THE STAGE IRISHMAN AGAIN.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XXVII, Issue 19, 11 May 1899, Page 3

THE STAGE IRISHMAN AGAIN.

WHAT HE IS AND WHERE HE CAME FROM

An ebte-'tned correspondent sends the query : ' Would you kindly state what it is that constitutes the stage Irishman ? As Colonials, we have not the opportunity of studying the genuine Irishman on his native heath, and must therefore be content, in our delineations of him, to confine our powers of mimicry to the specimens we ineoi. in everyday life.' By the ttnge ln-<njn;m i* generally understood the capering idiot who per.si.sU in .stumbling into all sorts of blunders and ntup^mes, cither through native apishnes* and imbecility, or through drinking, fighting, or other forms of what is termed in stage language 'divarshun an' divilmint. 1 The fellow's antics are only aggravated when he appears— as he often does— not in the tnne-honourtd brown and grey, but in green or scarlet kneebreeche, and (shades of Brian Koru !) green stockings, and when his ungranimaueal lips volley uU t words, words, words in a Colonialm.ule accent which is meant to be ' so Irish, you know,' but which would make a Connemara pouy or a Munster donkey weep salt tears. One has no objection to our budding entertainers exercising their ' powers of mimicry ' on the typical specimens of Irish people they ' meet in everyday life." But where, and oh, where, in the name of Munchausen, do so many of our ' comics ' alight upon the unearthly, pig-witted, apish, drunken, fighting animals that are so often exhibited on stage-land as types of the Irishmen of ' everyday life /

Such representations of an old and hard-tried Catholic people— ot the nation of saints and martyrs, of the countrymen of Burke and and O'Connell— are. in all reason, bad enough on the stage of a variety theatre, and in the mouths of a class of low comedians whose financial interests involve an appeal to the gallery But it is both a shame and a scandal that they are still permitted at entertainments that arc avowedly Catholic or Irish or both. It is more mysterious etill that grown-up Irish people should be so leadenwitted as tj sit and enjoy being ridiculed to the top of his bent by an exponent of so-called 'Irish character-acting.' There are happily, in every b uch audience, the judicious few who will grieve A> to the rest, it is worth while to ask : (lj How many of those who laugh, laugh at, and how many with, the ' Irish comedian ' ? (2) How many of those who enjoy such exhibitions are really sound judges ot what is fit and proper, and what is not 1 And if they are not good judges, what is the artistic value of their approval ? (3) How many, of the 'enthusiastic recalls' that read so well in print, and fire the ' comedian's ' imagination, are due to the handful of ' gods and noisy boys who would prefer a Lath-rate clog-dance to the finest orchestration of one of Beethoven's conatas, and a bearshow to Salvini's Hamlet .' And are not recalls from such quarters, atter all, about the worst • back-handers ' that the body of an aucfrence can give / Is it not the dignified protest of silence against mere noise, of good breeding a-ainst an outrage on the proprieties ? inose that laugh at an actor get a surfeit of him far more quickly than those that laugh icilh him.

Alt--, and yet alas ! We owe this foreign creature, the stage Irishman, to Irishmen. He is wholly or iv great part the joint product of three Irish Protestant puns. Samuel Lover, although in many re-peas one ox the best delineators of Irish character" permitted himself to write hid all too popular Ihnuhj Aiuhj for lUntleifa Mn.tllany in IMS. Ihe gejjtl st critique of this productiou that 1 can tiud is that of Aihcl Wcub. lie. do-oiibcs it a-s , -somewnat ooi-r,e.' Will (\irhtim al»o did much to popul.wiso the .tage Irishman, c.-jicoiall^ by the publication ot Li- I'udihj (,',> /,/,,/ mIM-i. C.iiletoj \\a-:. ouii.jut.typo. lie was a lap-a i (J itiiohu". idle, worthk—. wil'nmt .> wn>, oL hono ir. an 1 lived by spuming on i:is tti- nds and ficqn.uu ante till ihe» \v< re t-lik of him. Then he liravitatel to the uel,f 1-' pn-oii. The Kev.C.i^ar Otw.iy— vs ho wjs engage 1 in ribcuing li<.lar,d fioin iho ab >, filiations or Vjpiry— tn»ajtd this prunu-ing convert to w. ue stoi ios ot Irish s-upen-tuiuna tor his paper, the Dublin C'tn^tun E.ca»u,it r. The Anglican divine thought that Mich stories ' would terve the cause if properly prepared.' 13 /en in the height of his prosperity and popularity (Jarleton would not p.iy his debts, and coolly went through the insolvency court. 'To the last,' says his biographer {life of William Carl, ton. Ward and Downey. \KH\) 'his pen was at the service of any party or any creed that would hire him.' The remaining member ot the great trio who fairly set up the stage lii&hinan was Charles James Lever— the no\elist of the old Milesian squire, of the dashit g soldier, the camp the turf, and the b ill-rooru. His fiction betrays throughout one of tho great faults of the' romantic .school to which he belonged: exaggeration and overcolouring. So says the Athciucum. And it adds . l ln the novels of Lever the grotesque element is always present in a greater or lesa degree, lapsing occasionally into the caricature' Iri.-h literature owes much to Lover, (Ja-leton, and Lever. But the Irish character has likewise suit', ml through the v<.guo which they gave to the insane creation — half man, half ape — whio'i po-es to this day as a tjpe of what is, perhaps, one of the wittiest and most Catholic people that the sun shines upon. But for how long, O Lord how long ?