IRISH NATIONAL DRAMA

Timaru Herald, Volume CXXV, Issue 18352, 24 August 1929, Page 13

IRISH NATIONAL DRAMA

RISE IN THIRTY YEARS. (By GRAHAM HAY, in the.. “N.Z. Herald”). True to the national tendency to elevate all its activities into Causes, Ireland has brought to the establishment of its drama the dignity and force of a national undertaking. So successful has she been that Irish drama has been the most live and interesting force in the world of dramatic art during the past thirty years. It has been attacked with words, missies, and blows In Ireland for political reasons and because it was accused of villifying certain national characteristics; it has been the object of organised demonstrations and riots In America, on the score of obscenity. In England, alone, the major English speaking countries, Ireland’s hereditary oppressor has always received it with praise

and adulation. In a book called “The Irish Drama,” Mr. Andrew E. Malone gives a clear, well balanced account of the movement from its inception to the present day. Owing allegiance to no faction or individual, his judgmer" gains authority because he is never merely appreciative, but sees his subject with detached yet sympathetic ?yes. The Stage Irishman. The Irish Literary Theatre was :ormed in 1899, by W. B. Yeats, Lady Gregory, Edward Martyn and George Moore. There had been Irish dramatists before—Goldsmith, Sheridan, Wilde, Shav;—but they were Irishmen who had forsaken their native land and grown interested in the land of their adoption, or else despairing of appreciation in Ireland had appealed to the more cultured English audience. But there had been no Irish drama, no plays that appealed to Irish sympathies, or dealt with Irish character. The stage Irishman was especially prepared and bedecked for English eyes, oelabelled w r ith tricks and qualities which never existed outside of English books. Yeats had always had a dream of putting on the stage something which would reflect the character of the common people of Ireland—legend, Tolklore, rural romance. Strangely enough he looked to England to provide his audience. He “thought of taking a little theatre somewhere in the suburb of London where romantic plays could be given.” Then came the next link —he met Lady Gregory, at that time quite inexperienced in the world of the theatre, but endowed with much practical executive ability. She urged Ireland itself as the scene Of the undertaking. Moreover, she influenced her large circle of friends to support the experiment, and undertook most of the organisation. The dreamer and the worker were next joined by the idealist in .Edward Martyn, who kept their aims high. There was still necessary someone with technical knowledge of the theatre, and ready to hand was George Moore, a writer with an assured reputation and considerable stage experience. Success in London. So far the movement had been fortunate in the smooth way each want had been supplied. But Ireland is a distressful country and it was typical that the first trouble should come from the Irish public. The plays selected for the first performance included “The Countess Cathleen,” into which the Catholics read an insult to their faith. The theatre opened in most ill-omen-ed fashion under the protection of a strong posse of police! For the first two seasons the parts were played by English actors.

It was not till 1901 that the enterprise became an all-Ireland one—plays written about Ireland by Irish playwrights, acted by Irish actors under an Irish producer. The quality of its success was not realised till the company went to London in 1903 where it caused something of a sensation and became the outstanding theatrical event of the year. The acting and the plays revived the jaded senses of the critics like a refreshing breeze, and the company returned home rich in laurels. But it had become evident that there were seeds of disruption from within. There could not be unity of purpose among people whose aims were so divergent a 3 those of the four principals. Yeats and Lady Gregory leaned towards the folk-lore of Ireland and the imaginative richness of the Irish language. Martyn was more concerned with the Continental and classic tradition. George Moore was simply a literary artist to whom national ideals made little appeal. Consequent-

ly at the end of three years the Iris? Literary Theatre ceased to exist. It: work was continued by the Irish national Theatre Society. The visit to London was repeated with as great success as before. Encouraged by thi it sent a company to America, ,wher in spite of organised opposition, tfc actors were so successful that some c them never returned. Their loss wa; counterbalanced by the increased prestige which the Irish drama received. Factious Opposition. In 1904 the movement received ft tremendous help by being provided with a permanent home at the Abbe, Theatre through the generosity of Miss Horniman of the Manchester Repertory Theatre. This action is said to have cost Miss Horniman £13,000, but it put the Irish people under a lasting debt of gratitude to her unselfish interest. The leaders of the movement were now "VV. B. Yeats, Lady Gregory. and G. W. Russel (“A.E.”). As before they experienced much opposition from factions within Ireland. The plays were attacked on the grounds of immorality, which does not always have the same narrow meaning in Ireland which the rest of the English world has given it. The Irish are so supersensitive politically that it is well to look for political application in anything at which they take offence. With so many political creeds it is almost impossible to write anything at which- someone will not take umbrage. So opponents of the movement could always be sure of support from some quarter if they raised the cry of immorality. It was first raised against Yeats’ play “The Countess Cathleen;” later Synge’s “In the Shadow of the Glen,” and “The Playboy of the Western World,” came into disfavour. Today the charge of “Paganism” is laid against the plays of Sean O’Casey. Succession of Playwrights. The theatre received a setback in 1908 by the withdrawal of the brothers Fay, who had given the Irish Theatre its distinctive style of acting. This was an adaption from the French School, whose style of grouping tended to revert against the “star-system,’' then so much in vogue in England. This loss, coupled with the death of its greatest playwright, J. M. Synge, found the theatre in difficulties for a time, from which slough it was saved by the discovery of new playwrights in Lennox Robinson, who achieved an outstanding success with “The White Headed Boy,” in 1916, and in Sean O'Casey in 1923, and by the untiring work of Lady Gregory and W. B. Yeats. It is interesting to note that Dunsany, whose “If” failed to arouse enthusiasm ip Auckland, has never been popular in his own country, and has to go to America for his audiences. Moreover the management frankly admitted that in all reperatory movements there is need of comedy if much success is to be achieved. The public demand comedy, and it was wise enough to include a good leavening of comedy in its programmes.

It may be too much to expect the Irish drama to continue to flourish in isolated splendour. It owes much of its success in England hitherto to its refreshing novelty. To the public satiated with the tea and dishwater futilities of Maughan and his like, it was an Invigorating tonic. Already its Influence is seen in the younger school of English dramatists, and its permanence is more likely to be achieved by blending with a broader British movement than by preserving its singularity. It can claim to have been the most vital force In the drama of Great Britain during the present century. “The Irish Drama,” by Andrew E. Malone (Constable).