THE BINDING
I had but just written these pages and put together these letters when in last Christmas week we set out again for America. We spent there the first four months of this year, but this time there were no riots and we were of the happy people who have no history, unless it may be of the continued kindness of America, and of the growing kindness and better understanding on the part of our own countrymen.
Last year, it was often said to me in New York and elsewhere, “You must not think that we Americans helped in these attacks.” And I would answer, “No; our countrymen took care to make that clear by throwing our national potato. If you had attacked us you would have thrown pumpkins, and we should have fared worse than Æsop’s philosopher under the oak.”
I think the facts I have given show that the opposition was in every case planned and ordered before the plays had been seen—before we landed, and by a very small group working through a political organisation. As to the reason and meaning of that attack, it is for those who made it to set that out. I cannot but remember Alexander Hamilton’s words when the building of America began: “After this war is over, will come the real war, the great battle of ideas”; and that the long political war in Ireland may be, and seems to be, nearing its end. I think too of Laeg looking out from the wounded Cuchulain’s tent and making his report at Ilgaireth: “I see a little herd of cattle breaking out from the west of Ailell’s camp, and there are lads following after them and trying to bring them back, and I see more lads coming out from the army of Ulster to attack them”; and how Cuchulain said: “That little herd on the plain is the beginning of a great battle.” The battle of ideas has been fought elsewhere and against other dramatists. Was not Ibsen banished from his country, and Molière refused Christian burial?
It is after all the old story of the two sides of the shield. Some who are lovers of Ireland believe we have lessened the dignity of Ireland by showing upon the stage countrymen who drink and swear and admire deeds of violence, or who are misers and covetous or hungering after land. We who are lovers of Ireland believe that our Theatre with its whole mass of plays has very greatly increased that dignity, and we are content to leave that judgment to the great arbitrator, Time. And amongst the Irish in America it was easy to rouse feeling against us. Is not the new baby always the disturber in the household? Our school of drama is the newest birth in Ireland, that Ireland which had become almost consecrated by distance and by romance. An old Irishwoman who loves her country very much said while I was in America: “I don’t want to go back and see Ireland again. It is a finished picture in my mind.” But Ireland cannot always be kept as a sampler upon the wall. It has refused to be cut off from the creative work of the intellect, and the other countries creating literature have claimed her as of their kin.
I wish my countrymen, before coming into the fight, had known it to be so unequal. They had banished from the stage one or two plays that had given them offence and no one had greatly cared. But works of imagination such as those of Synge could not be suppressed even if burned in the market place. They had not realised the tremendous support we had, that we were not fighting alone, but with the intellect of America as well as of Europe at our back.
There was another thing they had not reckoned with. It had been put down in words by Professor William James: “Democracy is still upon its trial. The civic genius of our people is its only bulwark and neither laws nor monuments, neither battleships nor public libraries, nor churches nor universities can save us from degeneration if the inner mystery be lost. That mystery, at once the secret and glory of our English-speaking race, consists in nothing but two common habits, two inveterate habits, carried into public life. One of these is the habit of trained and disciplined good temper towards the opposite party when it fairly wins its innings. The other is that of fierce and merciless resentment towards every man or set of men who break the public peace.”
The civic genius of America decided that not we but our opponents had broken the public peace.
Now, little Richard, that is the whole story of my journey; and I wonder if by the time you can read it you will have forgotten my coming home with a big basket of grapes and bananas and grapefruit and oranges for you, and a little flag with the Stars and Stripes.
I was very glad to be at home with you again while the daffodils were blooming out, and to have no more fighting, perhaps for ever. And if it is hard to fight for a thing you love, it is harder to fight for one you have no great love for. And you will read some day in one of those books in the library that are too high now for you to reach, the story of a man who was said to be mad but has outlived many who were not, and who went about fighting for the sake of some one who was maybe “the fright of seven townlands with her biting tongue” though he still called out after every battle, “Dulcinea is the most beautiful woman of the world!” So think a long time before you choose your road, little Richard, but when you have chosen it, follow it on to the end.
Coole, July 24, 1913.
Appendices
APPENDIX I
PLAYS PRODUCED BY THE ABBEY THEATRE CO.
AND ITS PREDECESSORS, WITH DATES
OF FIRST PERFORMANCES
IRISH LITERARY THEATRE AT ANTIENT CONCERT ROOMS
| May 8th, 1899. | “The Countess Cathleen.” | W. B. Yeats |
| “ 9th, “ | “The Heather Field.” | Edward Martyn |
IRISH LITERARY THEATRE AT THE GAIETY THEATRE
| Feb. 19th, 1900. | “The Bending of the Bough.” | George Moore |
| “ 19th, “ | “The Last Feast of the Fianna.” | Alice Milligan |
| “ 20th, “ | “Maeve.” | Edward Martyn |
| Oct. 21st, 1901. | “Diarmuid and Grania.” | W. B. Yeats and George Moore |
| “ 21st, “ | “The Twisting of the Rope.” | Douglas Hyde |
| (The first Gaelic Play produced in any Theatre.) | ||
MR. W. G. FAY’S IRISH NATIONAL DRAMATIC COMPANY AT ST. TERESA’S HALL, CLARENDON STREET.
| Apr. 2nd, 1902. | “Deirdre.” | “A.E.” |
| “ 2nd, “ | “Kathleen Ni Houlihan.” | W. B. Yeats. |
IRISH NATIONAL DRAMATIC COMPANY AT ANTIENT CONCERT ROOMS
| Oct. 29th, 1902. | “The Sleep of the King.” | Seumas O’Cuisin |
| Oct. 29th, 1902. | “The Laying of the Foundations.” | Fred Ryan |
| “ 30th, “ | “A Pot of Broth.” | W. B. Yeats |
| “ 31st, “ | “The Racing Lug.” | Seumas O’Cuisin |
IRISH NATIONAL THEATRE SOCIETY, MOLESWORTH HALL
(The first prospectus of this Society, dated March, 1903, and signed by Mr. Fred Ryan began as follows: “The Irish National Theatre Society was formed to continue on a more permanent basis the work of the Irish Literary Theatre.”)
| Mar. 14th, 1903. | “The Hour Glass.” | W. B. Yeats |
| “ 14th, “ | “Twenty-Five.” | Lady Gregory |
| Oct. 8th, “ | “The King’s Threshold.” | W. B. Yeats |
| “ 8th, “ | “In the Shadow of the Glen.” | J. M. Synge |
| Dec. 3rd, “ | “Broken Soil.” | Padraic Colum |
| Jan. 14th, 1904. | “The Shadowy Waters.” | W. B. Yeats |
| “ 14th, “ | “The Townland of Tamney.” | Seumas McManus |
| Feb. 25th, “ | “Riders to the Sea.” | J. M. Synge |
IRISH NATIONAL THEATRE SOCIETY AT THE ABBEY THEATRE.
| Dec. 27th, 1904. | “On Baile’s Strand.” | W. B. Yeats |
| “ 27th, “ | “Spreading the News.” | Lady Gregory |
| Feb. 4th, 1905. | “The Well of the Saints.” | J. M. Synge |
| Mar. 25th, “ | “Kincora.” | Lady Gregory |
| Apr. 25th, “ | “The Building Fund.” | William Boyle |
| June 9th, “ | “The Land.” | Padraic Colum |
NATIONAL THEATRE SOCIETY, LTD. (ABBEY COMPANY)
| Dec. 9th, 1905. | “The White Cockade.” | Lady Gregory |
| Jan. 20th, 1906. | “The Eloquent Dempsy.” | William Boyle |
| Feb. 19th, “ | “Hyacinth Halvey.” | Lady Gregory |
| Oct. 20th, “ | “The Gaol Gate.” | Lady Gregory |
| “ 20th, “ | “The Mineral Workers.” | William Boyle |
| Nov. 24th, “ | “Deirdre.” | W. B. Yeats |
| Dec. 8th, “ | “The Canavans.” | Lady Gregory |
| Dec. 8th, 1906. | New Version of “The Shadowy Waters.” | W. B. Yeats |
| Jan. 26th, 1907. | “The Playboy of the Western World.” | J. M. Synge |
| Feb. 23rd, “ | “The Jackdaw.” | Lady Gregory |
| Mar. 9th, “ | “The Rising of the Moon.” | Lady Gregory |
| Apr. 1st, “ | “The Eyes of the Blind.” | Miss W. M. Letts |
| Apr. 3rd, 1907. | “The Poorhouse.” | Douglas Hyde and Lady Gregory |
| “ 27th, “ | “Fand.” | Wilfrid Scawen Blunt |
| Oct. 3rd, “ | “The Country Dressmaker.” | George Fitzmaurice |
| “ 31st, “ | “Dervorgilla.” | Lady Gregory |
| Nov. 21st, “ | “The Unicorn from the Stars.” | W. B. Yeats and Lady Gregory |
| Feb. 13th, 1908. | “The Man who missed the Tide.” | W. F. Casey |
| “ 13th, “ | “The Piper.” | Norreys Connell |
| Mar. 10th, “ | “The Piedish.” | George Fitzmaurice |
| Mar. 19th, “ | “The Golden Helmet.” | W. B. Yeats |
| Apr. 20th, “ | “The Workhouse Ward.” | Lady Gregory |
| Oct. 1st, “ | “The Suburban Groove.” | W. F. Casey |
| “ 8th, “ | “The Clancy Name.” | Lennox Robinson |
| “ 15th, “ | “When the Dawn is come.” | Thomas MacDonogh |
| “ 21st, “ | New Version, “The Man who missed the Tide.” | W. F. Casey |
| Feb. 11th, 1909. | Revised Version of “Kincora.” | Lady Gregory |
| Mar. 11th, “ | “Stephen Grey.” | D. L. Kelleher |
| Apr. 1st, “ | “The Cross Roads.” | Lennox Robinson |
| “ 1st, “ | “Time.” | Norreys Connell |
| “ 29th, “ | “The Glittering Gate.” | Lord Dunsany |
| May 27th, “ | “An Imaginary Conversation.” | Norreys Connell |
| Aug. 25th, “ | “The Shewing-up of Blanco Posnet.” | Bernard Shaw |
| Sept. 16th, “ | “The White Feather.” | R. J. Ray |
| Oct. 14th, “ | “The Challenge.” | Miss W. M. Letts |
| Nov. 11th, “ | “The Image.” | Lady Gregory |
| Jan. 13th, 1910. | “Deirdre of the Sorrows.” | J. M. Synge |
| Feb. 10th, “ | “The Green Helmet.” | W. B. Yeats |
| Mar. 2nd, “ | “The Travelling Man.” | Lady Gregory |
| May 12th, “ | “Thomas Muskerry.” | Padraic Colum |
| “ 26th, “ | “Harvest.“ | Lennox Robinson |
| Sept. 28th, 1910 | “The Casting-out of Martin Whelan.” | R. J. Ray |
| Oct. 27th, “ | “Birthright.” | T. C. Murray |
| Nov. 10th, “ | “The Full Moon.” | Lady Gregory |
| “ 24th, “ | “The Shuiler’s Child.”[2] | Seumas O’Kelly |
| Dec. 1st, “ | “Coats.” | Lady Gregory |
| Jan. 12th, 1911. | “The Deliverer.” | Lady Gregory |
| “ 26th, “ | “King Argimenes and the Unknown Warrior.” | Lord Dunsany |
| Feb. 16th, “ | “The Land of Heart’s Desire.”[3] | W. B. Yeats |
| Mar. 30th, “ | “Mixed Marriage.” | St. John G. Ervine |
| Nov. 23rd, “ | “The Interlude of Youth.” | Anon., first printed 1554 |
| “ 23rd, “ | “The Second Shepherds’ Play.” | Anon., circa 1400 |
| “ 30th, “ | “The Marriage.” | Douglas Hyde |
| Dec. 7th, “ | “Red Turf.” | Rutherford Mayne |
| “ 14th, “ | Revival of “The Countess Cathleen.” | W. B. Yeats |
| Jan. 4th, 1912. | “The Annunciation.” | circa 1400 |
| “ 4th, “ | “The Flight into Egypt.” | circa 1400 |
| “ 11th, “ | “MacDarragh’s Wife.” | Lady Gregory |
| Feb. 1st, “ | Revival of “The Country Dressmaker.” | George Fitzmaurice |
| “ 15th, “ | “The Tinker and the Fairy.” | Douglas Hyde |
| (Played in Gaelic) | ||
| “ 29th, “ | “The Worlde and the Chylde.” | 15th century |
| Mar. 28th, “ | “Family Failing.” | William Boyle |
| Apr. 11th, “ | “Patriots.” | Lennox Robinson |
| “ 15th, “ | “Judgment.” | Joseph Campbell |
| June 20th, “ | “Maurice Harte.” | T. C. Murray |
| July 4th, “ | “The Bogie Men.” | Lady Gregory |
| Oct. 17th, “ | “The Magnanimous Lover.” | St. John G. Ervine |
| Nov. 21st, “ | “Damer’s Gold.” | Lady Gregory |
[2] First produced by an amateur company at the Molesworth Hall in 1909.
[3] First produced at the Avenue Theatre, London, in 1894.
TRANSLATIONS OF THE FOLLOWING HAVE BEEN PRODUCED
| Apr. 16th, 1906. | “The Doctor in spite of Himself.” | (Molière.) Translated by Lady Gregory |
| Mar. 16th, 1907. | “Interior.” | (Maeterlinck.) |
| “ 19th, 1908. | “Teja.” | (Sudermann.) Translated by Lady Gregory |
| Apr. 4th, “ | “The Rogueries of Scapin.” | (Molière.) Translated by Lady Gregory |
| Jan. 21st, 1909. | “The Miser.” | (Molière.) Translated by Lady Gregory |
| Feb. 24th, 1910. | “Mirandolina.” | (Goldoni.) Translated by Lady Gregory |
| Jan. 5th, 1911. | “Nativity Play.” | (Douglas Hyde.) Translated by Lady Gregory |
NEW PRODUCTIONS
| Nov. 21st, 1912. | “The Hour Glass” Revised. | |
| “ “ “ | “Damer’s Gold.” | |
| Jan. 23rd, 1913. | “The Dean of St. Patrick’s.” | G. Sidney Paternoster |
| Feb. 6th, “ | Revival, “Casting-out of Martin Whelan.” | R. J. Ray |
| “ 20th, “ | “Hannele.” | Gerhardt Hauptmann |
| Mar. 6th, “ | “There are Crimes and Crimes.” | August Strindberg |
| “ 13th, “ | “The Cuckoo’s Nest.” | John Guinan |
| Apr. 10th, “ | “The Homecoming.” | Gertrude Robins |
| “ 17th, “ | “The Stronger.” | August Strindberg |
| “ 24th, “ | “The Magic Glasses.” | George Fitzmaurice |
| “ 24th, “ | “Broken Faith.” | S. R. Day and G. D. Cummins |
| May 17th, “ | “The Post Office.” | Rabindranath Tagore |
APPENDIX II
“THE NATION” ON “BLANCO POSNET”
We have often spoken in these columns of the condition of the British drama and the various ways of mending it. But there is one of its features, or, rather, one of its disabilities, as to which some present decision must clearly be taken. That is the power of the Censorship to warp it for evil, and to maim it for good. There can be no doubt at all that this is the double function of the Lord Chamberlain and his office. The drama that they pass on and therefore commend to the people is a drama that is always earthly, often sensual, and occasionally devilish; the drama which they refuse to the people is a drama that seeks to be truthful, and is therefore not concerned with average sensual views of life, and that might, if it were encouraged, powerfully touch the neglected spheres of morals and religion. As to the first count against the Censorship there is and can be no defence. Habemus confitentem reum. The man who would pass Dear Old Charlie would pass anything. He has bound himself to tolerate the drama of Wycherley and Congreve, of which it is a fairly exact and clever revival, suited to modern hypocrisy as to ways of expression, but equally audacious in its glorification of lying, adultery, mockery, and light-mindedness.
The case on the other count is, we think, sufficiently made out by the Censor’s refusal to license Mr. Bernard Shaw’s one-act play, The Showing-up of Blanco Posnet. It is fair to the Censor to explain the grounds of his refusal. Mr. Shaw has been good enough to let the editor of this paper see a copy both of his drama and of the official letter refusing a “license for representation” unless certain passages were expunged. There were two such passages. On the second Mr. Shaw assures us that no difficulty could have occurred. It raised a question of taste, on which he was willing to meet Mr. Redford’s views. It seems to us outspoken rather than gross, but as it was not the subject of controversy we dismiss it, and recur to the critical point on which Mr. Shaw, considering—and, in our view, rightly considering—that the heart and meaning of his play were at issue, refused to give way. In order that we may explain the quarrel, it is necessary to give some slight sketch of the character and intention of The Showing-up of Blanco Posnet. We suggest as the simplest clue to its tone and atmosphere that it reproduces in some measure the subject and the feeling of Bret Harte’s Luck of Roaring Camp. It depicts a coarse and violent society, governed by emotions and crude wants rather than by principles and laws, a society of drunkards, lynchers, duellists at sight, and, above all, horse-stealers—in other words, a world of conventionally bad men, liable to good impulses. The “hero” is something of a throw-back to Dick Dudgeon, of the Devil’s Disciple; that is to say, he is reckless and an outcast, who retains the primitive virtue of not lying to himself.
The scene of the play is a trial for horse-stealing. Blanco is a nominal—not a real—horse-stealer, that is to say, he has committed the sin which a society of horsemen does not pardon. He has run away with the Sheriff’s horse, believing it to be his brother’s, and taking it on account of a fraudulent settlement of the family estate. A man of his hands, he has yet allowed himself to be tamely captured and brought before a jury of lynchers. Why? Well, he has been upset, overtaken, his plan of life twisted and involved out of all recognition. On his way with the horse, a woman met him with a child dying of croup. She stopped him, thrust the sick child on to the horse, and “commandeered” it for a ride to the nearest doctor’s. The child has thrust its weak arms round his neck, and with that touch all the strength has gone out of him. He gives up the horse and flies away into the night, covering his retreat from this new superior force with obscene curses, and surrendering, dismounting, dazed, and helpless, to the Sheriff when the posse comitatus catches him.
Thenceforward two opposing forces rend him, and make life unintelligible and unendurable while they struggle for his soul. Dragged into the Sheriff’s court, he is prepared to fight for his neck with the rascals who sit in judgment on him, to lie against them, and to browbeat them. Unjust and filthy as they are, he will be unjust and filthy too. But then there was this apparition of the child. What did it mean? Why has it unmanned him? And here it seems to him that God has at once destroyed and tricked him, for the child is dead, and yet his life is forfeit to these brutes. The situation—this sketch of a sudden, ruthless, unintelligible interference with the lives of men—though apparently unknown to the Censor, will be familiar to readers of the Bible and of religious poetry and prose, and Mr. Shaw’s treatment of it could only offend either the non-religious mind or the sincerely, but conventionally, pious man who is so wrapt up in the emotional view of religion that its sterner and deeper moralities escape him. The literary parallels will at once occur. Browning chooses the subject in Pippa Passes, and in the poem in which he describes how the strong man who had hemmed in and surrounded his enemy suddenly found himself stayed by the “arm that came across” and saved the wretch from vengeance. Ibsen dwells on this divine thwarting and staying power in Peer Gynt, and it is, of course, the opening theme of the Pilgrim’s Progress. As it presents itself to a coarse and reckless, but sincere, man he deals with it in coarse but sincere language—the language which the Censor refuses to pass. Here is the offending passage, which occurs in a dialogue between Blanco and his drunken hypocrite of a brother:—
“Blanco: Take care, Boozy. He hasn’t finished with you yet. He always has a trick up his sleeve.
“Elder Daniels: Oh, is that the way to speak of the Ruler of the Universe—the great and almighty God?
“Blanco: He’s a sly one. He’s a mean one. He lies low for you. He plays cat and mouse with you. He lets you run loose until you think you’re shut of Him; and then when you least expect it, He’s got you.
“Elder Daniels: Speak more respectful, Blanco—more reverent.
“Blanco: Reverent! Who taught you your reverent cant? Not your Bible. It says, ‘He cometh like a thief in the night’—aye, like a thief—a horse-thief. And it’s true. That’s how He caught me and put my neck into the halter. To spite me because I had no use for Him—because I lived my own life in my own way, and would have no truck with His ‘Don’t do this,’ and ‘You mustn’t do that,’ and ‘You’ll go to hell if you do the other.’ I gave Him the go-bye, and did without Him all these years. But He caught me out at last. The laugh is with Him as far as hanging goes.”
Now, let us first note the incapacity of the critic of such an outburst as this to think in terms of the dramatic art—to divine the état d’âme of the speaker, and to recognise the method, and, within bounds, the idiosyncracy of the playwright. But having regard to all that the Censor has done and all that he has left undone, let us also mark his resolve to treat as mere blasphemy on Mr. Shaw’s part the artist’s endeavour to depict a rough man’s first consciousness of a Power that, selecting Blanco as it selected Paul and John Bunyan, threatens to drag him through moral shame and physical death, if need be, to life, and not to let him go till He has wrought His uttermost purpose on him. Mr. Shaw naturally makes Blanco talk as an American horse-stealer would talk. But how does Job talk of God, or the Psalmist, or the Author of the Parables? Nearly every one of Blanco Posnet’s railings can be paralleled from Job. Listen to this:—
“The tabernacles of robbers prosper, and they that provoke God are secure, into whose hand God bringeth abundantly.
“He removeth away the speech of the trusty, and taketh away the understanding of the aged.
“He taketh the heart of the chief of the people of the earth and causeth them to wander in a wilderness where there is no way.
“They grope in the dark without light, and He maketh them to stagger like a drunken man.
“Know now that God hath overthrown me, and hath compassed me with His net.
“He hath fenced up my way that I cannot pass, and He hath set darkness in my paths.
“He hath destroyed me on every side, and I am gone: and mine hope hath He removed like a tree.”
Is this blasphemy? Is not Mr. Shaw’s theme and its expression a reflection of Job’s, save that in the one case a bad man speaks, and in the other a good one? If the answer is that these subjects, these moral and religious relationships, must not be treated on the stage, then we reply first that the Censor is grossly inconsistent, for he did not veto the entire play, but only that passage which most clearly revealed its meaning; secondly, that the licensing of Everyman, and of Mr. Jerome’s The Third Floor Back, where God appears, not merely as an influence on the lives of men, but as a man, sitting at their table and sharing their talk, forbids such an hypothesis; and thirdly, that if Mr. Redford holds this view, he is convicted of opening the drama to horrible mockery of life and sensual trifling with it, and closing it to those close questionings of its purpose, which constitute the main theme of all serious playwrights from Æschylus to Ibsen. That Mr. Shaw could have consented to the omission of the passage we have quoted was out of the question. It is vital. The entire play turns on it. For when the woman comes into court and tells her story, it is seen that the leaven which works in Blanco’s mind has leavened the lump; that the prostitute who is for swearing away his life cannot speak, that the ferocious jury will not convict, and the unjust judge will not sentence.
Mr. Shaw had, therefore, to fight for his play, and the Censor has to come into the open and face the music; to reveal his theory of the British drama, and illustrate his continual practice of it; which is to warn off the artist and the preacher, and to clear the path for the scoffer and the clown.
LETTER FROM W. G. BERNARD SHAW TO LADY GREGORY AFTER THE PRODUCTION OF “BLANCO POSNET”
Dear Lady Gregory:
Now that the production of Blanco Posnet has revealed the character of the play to the public, it may be as well to clear up some of the points raised by the action of the Castle in the matter.
By the Castle, I do not mean the Lord Lieutenant. He was in Scotland when the trouble began. Nor do I mean the higher officials and law advisers. I conclude that they also were either in Scotland, or preoccupied by the Horse Show, or taking their August holiday in some form. As a matter of fact the friction ceased when the Lord Lieutenant returned. But in the meantime the deputies left to attend to the business of the Castle found themselves confronted with a matter which required tactful handling and careful going. They did their best; but they broke down rather badly in point of law, in point of diplomatic etiquette, and in point of common knowledge.
First, they committed the indiscretion of practically conspiring with an English official who has no jurisdiction in Ireland in an attempt to intimidate an Irish theatre.
Second, they assumed that this official acts as the agent of the King, whereas, as Sir Harry Poland established in a recent public controversy on the subject, his powers are given him absolutely by Act of Parliament (1843). If the King were to write a play, this official could forbid its performance, and probably would if it were a serious play and were submitted without the author’s name, or with mine.
Third, they assumed that the Lord Lieutenant is the servant of the King. He is nothing of the sort. He is the Viceroy: that is, he is the King in the absence of Edward VII. To suggest that he is bound to adopt the views of a St. James’s Palace official as to what is proper to be performed in an Irish theatre is as gross a solecism as it would be to inform the King that he must not visit Marienbad because some Castle official does not consider Austria a sufficiently Protestant country to be a fit residence for an English monarch.
Fourth, they referred to the Select Committee which is now investigating the Censorship in London whilst neglecting to inform themselves of its purpose. The Committee was appointed because the operation of the Censorship had become so scandalous that the Government could not resist the demand for an inquiry. At its very first sitting it had to turn the public and press out of the room and close its doors to discuss the story of a play licensed by the official who barred Blanco Posnet; and after this experience it actually ruled out all particulars of licensed plays as unfit for public discussion. With the significant exception of Mr. George Edwards, no witness yet examined, even among those who have most strongly supported the Censorship as an institution, has defended the way in which it is now exercised. The case which brought the whole matter to a head was the barring of this very play of mine, The Shewing up of Blanco Posnet. All this is common knowledge. Yet the Castle, assuming that I, and not the Censorship, am the defendant in the trial now proceeding in London, treated me, until the Lord Lieutenant’s return, as if I were a notoriously convicted offender. This, I must say, is not like old times in Ireland. Had I been a Catholic, a Sinn Feiner, a Land Leaguer, a tenant farmer, a labourer, or anything that from the Castle point of view is congenitally wicked and coercible, I should have been prepared for it; but if the Protestant landed gentry, of which I claim to be a perfectly correct member, even to the final grace of absenteeism, is to be treated in this way by the Castle, then English rule must indeed be going to the dogs. Of my position of a representative of literature I am far too modest a man to speak; but it was the business of the Castle to know it and respect it; and the Castle did neither.
Fifth, they reported that my publishers had refused to supply a copy of the play for the use of the Lord Lieutenant, leaving it to be inferred that this was done by my instructions as a deliberate act of discourtesy. Now no doubt my publishers were unable to supply a copy, because, as it happened, the book was not published, and could not be published until the day of the performance without forfeiting my American copyright, which is of considerable value. Private copies only were available; but if the holiday deputies of the Castle think that the Lord Lieutenant found the slightest difficulty in obtaining such copies, I can only pity their total failure to appreciate either his private influence or his public importance.
Sixth, they claimed that Sir Herbert Beerbohm Tree, who highly values good understanding with the Dublin public, had condemned the play. What are the facts? Sir Herbert, being asked by the Select Committee whether he did not think that my play would shock religious feeling, replied point-blank, “No, it would heighten religious feeling.” He announced the play for production at his theatre; the Censorship forced him to withdraw it; and the King instantly shewed his opinion of the Censorship by making Sir Herbert a Knight. But it also happened that Sir Herbert, who is a wit, and knows the weight of the Censor’s brain to half a scruple, said with a chuckle when he came upon the phrase “immoral relations” in the play, “They won’t pass that.” And they did not pass it. That the deputy officials should have overlooked Sir Herbert’s serious testimony to the religious propriety of the play, and harped on his little jest at the Censor’s expense as if it were at my expense, is a fresh proof of the danger of transacting important business at the Castle when all the responsible officials are away bathing.
On one point, however, the Castle followed the established Castle tradition. It interpreted the patent (erroneously) as limiting the theatre to Irish plays. Now the public is at last in possession of the fact that the real protagonist in my play who does not appear in person on the stage at all, is God. In my youth the Castle view was that God is essentially Protestant and English; and as the Castle never changes its views, it is bound to regard the divine protagonist as anti-Irish and consequently outside the terms of the patent. Whether it will succeed in persuading the Lord Lieutenant to withdraw the patent on that ground will probably depend not only on His Excellency’s theological views, but on his private opinion of the wisdom with which the Castle behaves in his absence. The Theatre thought the risk worth while taking; and I agreed with them. At all events Miss Horniman will have no difficulty in insuring the patent at an extremely reasonable rate.
In conclusion, may I say that from the moment when the Castle made its first blunder I never had any doubt of the result, and that I kept away from Dublin, in order that our national theatre might have the entire credit of handling and producing a new play without assistance from the author or from any other person trained in the English theatres. Nobody who has not lived, as I have to live, in London, can possibly understand the impression the Irish players made there this year, or appreciate the artistic value of their performances, their spirit, and their methods. It has been suggested that I placed Blanco Posnet at their disposal only because it was, as an unlicensed play, the refuse of the English market. As a matter of fact there was no such Hobson’s choice in the matter. I offered a licensed play as an alternative, and am all the more indebted to Lady Gregory and Mr. Yeats for not choosing it. Besides, Ireland is really not so negligible from the commercial-theatrical point of view as some of our more despondent patriots seem to suppose. Of the fifteen countries outside Britain in which my plays are performed, my own is by no means the least lucrative; and even if it were, I should not accept its money value as a measure of its importance.
G. Bernard Shaw.
Parknasilla,
27 August, 1909.
APPENDIX III
“THE PLAYBOY IN AMERICA”
(Note to [page 180])
From “The Gaelic American,” Oct. 14, 1911
IRISHMEN WILL STAMP OUT THE “PLAYBOY”
October 14, 1911:—“Resolved—That we, the United Irish-American Societies of New York, make every reasonable effort, through a committee, to induce those responsible for the presentation of The Playboy to withdraw it, and failing in this we pledge ourselves as one man to use every means in our power to drive the vile thing from the stage, as we drove McFadden’s Row of Flats and the abomination produced by the Russell Brothers, and we ask the aid in this work of every decent Irish man and woman, and of the Catholic Church, whose doctrines and devotional practices are held up to scorn and ridicule in Synge’s monstrosity.”
(Note to [page 202])
From The New York “Times”
November 28, 1911:—When Christopher Mahon said: “I killed my father a week and a half ago for the likes of that,” instantly voices began to call from all over the theatre:
“Shame! Shame!”
A potato swept through the air from the gallery and smashed against the wings. Then came a shower of vegetables that rattled against the scenery and made the actors duck their heads and fly behind the stage setting for shelter.
A potato struck Miss Magee, and she, Irish like, drew herself up and glared defiance. Men were rising in the gallery and balcony and crying out to stop the performance. In the orchestra several men stood up and shook their fists.
“Go on with the play,” came an order from the stage manager, and the players took their places and began again to speak their lines.
The tumult broke out more violently than before, and more vegetables came sailing through the air and rolled about the stage. Then began the fall of soft cubes that broke as they hit the stage. At first these filled the men and women in the audience and on the stage with fear, for only the disturbers knew what they were.
Soon all knew. They were capsules filled with asafœtida, and their odour was suffocating and most revolting.
One of the theatre employes had run to the street to ask for police protection at the outset of the disturbance, but the response was so slow that the ushers and the doortenders raced up the stairs and threw themselves into a knot of men who were standing and yelling “Shame!”
(Note to [page 205])
From The New York “Sun”
Wednesday, November 29, 1911:—Col. Theodore Roosevelt, who had been entertained at dinner prior to the play by Lady Gregory, the author-producer of many of the Irish plays, and Chief Magistrate McAdoo sat with Lady Gregory in one of the lower tier boxes. Col. Roosevelt was there representing the Outlook, for he said that if he had any ideas on the subject of the morals and merits of Synge’s play he would write them in Dr. Abbott’s paper, and Magistrate McAdoo was there for Mayor Gaynor to stop the play if he saw anything contrary to the public morals in it. Mr. McAdoo said that his task was a light one and Col. Roosevelt did not have to say anything. He just applauded.
When Col. Roosevelt appeared on a side aisle escorting Lady Gregory to a seat in the box there was a patter of hand clapping and the Colonel gallantly insisted that Lady Gregory should stand and receive the applause.
“He’s here because he smells a fight,” said some one in a whisper that rebounded from the acoustic board overhead and was audible all over the house.
When Magistrate McAdoo arrived somebody asked him if he were serving in an official capacity, to which he replied that the Mayor had asked him to drop in and see the play which had so roused the wrath of reputed Irishmen on the night before. He had orders, McAdoo said, to squash it the minute that he should see or hear anything that might be considered to have tobogganed over the line of discretion. But Mr. McAdoo said that he thought he would understand in a fair spirit, withal, the satire and irony of the play, if there was such, and he did not intend to be a martinet. The players graciously handed him out the prompt book between acts to see for himself that the line about “shifts” which had raised a storm of protest in Dublin as being indelicate had been deleted.
Nothing happened during the playing of the little curtain-raiser, The Gaol Gate, Lady Gregory’s grim little tragedy of suffering Ireland, except that near the end of the single act in the playlet people in the gallery began a noisy warming up on their coughs and sneezes. Some of the plain-clothes men there began to amble around back of the aisles, and they laid their eyes on one individual with a thick neck who seemed about to pull something out from under his coat. Him they landed just as a quick curtain fell on the act and without ado they ousted him.
The citizen began to protest loudly that he was wedged in his seat and could not stir, but two of the strong arms persuaded him that he might as well unwedge himself before something happened. The little interlude was not sufficiently stirring even to attract the notice of those in the balcony and orchestra below.
Everybody believed that the trouble was all past with the second act, but the third and last was the noisiest of the three.
It appeared that, failing to find any single line to which they could take exception, those who had come to protest against what they conceived to be the libelling of the Irish race were ready to take it out in one long spell of hissing.
The cue was given when the drunken Michael James, the inn keeper, came on the stage to unite with a maudlin blessing the lovers, Christopher and Margaret.
As in the second act the seat of disturbance was in the balcony and thither six plain-clothes men were hastened. Three heads were together and one man was beating time with his hand while they took relays in hissing. The plain-clothes men descended and the three were yanked from their seats without benefit of explanation.
“But we’re Englishmen,” said one of them, “and we take exception to the line, ‘Khaki clad cut-throats,’ meaning of course the English constabulary.”
“And don’t call me an Irishman,” said the third, while he adjusted his neck gingerly in the collar that had been tightened by the cop’s grip. “I’m a Jew and I was born in St. Joe, Missoury, and I think this play’s rotten, just on general principles. And if I think so I’ve got a right to show it. The law holds that anybody has got as good a right to show displeasure at a play as pleasure and I saw my lawyer before I came here, and——”
LETTER FROM MR. JOHN QUINN
To the Editor of a Dublin Newspaper
Dear Sir: Now that the Irish players have been to New York and their work seen and judged, the readers of your paper may be interested in the publication of one or two facts in connection with their visit. For some time before the company came to New York there had been threats of an organised attempt by a small coterie of Irishmen to prevent the performance of Synge’s Playboy. It was difficult for many people in New York who are interested in the drama and art to take these rumours seriously. The attempt to prevent the New York public from hearing the work of these Irish players of course failed. There was an organised attempt by perhaps a hundred or a hundred and fifty Irishmen on the first night The Playboy was given here to prevent the performance by hissing and booing, and by throwing potatoes and other objects at the actors, and red pepper and asafœtida among the audience. The disturbers were ejected from the theatre by the police. All the great metropolitan papers, morning and evening, condemned this organised disturbance. The second night, some six or seven disturbers were put out of the theatre by the police, and that was the end of the long-threatened attempt to break up the performance of these plays. The issue was not between the plays and the players and the disturbers, but between the New York public and the disturbers. This fight over Synge was of vast importance for us as a city. One night settled that question and settled it conclusively.
I have seen in some of the daily and one of the weekly Irish papers a statement to the effect that “The Playboy was hooted from the stage ... after the worst riot ever witnessed in a New York playhouse.” The statement that it was “hooted from the stage” is of course utterly false. The greatest disorder occurred during the first act. A few minutes after the curtain fell at the end of the first act it was raised again and the statement was made by a member of the company that the act would be given entirely over again. This announcement was greeted with cheers and applause from the great majority of the audience, who indignantly disapproved the attempt of the disturbers to prevent the performance. The play was not “hooted from the stage.”
The attempt to prevent by force the hearing of the play having so signally failed, a committee waited upon the Mayor of New York City the next day and demanded the suppression of the plays. The Mayor requested Chief Judge McAdoo of the Court of Special Sessions to attend the play as his representative and report to him. Judge McAdoo is an Irishman, born in Ireland, and has had a distinguished public career as member of Congress, Assistant Secretary of the Navy, and Police Commissioner of New York City, and he is now Chief Judge of the Court of Special Sessions. Judge McAdoo attended the play and made a report to the Mayor completely rejecting the charges that had been made against the morals and ethics of the play.
Both attempts to prevent the performance of the play, the first by force and the second by appeal to the authorities, having completely failed, the work of distorting in the Irish papers what actually took place then began.
Among other things it has been stated that the Abbey Theatre company was not a success in New York. On the contrary the success of the company has been beyond anything in my personal experience. The verdict of critical and artistic New York in favour of the work of the Irish Theatre has been emphatic. The pick of the intellectual and artistic public crowded the theatre during the weeks of the company’s performances here and admired and enjoyed their work. In fact intelligent New Yorkers are yet wondering what was the real cause of the attempt to prevent the hearing of the plays. This is one of the mysteries of this winter in New York. I am proud, as a citizen of New York, that New York’s verdict of approval was so swift and decisive, and I am proud of New York’s quick recognition of the excellence of the new Irish school of drama and acting. As a man of Irish blood, my chief regret is that organised prejudice and prejudgment should have prevented these players from getting that welcome from a section of their own countrymen that I feel sure they will secure in future years. This prejudice was created and the prejudgment was largely caused by the publication of detached sentences and quotations from the plays, while ignoring the art of the actors and the humour and poetry and imaginative beauty of the plays, beauties which, as Sir Philip Sidney would say, “who knoweth not to be flowers of poetry did never walk into Apollo’s garden.”
Not only have the New York daily papers devoted columns to the work of this company throughout their stay, giving elaborate reviews of their work and long interviews with Lady Gregory and others, but many magazines have had articles on the subject of the plays and writers and on the Irish dramatic movement generally, among others the Yale Review, the Harvard Monthly, Collier’s Weekly, the Nation (two notices), the Dramatic Mirror (five notices), the Metropolitan Magazine, Munsey’s Magazine, the Craftsman, Life, Harper’s Weekly (containing repeated notices), the Outlook, the Bookman, and others. Lady Gregory has contributed articles to the Yale Review, the World of Today and the Delineator, and has lectured at many places upon the Irish dramatic movement. The universities and colleges have shown the liveliest interest in the movement. The professors have lectured upon the plays and the plays have been studied in the college classes and the students have been advised to read them and see the players.
“THE PLAYBOY” IN PHILADELPHIA
(Note to [page 218])
From Philadelphia “North American”
January 17, 1912:—Determined to force their dramatic views on the public despite the arrests at Monday night’s demonstration, several Irishmen last night vented their disapproval of The Playboy of the Western World which had its second production by Irish Players at the Adelphi Theatre.
They started by coughing, and they caused the player-folk to become slightly nervous. They next essayed hissing, and cries of “shame,” and finally one of their number rose to his feet in a formal protest.
Plain-clothes men throughout the house quelled the slight disturbance, but at every opportunity another belligerent broke into unruly behaviour.
The disorder approached the dignity of serious rioting in the second and third acts of the piece, and at the last a man from Connemara rose in the body of the house, whipped a speech from his coat pocket, and proceeded to interrupt the players with a harangue against the morality of the play.
His philippics were short-lived. Sixteen cops in plain clothes reached him at the same time, and the red man from Connemara disappeared, while the play was being brought to a close....
Extra precautions were taken by the police to preserve order at last night’s performance. The lights in the back of the house were not turned down at any time except the first few minutes of the one-act play Kathleen ni Houlihan which was the curtain-raiser to the longer piece.
Evidence that there would be trouble later in the evening was plain. Nearly the whole rear part of the house downstairs was filled with Irishmen.
As the little poetic vision of the author unrolled itself and the enthusiastic and for the most part cultured audience was steeping itself in the lyric beauty of the lines, two whole rows of the auditors were seized with a desire to cough or clear their throats. That caused a momentary lull in the play.
Up in the top gallery a thin but insistent ventriloquist piped, “This is rotten!” Cries of “Hush!” quieted the interrupter.
In the first act of The Playboy where the bulk of the disturbance occurred Monday night, no expression of opinion was made. But just as every one was settling down to enjoy the play, confident no more interruptions would occur, the trouble began.
One of the clan downstairs cried out his disapprobation. The lights were turned on full tilt, and policemen in plain clothes sprang up from every quarter of the house. Women left their seats in fear. A misguided youth near the orchestra threw his programme, doubled into a ball, at Miss Magee. He was promptly arrested.
The play was stopped for fully five minutes until all the men who showed signs of making trouble were evicted. A number of them laid low, however, and bobbed up now and again, whenever they wanted to. It kept the cops busy hustling them out of the doors. Superintendent Taylor and Captain of the Detectives Souder were in charge of the evictions and as each man was taken out two detectives were sent with him to City Hall where all were locked in.
The climax came when near the close of the last act the man from Connaught began his oratorical flights, drowning the speeches of the actors on the stage. All interest then centred upon the little knot of strugglers in the main aisle of the theatre and four more Irishmen were escorted, hatless and without overcoats, to the street.
As the men were arraigned at the City Hall, William A. Gray, counsel for the offenders at Monday night’s riot, appeared for them. He said he had been sent by Joseph McLaughlin, a saloon-keeper and vice-president of the A. O. H., and he obtained a copy of the charges, with a view to getting the men out on bail.... Mr. Gray said he intended taking the matter before the courts and asking for an injunction to prohibit further productions of the play. He said his backer was Joseph McGarrity, a wholesale liquor dealer, in business at 144 South Third Street, who was one of those ejected from the theatre on Monday night.
Headed by Joseph McLaughlin, a delegation of seven prominent members of the Irish societies of the city waited on Mayor Blankenburg yesterday with a petition asking him to stop the production of John M. Synge’s comedy The Playboy of the Western World on the ground that it is immoral.
The Mayor heard the comments of the Irishmen, but with great good humour pointed out that inasmuch as he could find nothing objectionable in the play, he could not promise to stop the production.
He informed the delegation that he had previously made inquiries of the mayors of New York, Boston, and Providence, where the play had been shown, and had received answers which plainly indicated it was not necessary to stop the play.
(Note to [page 226])
From Philadelphia “North American”
IRISH PLAYERS APPEAR IN A “COURT COMEDY”; NO DECISION
ANSWER CHARGE OF “IMMORALITY” BROUGHT BY A LIQUOR DEALER—“PLAYBOY” DEFENDED AND ATTACKED BY WITNESSES
January 20, 1912:—Second only in point of order, not in worth, was the unadvertised comedy participated in by the Irish Players yesterday afternoon, at a matinée performance held in Judge Carr’s room in the quarter sessions court.
The public flocked to see, and stayed to witness, a most complete vindication of Synge’s much discussed satirisation of the Irish character. The actors arrested for appearing in The Playboy of the Western World kept, however, in the background, while counsel on both sides engaged in lively tilts with two members of the clergy and the judge and other witnesses, furnishing the crowd with entertainment.
Eleven of the Irish Players who were held in $500 bail each by Magistrate Carey, at a hearing in his office earlier in the day, threw themselves upon the mercy of the quarter sessions court, to obtain a legal decision as to whether their play violated the McNichol act of 1911, which makes it a misdemeanor to present “lascivious, sacrilegious, obscene or indecent plays.” The hearing before the court was brought about by a habeas corpus proceeding.
Although no decision was handed down after the argument, the attitude of the court was plainly shown, by the line of questions put to various witnesses. The testimony offered by Director of Public Safety Porter, who was called by the commonwealth, indicated that no fault could be found with the play. Judge Carr reserved decision, and adjourned court until Monday.
The defendants were represented by Charles Biddle, William Redheffer, Jr., Howard H. Yocum, and John Quinn, of New York. Directly back of them, in the courtroom, sat Lady Gregory, Mrs. Henry La Barre Jayne, and W. W. Bradford, the latter representing Liebler & Co., managers of the Irish Players.
SURPRISE FOR PROSECUTOR
William A. Gray represented Joseph McGarrity, the liquor dealer, who has taken principal part in the prosecution of the actors. He was aided at times by Assistant District Attorney Fox on behalf of the commonwealth, although the latter’s action in calling Director Porter to give testimony caused Mr. Gray both surprise and embarrassment, inasmuch as Mr. Porter said there was nothing in the piece to offend the most devout and reverent of women. He said he had attended the theatre with his wife and that neither of them was “shocked”; on the contrary, distinctly pleased.
Mr. Gray called Joseph McGarrity to the stand. In all seriousness and sincerity the witness testified that, in his opinion, The Playboy was a wicked piece and that he thought he had a perfect right to show his disapproval by protesting. He was questioned by Judge Carr as to the reason why he did not leave the theatre before he was ejected, if he thought the play was bad. He could give no adequate reply.
Mr. Gray then read passages from the book, declaring that it had been expurgated to make it presentable on the American stage. Frederick O’Donovan, one of the company, who takes the part of the Playboy, testified that productions of the play had been made in Dublin, Belfast, Cork, London, Oxford, Cambridge, Harrowgate, Boston, New York, New Haven, and Providence without causing any public disturbance except in New York, and without any criminal prosecution being brought anywhere.
It was pointed out to the court by Mr. Gray that Pennsylvania is the only State having a statute preventing immoral or sacrilegious plays and that this was of so recent a date that neither side could argue that other plays of a much more objectionable nature than this had been permitted without hindrance.
Mr. Biddle and Mr. Quinn then summed up their arguments, in which the court concurred, openly. The New York lawyer paid a tribute to Philadelphia concerning the testimony of Director Porter. He said: “Philadelphia ought to be proud of the manhood displayed by such a witness. He stood before this court and testified that he and his wife had witnessed the performance, and that neither was displeased by any exhibition of immorality.
“I say that any man who takes a lascivious meaning out of any of the lines of the play, or who declares that the piece is in any way improper, must have a depraved and an abnormal mind.
“I am ashamed that such men should come here and insult womanhood with their views. The American people are too good a judge of the Irish race to agree with them.”
The court then took the case under advisement, reserving decision, counsel agreeing, under his advice, to allow the company to renew its bail bond of $5000.
(Note to [page 242])
“THE PLAYBOY” IN CHICAGO
From Chicago “Daily Tribune”
January 30, 1913:—Mayor Harrison last night was directed by an order passed by the city council to prohibit the presentation in Chicago of The Playboy of the Western World, a play which has caused riots and organised protests in New York, Philadelphia, and Washington when presented by the Irish Players.
What action the mayor will take he was not prepared to indicate at the conclusion of the council session. It was stated during the debate on the subject that the mayor holds discretionary powers, and with the backing of the council can prevent the play if he chooses. But there is nothing mandatory in the order of the council, which asked the mayor to co-operate with Chief of Police McWeeny.
The Mayor said he would investigate the legal phases and also look into the character of the play before he decided upon steps to take.
Threatening letter received by Lady Gregory
MCINERNEY LEADS FIGHT
Ald. Michael McInerney led the movement for the council order.
“The play is a studied sarcasm on the Irish race,” asserted Mr. McInerney, reading from a typewritten sheet; “it points no moral, and it teaches no lesson.”
“Press agent!” shouted some one.
“No, I’m not the press agent,” asserted the alderman. “This play pictures an Irishman a coward, something that never happened, and it attacks the Irishwoman. There are no Irishmen connected with the company in any way.”
In reply to a question whether Lady Gregory was Irish, McInerney replied he had not met “the lady,” and then added:
“There’s a difference in being from Ireland and being Irish. There are lots of people in Ireland that aren’t Irish. If you’re born in a stable, that doesn’t make you a horse.”
Mr. Pringle stopped unanimous passage of the resolution.
“While I am not Irish,” he said, “I believe Ald. McInerney knows what he is talking about; but I do not know enough about this subject to vote upon it at this time.”
“Like Ald. Pringle,” said Ald. Thomson, “I am not sufficiently informed, and I shall ask to be excused from voting.”
GERMANS STRONG FOR IRISH
“Since some leading Irish organisations have chosen Germans to lead them,” said Ald. Henry Utpatel, “I feel that that fact alone makes them a great race, and I shall vote with Ald. McInerney.”
“Would you like to hear from the Poles?” asked Ald. Frank P. Danisch.
“That’s all right,” said McInerney, “if this play is presented there will come along a play insulting the Poles or some other race. It is not right for Chicago to let any race be insulted.”
The order was then adopted, Ald. Pringle and Thomson voting in the negative.
(Note to [page 246])
From Chicago “Record-Herald”
February 1, 1912:—Chicago’s City Council erred in passing an order directing the mayor and the chief of police to stop the production The Playboy of the Western World according to an opinion sent to Mayor Harrison yesterday by William H. Sexton, the city’s corporation counsel.
The brief was prepared by William Dillon, brother of John Dillon, the Irish nationalist leader, one of Mr. Sexton’s assistants. It held that the counsel order was of no legal effect, although the mayor could suppress the play if he decided that it was immoral or against public policy. Mr. Dillon further declared that the mayor would not be legally right in prohibiting the production.
“I read three pages of the book,” declared Mayor Harrison, “and instead of finding anything immoral I found that the whole thing was wonderfully stupid. I shall abide by the corporation’s opinion.”
Interview for New York “Evening Sun”
GEORGE BERNARD SHAW ON THE IRISH PLAYERS
“I presume, Mr. Shaw, you have heard the latest news of your Blanco Posnet in America with the Irish Players?” he was asked.
“No. Why? Has it failed?” Mr. Shaw answered.
“Quite the contrary,” he was assured.
“Oh, in that case why should I hear about it?” he said. “Success is the usual thing with my plays; it is what I write them for. I only hear about them when something goes wrong.”
“But are you not interested in the success of the Irish Players? Or was that a matter of course too?”
“By no means,” Mr. Shaw answered. “I warned Lady Gregory that America was an extremely dangerous country to take a real Irish company to.”
“But why? Surely America, with its immense Irish element——”
“Rubbish! There are not half a dozen real Irishmen in America outside that company of actors!” he exclaimed. “You don’t suppose that all these Murphys and Doolans and Donovans and Farrells and Caseys and O’Connells who call themselves by romantic names like the Clan-na-Gael and the like are Irishmen! You know the sort of people I mean. They call Ireland the Old Country....
“Shall I tell you what they did in Dublin to the Irish Players? There was a very great Irish dramatic poet, who died young, named John Synge—a real Irish name—just the sort of name the Clan-na-Gael never think of.
“Well, John Synge wrote a wonderful play called The Playboy of the Western World, which is now a classic. This play was not about an Irish peculiarity, but about a universal weakness of mankind: the habit of admiring bold scoundrels. Most of the heroes of history are bold scoundrels, you will notice. English and American boys read stories about Charles Peace, the burglar, and Ned Kelly, the highwayman, and even about Teddy Roosevelt, the rough-rider. The Playboy is a young man who brags of having killed his father, and is made almost as great a hero as if he were an Italian general who had killed several thousand other people’s fathers. Synge satirises this like another Swift, but with a joyousness and a wild wealth of poetic imagery that Swift never achieved. Well, sir, if you please, this silly Dublin Clan-na-Gael, or whatever it called itself, suddenly struck out the brilliant idea that to satirise the follies of humanity is to insult the Irish nation, because the Irish nation is, in fact, the human race and has no follies, and stands there pure and beautiful and saintly to be eternally oppressed by England and collected for by the Clan. There were just enough of them to fill the Abbey Street Theatre for a night or two to the exclusion of the real Irish people, who simply get sick when they hear this sort of balderdash talked about Ireland. Instead of listening to a great play by a great Irishman they bawled and whistled and sang ‘God Save Ireland’ (not without reason, by the way), and prevented themselves from hearing a word of the performance....”
“Do you think there will be trouble with the Clan in New York?”
“I think there may be trouble anywhere where there are men who have lost touch with Ireland and still keep up the old bragging and posing. You must bear in mind that Ireland is now in full reaction against them. The stage Irishman of the nineteenth century, generous, drunken, thriftless, with a joke always on his lips and a sentimental tear always in his eye, was highly successful as a borrower of money from Englishmen—both in Old and New England—who indulged and despised him because he flattered their sense of superiority. But the real Irishman of to-day is so ashamed of him and so deeply repentant for having ever stooped to countenance and ape him in the darkest days of the Captivity that the Irish Players have been unable to find a single play by a young writer in which Ireland is not lashed for its follies. We no longer brazen out the shame of our subjection by idle boasting. Even in Dublin, that city of tedious and silly derision where men can do nothing but sneer, they no longer sneer at other nations. In a modern Irish play the hero doesn’t sing that ‘Ould Ireland’ is his country and his name it is Molloy; he pours forth all his bitterness on it like the prophets of old.
“The last time I saw an Irish play in Dublin, the line on which the hero made his most effective exit was ‘I hate Ireland.’ Even in the plays of Lady Gregory, penetrated as they are by that intense love of Ireland which is unintelligible to the many drunken blackguards with Irish names who make their nationality an excuse for their vices and their worthlessness, there is no flattery of the Irish; she writes about the Irish as Molière wrote about the French, having a talent curiously like Molière.
“In the plays of Mr. Yeats you will find many Irish heroes, but nothing like ‘the broth of a boy.’ Now you can imagine the effect of all this on the American pseudo-Irish, who are still exploiting the old stage Ireland for all it is worth, and defiantly singing: ‘Who fears to speak of ’98?’ under the very nose of the police—that is, the New York police, who are mostly Fenians. Their notion of patriotism is to listen jealously for the slightest hint that Ireland is not the home of every virtue and the martyr of every oppression, and thereupon to brawl and bully or to whine and protest, according to their popularity with the bystanders. When these people hear a little real Irish sentiment from the Irish Players they will not know where they are; they will think that the tour of the Irish company is an Orange conspiracy financed by Mr. Balfour.”
“Have you seen what the Central Council of the Irish County Association of Greater Boston says about the Irish Players?”
“Yes; but please do not say I said so; it would make them insufferably conceited to know that their little literary effort had been read right through by me. You will observe that they begin by saying that they know their Ireland as children know their mother. Not a very happy bit of rhetoric that, because children never do know their mothers; they may idolise them or fear them, as the case may be, but they don’t know them.
“But can you conceive a body of Englishmen or Frenchmen or Germans publishing such silly stuff about themselves or their country? If they said such a thing in Ireland they would be laughed out of the country. They declare that they are either Irish peasants or the sons of Irish peasants. What on earth does the son of an American emigrant know about Ireland? Fancy the emigrant himself, the man who has left Ireland to stew in its own juice, talking about feeling toward Ireland as children feel toward their mother. Of course a good many children do leave their mothers to starve; but I doubt if that was what they meant. No doubt they are peasants—a name, by the way, which they did not pick up in Ireland, where it is unknown—for they feel toward literature and art exactly as peasants do in all countries; that is, they regard them as departments of vice—of what policemen call gayety....
“Good heavens!” exclaimed Bernard Shaw, waving a cutting from the Post in his hand, “see how they trot out all the old rubbish. ‘Noble and impulsive,’ ‘generous, harum-scarum, lovable characters,’ ‘generosity, wit, and triumphant true love’; these are the national characteristics they modestly claim as Irishmen who know Ireland as children know their mother....”
“May I ask one more question, Mr. Shaw? Who is the greatest living Irishman?”
“Well, there are such a lot of them. Mr. Yeats could give you off-hand the names of six men, not including himself or myself, who may possibly turn out to be the greatest of us all; for Ireland since she purified her soul from the Clan-na-Gael nonsense, is producing serious men; not merely Irishmen, you understand—for an Irishman is only a parochial man after all—but men in the fullest international as well as national sense—the wide human sense.”
“There is an impression in America, Mr. Shaw, that you regard yourself as the greatest man that ever lived.”
“I dare say. I sometimes think so myself when the others are doing something exceptionally foolish. But I am only one of the first attempts of the new Ireland. She will do better—probably has done better already—though the product is not yet grown up enough to be interviewed. Good morning.”
From “The Gaelic American”
WHAT THE IRISH COUNTY ASSOCIATIONS OF BOSTON SAID OF BERNARD SHAW
January 13, 1912:—The writer of such fool conceptions is as blind as an eight-hour-old puppy to the operation of all spiritual agencies in the life of man. Shaw’s writings bear about the same relation to genuine literature as Bryan O’Lynn’s extemporised timepiece, a scooped out turnip with a cricket within, does to the Greenwich Observatory....
Shaw stumbles along the bogs, morasses, and sand dunes of literature, without a terminal, leading the benighted and lost wayfarers still farther astray. His unhappy possession of infinite egotism and his utter lack of common sense make of him a rara avis indeed, a cross between a peacock and a gander....
In conclusion let us say before we again notice this Barnum of literature he must produce a clean bill of sanity, superscribed by some reputable alienist.
APPENDIX IV
IN THE EYES OF OUR ENEMIES
From “America”
THE PLAYS OF THE “IRISH” PLAYERS
November 4, 1911:—The editors, like the patriots of the Boyle O’Reilly Club who fêted him in Boston, took Mr. Yeats at his own none too modest estimation. The United Irish Societies of this city denounced The Playboy, and an advanced Gaelic organ exposed its barbarities, but gave a clean bill of health to Mr. Yeats and the rest of his programme. Doubtless they also had not read the plays they approved. Well, we have read them. We found several among them more vile, more false, and far more dangerous than The Playboy, the ‘bestial depravity’ of which carries its own condemnation; and we deliberately pronounce them the most malignant travesty of Irish character and of all that is sacred in Catholic life that has come out of Ireland. The details, which are even more shocking than those of The Playboy, are too indecent for citation, but the persistent mendacity of the Yeats press agency’s clever conspiracy of puff makes it needful to give our readers some notion of their character.
Of Synge’s plays only Riders to the Sea, an un-Irish adaptation to Connacht fishermen of Loti’s Pecheurs d’Islande, is fit for a decent audience. None but the most rabidly anti-Catholic, priest-hating bigots could enjoy The Tinkers’ Wedding.[4] The plot, which involves an Irish priest in companionship with the most degraded pagans and hinges on his love of gain, may not be even outlined by a self-respecting pen. The open lewdness and foul suggestiveness of the language is so revolting, the picture of the Irish priesthood, drawn by this parson’s son, is so vile and insulting, and the mockery of the Mass and sacraments so blasphemous, that it is unthinkable how any man of healthy mind could father it or expect an audience to welcome it. This is the “typical Irish play” which the “Irish Players” have presented to a Boston audience.
The twain are kindred spirits; but in vileness of caricature and bitterness of anti-Catholic animus, even Synge must yield to Yeats. He also goes to tinkers for his types; and whereas Synge is content with three, and one priest, Yeats’s Where there is Nothing[4] glorifies a bevy of unbelieving tinkers and presents in contrast a dozen vulgar-spoken monks, who utter snatches of Latin in peasant brogue, while dancing frantically around the altar of God!
[4] Neither The Tinkers’ Wedding nor Where there is Nothing has ever been given by our Company.—A. G.
From “The Gaelic American”
YEATS’S ANTI-IRISH CAMPAIGN
November 18, 1911:—The anti-Irish players come to New York on Nov. 20th, and will appear first in some of the other plays. The Playboy, it is announced, will be given later, but the date has not yet been given out. The presentation of the monstrosity is a challenge to the Irish people of New York which will be taken up. There will be no parleying with theatre managers, or appeals to Lady Gregory’s sense of decency. The Playboy must be squelched, as the stage Irishman was squelched, and a lesson taught to Mr. Yeats and his fellow-agents of England that they will remember while they live.
When a woman chooses to put herself in the company of male blackguards she has no right to appeal for respect for her sex.
MRS. MARY F. MCWHORTER, NATIONAL CHAIRMAN, L. A., A. O. H., IRISH HISTORY COMMITTEE, WRITING IN “THE NATIONAL HIBERNIAN,” 1913
When it was announced about two months ago that the Abbey players would appear in repertory at the Fine Arts Theatre, in the city of Chicago, I made up my mind to witness all of the Abbey output, if possible, and see if they were as black as some painted them, and now I feel I have earned the right to qualify as a critic.
Having seen them all, I have this to say, that, with one or two exceptions, they are the sloppiest, and in most cases the vilest, and the most character-assassinating things, in the shape of plays it has ever been my misfortune to see. If, as has been often stated, the plays were written with the intention of belittling the Irish race and the ideals and traditions of that race, the playwrights have succeeded as far as they intended, for the majority of the plays leave us nothing to our credit.
Thinking the matter over now, I cannot understand why The Playboy was picked out as the one most dangerous to our ideals. True, The Playboy is bad and very bad, but it is so glaringly so, it defeats its own ends by causing a revulsion of feeling.
There are other plays in the collection, however, that are apparently harmless; comedies that will cause you to laugh heartily, ’tis true, but in the middle of the laugh you stop as if some one slapped you in the face. You begin to see, in place of the harmless joke, an insidious dig at something you hold sacred, or, if it is something you think is inspiring and patriotic, right in the midst of the thing that carries you away for a few moments on the wings of your lofty dreams and inspirations some monster of mockery will intrude his ugly face, and again the doubt, “Is it ridicule?” The certainty follows the doubt quickly, and you know it is ridicule, and immediately you are possessed of an insane desire to seek out Lady Gregory or some one else connected with the plays and then and there commit murder. That is, you will, if you have the welfare of your race at heart. Of course, if you are careless, or in some cases ignorant of the history of Ireland, or unfamiliar with the conditions there, you will accept the teaching of the Abbey school, and say to yourself, “The Irish are a lazy, crafty, miserly, insincere, irreligious lot after all.”
In The Rising of the Moon our patriotism is attacked, not openly, of course, but by innuendo. We are made to appear everything but what we are. The policy of “Let well enough alone,” is the keynote of this play, bringing out the avarice and selfishness that, according to the Abbey school, is a part of our nature.
It has often been said by our enemies that to have a priest in the family is to be considered very respectable by the average Irish Catholic family, and to bring about this desired result we are willing to sell our immortal souls. All this, not from motives of piety, but to be considered respectable.
In the play Maurice Harte this is brought out very forcibly. The family sacrifices everything to keep the candidate for the priesthood in college. The candidate has no vocation, but he is not consulted at all. When this poor, spineless creature sees the members of the family have set their hearts upon his becoming a priest he lets matters drift till the day set for his ordination, and then we behold him going mad. All very far-fetched.
We do admit that we like to have a priest in the family—what Irish mother but will cherish this hope in her bosom for at least one of her sons, or that one of the daughters of the house will become the spouse of Christ? Not, however, from such an unworthy motive as to be considered respectable, but from the pure motive of serving Almighty God.
The Workhouse Ward gives you nothing more edifying than the picture of two hateful old men snarling at each other in a truly disgusting manner.
Coats gives the picture of two seedy, down-at-elbows editors, who, while apparently the best of friends, still are thinking unutterable things of each other.
The Building Fund is a disgusting display of avarice and insincerity. It strikes at the roots of all we hold sacred, and instead of being sincere, religious Catholics, the family is depicted as grasping, miserly creatures, who have no real love for the Church. There is not a redeeming feature in the whole play.
Family Failing, to my notion, is the worst of the output. Family Failing, of course, is idleness and all it carries with it. It is a strong witness in favor of that old fallacy, so often repeated by our enemies, that it was not the cruelty of English laws that sent us forth wanderers, but our lazy, idle, shiftless ways. The curtain goes down after the last act of this play on a disgusting spectacle of a lazy uncle snoring asleep on one side of the stage, and his lazy nephew occupying the other side, snoring also.
Kathleen ni Houlihan is beautiful, but every one knows Yeats wrote this before he became a pagan and went astray. His Countess Cathleen, written since then, is a weird thing.[5] One can see he strives after his early ideals, but it is a failure, for who can picture a sincere, devout Catholic lady calmly selling her soul to the devil, even though it is to purchase the souls of her poor dependents. And it is a rather dangerous lesson it teaches to the weak minded, when the angel comes to console the weeping peasantry after the countess dies. Supposedly in damnation, he tells them she is saved, because of the good intention she had in selling her soul to Old Nick.
[5] The first performance of The Countess Cathleen was in 1899; Kathleen ni Houlihan was written in 1902.
The Magnanimous Lover presents the nasty problem play. Of course our humiliation would not be complete without the “problem play.” And the words that this play puts in the mouth of the Irish peasant girl!
My blood boiled as I listened. What on earth do our Irish peasants know about the nasty problems so much affected by certain writers of to-day? American newspaper correspondents have commented from time to time on the chastity of the Irish peasants, and even the hostile ones have marvelled at the complete absence of immorality among them. But what is that to the Irish National (?) dramatists?
It is plain to be seen the self-styled Irish writers affect the present-day style in vogue among French writers. We have seen the result of all this as far as France is concerned. To-day that once proud nation is in a pitiable condition. And so the Abbey crowd would bring about the same undesirable conditions in Ireland if they could. By clever innuendo they would take all the splendid ideals and noble traditions away from the Irish and leave them with nothing high or holy to cling to. But the Abbey butchers will not succeed. They are reckoning without their host. The Irish character is too strong and too noble to be slain by such unworthy methods.
The plays taken as a whole have no literary merit. The backers of the plays preach about Art with a capital A, but they have no artistic merit, for art is truth, and the plays are not true. The great majority of the plays are made up of nothing more than a lot of “handy gab.” You can hear the same any day, in any large city in Ireland, indulged in by a lot of “pot boys,” or “corner boys,” as they are sometimes called. (May I be permitted to use the American vulgarism, “can-rusher,” to illustrate what is meant by “corner boy?”) Nor is the conversation much more edifying than would be indulged in by those doubtful denizens.
With this dangerous enemy striking at the very strands of our life and from such a dangerous source, the necessity is greater than ever for the men and women of our beloved society to be earnest and honest in their efforts for the revival of Irish ideals. Brothers and Sisters everywhere, place a little history of Ireland in the hand of each little boy and little girl of the ancient race, and all the Lady Gregories in the world will not be able to destroy an atom of our splendid heritage.
APPENDIX V
IN THE EYES OF OUR FRIENDS
From “The Outlook,” December 16, 1911
THE IRISH THEATRE
BY THEODORE ROOSEVELT
In the Abbey Theatre Lady Gregory and those associated with her—and Americans should feel proud of the fact that an American was one of the first to give her encouragement and aid—have not only made an extraordinary contribution to the sum of Irish literary and artistic achievement, but have done more for the drama than has been accomplished in any other nation of recent years. England, Australia South Africa, Hungary, and Germany are all now seeking to profit by this unique achievement. The Abbey Theatre is one of the healthiest signs of the revival of the ancient Irish spirit which has been so marked a feature of the world’s progress during the present generation; and, like every healthy movement of the kind, it has been thoroughly national and has developed on its own lines, refusing merely to copy what has been outworn. It is especially noteworthy, and is a proof of the general Irish awakening, that this vigorous expression of Irish life, so honourable to the Irish people, should represent the combined work of so many different persons, and not that of only one person, whose activity might be merely sporadic and fortuitous. Incidentally Lady Gregory teaches a lesson to us Americans, if we only have the wit to learn it. The Irish plays are of such importance because they spring from the soil and deal with Irish things, the familiar home things which the writers really knew. They are not English or French; they are Irish. In exactly the same way, any work of the kind done here, which is really worth doing, will be done by Americans who deal with the American life with which they are familiar; and the American who works abroad as a make-believe Englishman or Frenchman or German—or Irishman—will never add to the sum of first-class achievement. This will not lessen the broad human element in the work; it will increase it. These Irish plays appeal now to all mankind as they would never appeal if they had attempted to be flaccidly “cosmopolitan”; they are vital and human, and therefore appeal to all humanity, just because those who wrote them wrote from the heart about their own people and their own feelings, their own good and bad traits, their own vital national interests and traditions and history. Tolstoy wrote for mankind; but he wrote as a Russian about Russians, and if he had not done so he would have accomplished nothing. Our American writers, artists, dramatists, must all learn the same lesson until it becomes instinctive with them, and with the American public. The right feeling can be manifested in big things as well as in little, and it must become part of our inmost National life before we can add materially to the sum of world achievement. When that day comes, we shall understand why a huge ornate Italian villa or French château or make-believe castle, or, in short, any mere inappropriate copy of some building somewhere else, is a ridiculous feature in an American landscape, whereas many American farm-houses, and some American big houses, fit into the landscape and add to it; we shall use statues of such a typical American beast as the bison—which peculiarly lends itself to the purpose—to flank the approach to a building like the New York Library, instead of placing there, in the worst possible taste, a couple of lions which suggest a caricature of Trafalgar Square; we shall understand what a great artist like Saint-Gaudens did for our coinage, and why he gave to the head of the American Liberty the noble and decorative eagle plume head-dress of an American horse-Indian, instead of adopting, in servile style, the conventional and utterly inappropriate Phrygian cap.
Mary Boyle O’Reilly in the Boston “Sunday Post”
October 8, 1911;—In two shorts weeks the Irish Players have done great and lasting service to every lover of Synge’s Irish in Boston; a service long to be held in grateful memory, a creative force of other good to come. Very gravely and conscientiously, Lady Gregory and Mr. William Butler Yeats have trained their players to interpret to the children of Irish emigrants the brave and beautiful and touching memories which, through the ignorance of the second generation, have ceased to be cause for gratitude or pride.
Not this alone: by their fine art, the players have dealt a death blow to the coarse and stupid burlesque of the traditional stage Irishman, who has, for years, outraged every man and woman of Celtic ancestry by gorilla-like buffoonery and grotesque attempts at brogue.
... Boston owes Lady Gregory and Mr. Yeats and their company not only grateful thanks, but a very humble apology.
From “The Freeman’s Journal”
October 26, 1912:—It is time the Dublin public pulled itself together and began to take a pride in its National Theatre, this theatre which has produced in a few years more than a hundred plays and a company of players recognised as true artists, not only by their fellow-countrymen, but by the critics of England and America. The Abbey Theatre has made it possible for a writer living in Ireland and writing on Irish subjects to win a position of equal dignity with his fellow-artist in London or Paris; it has made it possible for an Irish man or woman with acting ability to play in the plays of their fellow-countrymen, and to earn a decent living and win a position of equal respect with any English or Continental actor.
From New York “Journal”
December 18, 1911:—The hysterics and rowdyism that attended the opening of the Irish plays in New York having died away, listen to a few facts concerning the extremely interesting and valuable work of Lady Gregory and her associates, the Irish playwrights and actors.
Some of those entirely ignorant of that which they discussed thought that the Irish players were wilfully irreligious, and others equally ignorant thought that they were weakly lacking in Irish patriotism.
As a matter of fact, the Irish playwrights and actors ... are thoroughly imbued with the Irish spirit and are trying as well as they can to present certain Irish conditions and characters as they are, utilising literature and the drama as mediums.
... It was thought by some good people who had not seen the plays that they were irreligious in character and showed lack of respect especially for the Catholic faith. But this is not true.
In the play called Mixed Marriage all the bigotry and religious stupidity is shown by the old Protestant father. The unselfishness, real patriotism, courage, and broad-minded humanity in this play are the possessions of the Catholics—as is, indeed, usually the case in Ireland.
It is interesting to observe how real merit wins and overcomes ignorant prejudice.
Many of the very men that hissed and hooted at the Irish plays on the first night without listening to them now attend the performances regularly.
Those that enjoy most thoroughly the wonderful wit and pathos of the Irish race, as shown in these plays, are those Irish men and women.
Sara Allgood, as the old patient wife and mother in Mixed Marriage, is a perfect picture of the womanhood that has created Ireland.
Lady Gregory and her friends have rendered a real service to this country and to Ireland by bringing the plays here.
Anonymous In Chicago “Daily Tribune”
February, 1912
TO LADY GREGORY
Long be it e’er to its last anchorage
Thy oaken keel, O “Fighting Temeraire,”
Shall forth beyond the busy harbour fare.
Still mayest thou the battle royal wage
To show a people to itself; to gauge
The depth and quality peculiar there;
Of its humanity to catch the air
And croon its plaintiveness upon the stage.
Nay, great and simple seer of Erin’s seers,
How we rejoice that thou wouldst not remain
Beside thy hearth, bemoaning useless years,
But hear’st with inner ear the rhythmic strain
Of Ireland’s mystic overburdened heart
Nor didst refuse to play thy noble part!
TRANSCRIBER’S NOTE
Obvious typographical errors and punctuation errors have been corrected after careful comparison with other occurrences within the text and consultation of external sources.
Except for those changes noted below, all misspellings in the text, and inconsistent or archaic usage, have been retained.
List of [Illustrations:] Added entry for ‘Threatening Letter’.
[Pg 29:] ‘been see in’ replaced by ‘been seen in’.
[Pg 37:] ‘a for whole’ replaced by ‘for a whole’.
[Pg 37:] ‘Kathleen in Houlihan’ replaced by ‘Kathleen ni Houlihan’.
[Pg 62:] ‘fifteen year of’ replaced by ‘fifteen years of’.
[Pg 174:] ‘perhaps a litte’ replaced by ‘perhaps a little’.
[Pg 176:] ‘tell me he cook’ replaced by ‘tell me the cook’.
[Appendix V:] the header line ‘From “The Outlook,” ... ’ has been
swapped with the next line ‘IN THE EYES ... ’.