Confinement, resistance and reclaiming space in JustUs’s Just a Prisoner’s Wife

Abstract

Late twentieth century Belfast theatre played an important role in developing a working-class feminist response to the “Troubles”. While Bill McDonnell identifies the emergence of a hyper-local “Theatre of the Oppressed” in the city during the 1970s and 1980s, however, this feminist response “from below” is less explored. As the Peace Process emerged in the 1990s, companies like DubbelJoint and JustUs developed community plays that strove to unearth complex perspectives on women's experiences of colonial conflict. This chapter will discuss JustUs's seminal play, Just a Prisoner's Wife (1996), exploring how its sophisticated drama challenged both the criminalisation and androcentrism of republicanism.<br/