charade (pp.180-85).
Marilyn Richtarik, English Dept., Univ. of British Columbia (Vancouver),
enquires in Fortnight April 1995 for information about Parker [bio-dates
as above].
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Princess Grace Irish Library (Monaco)