O’CASEY’S PLAYS.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 17880, 23 June 1926, Page 12

O’CASEY’S PLAYS.

We have been told by paragraphists in the Press that Mr Sean O’Uasey'is an Irish docker—or, to explain the phrase, a dock labourer. If this is so. he must easily be the most inspired mortal who ever shouldered a side of froxen beef, a packing case, or a sack of murphies. He is undoubtedly the Irish Galsworthy, and judging from the reception given to “Juno and the Paycock,” which is attracting the plavgoer in great numbers, London has discovered the arrival of a dramatic power. “Juno and the Paycock ” and “ The Shadow of a Gunman ” are printed by Messrs Macmillan. They cannot be neglected by anyone who de•ires to keep pace with the development and progress of the drama, nor can the lover of gripping drama, interpreted by convincingly drawn characters, afford to let this volume pass him unread. Mr O’Casey is an impersonal dramatist. He writes on things in Ireland as they were after the 191 ft upheaval and. mayhap, as they are to-day. He realises that life is an olla-podrida of smiles and tears, and he interprets fiis tragedies by means of characters who. like the puppets of life, frequently stimulate laughter before a storm of passion bursts. “ Captain ” Jack Boj-lc, the “ Paycock,” and his parasite, “ Joxer ” Daly, are two such characters. The “ Captain." who has much in common with the longshoreman of tradition, is a loafer and a waster. The home is kept together by his struggling wife, Juno, and their daughter Mary. The “ Captain ” is supposed to make a daily voyage of exploration in search of the land of labour, but, with excellent navigation, he always steers his craft well clear of the rocks and shoals of work. In this he is aided and abetted by “Joxer" Daly, an ingratiating scoundrel with the word - (iarim " for ever on his Jips. 'ibe story tells of how i hiirlic Ben-

tharn, a school teacher, brings the Boyles news of a legacy, and how, on the strength of their coming fortune, the family embark on a number of extravagances—including a gramophone. These developments, related with irresistible good humour and with convincing realism, are worked out against a background of political strife and suspicion, effectively suggested in the text, but which must be much more impressive when performed. The story ends with tragedy followed by the Galsworthian ironic note of interrogation. “I'm tellin’ you . . . Joxer ...” says the drunken Boyle on returning to his deserted home, “ th’ whole worl’s in a terr . . . ible state o’ . . . chassis! ’* “ The Shadow of a Gunman,” which was produced in 1923, deals with the happenings in Dublin in 1920, when suspicion and tragedy brought a reign of terror to the capital, and when'(silent acts of self-sacrifice were performed by heroes and heroines unhonoured and unsung. Mr O'Casey’s hC’roine, Minnie Powell, a Dublin working girl, is such In a tenement house in Square, Dublin, the author has gathered together a strangely contrastic handful of humanity—Donald Davoren, a poet, Seumas Shields, a pedlar in hairpins—who would make a poor living in these shingled days—Tommy Owens, a loud-mouthed, irresponsible loafer, Adolphus Grigson, a drunken orangeman, his troubled wife, and the affectionate and self-sacrificing Minnie Powell. Then we have Mulligan, the landlord, and the mysterious Maguire, who pedals to hide his republican activities. The garrulous Owens brings tragedy to Hilljov Square, and brings it as grimly and as realistically as any* votary of “ Grand Guignol ” could desire. The play is a reflection of the turbulent life in' Ireland in 1920, and shows that Dublin was a good city to be out of jjuring these troublesome times.

Literary Jottings. “ Xnresting Year,” by Alice Massie (Cassell and Co., London) is a delightfully written novel which has for its purpose the gentle reminder that the. young people of to-day are not the only generation that have “ lived ” and that the young people of the “ eighteenfifties ” also had a good time, or at any rate had their thrills. The story opens with a prologue. The grandchildren and great-grandchildren are gathered together 1o celebrate grandmother’s eighty-fifth birthday. One of the party, a girl, of course, says, “ Those poor old Victorians must have had a rotten time.” The. story proper then opens, showing grannie as a child of twelve, when 'her nice little white shoulders poked themselves up from her frock, and her nice little pantaloons showed beneath it." Her fortunes are described right through her adolescence, with her disappointing love affair, until finally she finds happiness, and in an epologue, “ By the garden window, the old lady who was eightyfive looked up at the old gentleman. “ You know —I've had a very happylife ! ” she said. . . . :< In “ My Lady Vamp ” (Methuen and Co ), George W. Gough has given us something entirely' different from his historical novel, “ The Yeoman Adventurer,” although it is easy to predict that this later publication will have the same successful run as its predecessor. The scene of the story' is laid in England, just at the conclusion of the Great War. The women in the book are few but select, and they play a large part in the story in helpirtg to remove the curse of the House of Cardew. The male characters are finelyportrayed, and the manner in which their technical knowledge is exploited, is at times very clever. The hero of the story is Raymond Barrington, a great chemist who wins distinction in his profession during the war. His meeting with John Cardew, and subsequently' with the latter’s niece, Lalage Mortimer, both take place in exciting circumstances and causes him to throw up the laboratory' for a time in order to help his friend Cardew. llow he turns amateur detective, and his subsequent adventures in trying to outwit

“ the lady vamp ’’ make excellent reading. There is a mystery in the story cleverly- concealed till the climax is reached, and the tense scenes are relieved by' Occasional flashes of a quaintly whimsical humour. * Mr Barrie writes very few letters, but Miss Mary Jerrold, the actress, now playing in Melbourne, has received two. One of them contains just one word. Miss Jerrold was playing in London in n revival of “QualityStreet ” with Fay Compton. One night, in the last act. they both commenced laughing. They- didn't want to laugh but couldn’t help it. This evening Barrie happened to be in the theatre and left a message, for them with the house manager. He said he had notices* the two ladies laughing in the last act. and as he could not see the joke he had left the theatre. When they wrote to apologise Barrie replied. “ Forgiven. T M. Barrie.” But what L want I run not have: One token from beyond the grave, That hour I neither dream nor sleep, To prove death but a veil to hide Another life on the other side. \Y. 11. Davis, in the “Spectator.” Two “Conrad” aphorisms: The worth of sentiment lies in the sacrifices men will make lor its sake. Art may be defined as a singleminded attempt to bring to light the truth. » Mrs Wu Lien-Teh, a Chinese woman, has written in English a book entitled “ The Most Famous Beauty of China.” Its heroine is Yang Kuei-Fei, the favourite of one of the greatest Emperor of the Tang Dynasty, and a traditional beauty of China. She was a sort of Chinese Cleopatra. Mr Henry James, the American novelist, was famous for the length of his sentences. “ Mr Henry James.” said a personal paragraph in a New York humorous paper, “is at present engaged on a sentence which, when completed, will run serially in ‘ Harper's Magazine.’ ” Mr Joseph Penned, the artist and author, died of pneumonia at his home in Brooklvn, Xew York, on April 2-J. lie was born in Philadelphia in ItjftO,

and there he studied art. He 'soon won fame as an artist, author and illustrator. His etchings and illustrations of Great Britain, France, Italy', and the United States are well known everywhere. lie wrote the “Life of Whistler,” published in 1897, and in “ The Adventures of an Illustrator,” published this year, he told the story of his life. Mr A. Ludpvici, in “ An Artist's Life in London and Paris (1870-1925) ” recalls that when Godwin built for Whistler the white house in Tite Street, the artist, on leaving it, put the following legend on the door: “ Except the Lord build the house, their labour has been vain that built it. E. W. Godwin* F.S.A., built this :< Mr Perceval Gibbon, the novelist and short story writer, died recently', aged forty-six years. In his early days he served in the mercantile marine of Britain, France and America. Later, as a journalist and war correspondent, he travelled in South, Central and East Africa, America and Europe. His novels include “ Souls in Bondage,” “ .Salvator,” and “ Margaret Harding.” lie is best known, however, by his short stories which have appeared in the leading English and American magazines.

Mr E. Guy Dawber, president of the Royal Institute of British Architects, Mr Harley Granville-Barlcer. playwright; Sir Charles Holmes, director of the National Gallery; and Sir James Barrie, the famous novelist, will constitute an advisory council in the work of re-erecting and endowing the Shakespeare Memorial Theatre at Stratford-on-Avon, which was seriously' damaged by fire recently. Mrs Pi0 7.7.\ once asked Dr Johnson whether he ever disputed with his wile. He answered, “Perpetually.”. And did he ever huff his wife? “So often that at last she called to me and said, ‘Nay, hold, Mr Johnson, and do not make a farce of thanking God for a dinner which in a few minutes you will protest is not eatable-’ ” But when his wife died, Johnson put up a fervent prayer that the wife who had ruffled him for forty years might be permitted to influence him in his dreams. “ Intense study of the Bible will keep any writer from being vulgar, in point of style.”—S. T. Coleridge. Messrs Angus and Robertson, Ltd., send for review a copy of “Jacob Ussher,” by Naomi Jacob, published by the Cornstalk Company. This can be recommended as a book thoroughly well jvorth reading, a fine book, in fact. It is the romance of a millionaire Jewish financier’s daughter and her father’s secretary. The situation is usual enough—they want to marry, and father won’t let them—but Miss (or Mrs) Jacob’s treatment of the theme is excellent and unusual. There is nothing of the Potash and Perlmutter Jew to be found in “ Jacob Ussher.” though the Jewish character is dealt with from several aspects. The dialogue is clever, the characters are especially well drawn, and the author has the ‘knack of holding the reader’s attention through every’ page; it is the sort of book one reads a second

“ Spillikins '* (Methuen and Co., London)—a book of essays by that popular Irishman. George A. Birmingham, can be heartily recommended because of the writer's refreshing ideas. Lately Birmingham has been spending a good deal of •time in England observing the. changing, conditions in the social and religious life of the country; and most of the essays are on these themes. In the chapter entitled “ Changing England." he points out that the effect of the war has been to deprive the great English middle class of its power, brought about by over-taxation and the loss of that, fine combative spirit, which in former times was the country's strength. Being a cleric, one would expect him to write intimately of Cathedrals. One of the most interesting essays in the book—“• Emotions in Stone ” —is splendidly written, and shows that the writer has a great love for beautiful vistas. Among the interesting articles in ■ Chambers Journal for May, is a splendid outline of Poland’s history since the war, by that well-known authority, Robert Machrayv He points out, among other things, that contrary to the general impression, Poland has great potential wealth and is probably the largest producer of potatoes in the world, and with its forest wealth and petroleum, must in a few years emerge from penury to affluence. There is an excellent short story, “The Aftermath of War,” by Guy Stenning, exemplifying in story form the difficulties that lie in the way of trade between England and Germany, and showing how diverse are the problems confronting England to-day. "Qther Eves than Ours,” by Ronald A. Knox (Methven and Co.) is another of Father Knox's brilliant satires on modern life. This time spiritualism comes in for attention, and as the plot, unwinds itself many new points of view are presented for inspection. There is something of wireless in it. too. through an invention by means of which some spiritualists are able to listen in " to lectures given by the Psychical Research Society on Spookdom a body corresponding to this world's Psychical Research Society. One of the opening chapters contains an ironic survey of the post-war world, the satire of which becomes all the more biting when one remembers that the survey is really just what people seriously predicted ten years ago. The reader need not be interested in spiritualism to enjoy this really clever work.