Performing the Irish and Abortion in Post-Roe Times: Alias Grace in Modern Oklahoma

In fall 2022, I directed the play Alias Grace at Cameron University in Lawton, Oklahoma, United States of America where I am an assistant professor of theatre. Playwright Jennifer Blackmer adapted the modern play from Margaret Atwood’s novel. The plot focuses on fictionalised versions of real-life Grace Marks, described as a nineteenth-century Irish immigrant from Ulster who found work as a maid in Ontario before she was accused of assisting another Irish immigrant in murdering her employer. The representations of these two characters were to be my original focus, with accent work a top learning goal for my students and directing goal for myself. Then, in the summer of 2022, just as I was driving across the border from Canada into upstate New York, news broke that the United States Supreme Court had overturned Roe v. Wade. Whereas the Republic of Ireland repealed its 8th Amendment in 2018, my now-home state of Oklahoma applied trigger laws, outlawing elective abortions in 2022. Although my 2022 production was not similarly halted, my plans for this production altered, in part after an uninvited interaction with a community member. This paper explores my directing focus, its shift to adjust to contemporary events and culture, and the preparation done to safely and successfully present a play that involves the Irish, intimacy, violence, and, glaringly, a supporting character’s abortion in a U.S. state in which, unlike in Ireland, pregnancy terminations are now firmly taboo. The ideas are my own and not those of my employer.