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[picture of Marina Carr beside quote in original]
 

"I think of theater as magic, as opposed to theater as prose. If a play moves you beyond the ordinary, if it takes you somewhere, then I think that's magic, that indescribable ingredient that every writer prays for" (Hartigan C3).
 

Marina Carr's play The Mai certainly answered the prayers of hercritics, who consistently acclaim this new playwright's magical talent. At itsworld premiereat the 1994 Dublin Theatre Festival, it earned the highest honors,and Carr continues to win awards for her work. Irish scholar Declan Kiberdcompared herwork to that of J. M. Synge (King 45), and many dub Carr the "femaleFriel" (McNulty 104). While the work of great Irish playwrights like BrianFriel nurture Marina Carr's talent, her narrative articulates femalevoices traditionally reverted to the Irish landscape. Her use of an Irishrural landscape is both a testament to her Irish identity, and her innovativeproject: to set the stage for female expression.
 

Unlike her predecessors, and similar to her contemporaries, Carr's writing seemsto be moving away from the convention of placing her characters in an Irishsocial-political context. W.B. Yeats' work is one example of how females are, attimes, romanticized as symbols of the Irish nation. In Carr's play The Mai, thepredominantly female cast spans over four generations, each individual characterembodying a different stage ofwomanhood. Indeed, Carr's character development inThe Mai has less to do with Ireland than with Greek tragedy; Carr says that whilewriting this particularplay, she moved towards a "Greek idea of destiny and fateand little escape"(Clarity, C23). The characters may make illusions to socialIrish settings, aswhen they recall scenes in the pub and dances in the village,but most of the action takes place in a house The Mai built on a hill, isolatedfrom thevillagers. What makes Carr's work unique is her deviation from usingIreland asa backdrop for cultural issues, and instead using Ireland'scountryside toillustrate the emotional topography of her female characters.
 

In an interview regarding her play Portia Coughlan, Carr says that the charactersshe creates are outsiders: "In a lot of plays, the women are ciphers ... I try togive the man articulation to express their depths and their contradictions"(Hartigan C3).The result is the disclosure of women in their entirety, ratherthan an exercise in idolatry. In The Mai, one sees Grandma Fraochlán, (thematriarch of crassness,) gleefully recount a dream in which she sees her lovedones in heaventhrough a glass ceiling while she and Satan "gets an like a housean fire" (Carr20). This and other language of the play irked some theater-goersin Ireland, however most critics hailed it (Clarity C23). Regardless if Carrstirs the waters with audiences, she succeeds in demystifying the rurallandscape, and giving voice to those "who are too often silenced" (Hartigan C3).Rural Ireland then becomes an ideal context for this play, if not for thepurposes of culturalrenewal, then for the retrieval of the self.
 

Marina Carr's early plays--which had their first run in small theaters--were absurdist andbizarre, according to James F. Clarity of the New York Times. These, he says,were plays from what Carr calls her "Becket tphase" (C23). What evolved in thelast few years is her own voice, whose foundation is in a rich tradition, andwhose objective is the greatest compliment to her influences. The Irish Repertory of Chicago produced "The Mai," Carr'sfifth play, in April 2000, thusmaking its second appearance inthe United States. What Americans will see is theepitome of Carr's voice-"dark,mythic, poetic even in its profanity-that marks itas the work of a major new dramatist" (McNulty 104). If a play's mission is tomove audiences beyond the ordinary, Carr's stage certainly resides in an extra-ordinaryrealm. Her muses, ranging in age from daughter to great-grandmother, offer a sentimentall their own.