Irish Plays and Playwrights

by Cornelius Weygandt

Its performance and publication, though neither event was of very much more than journalistic importance, served to give Mr. Moore something of a position as an authority on the drama, coming as they did after his association, since 1891, with "The Independent Theatre." So it is that we find him collaborating with Mrs. Craigie in "Journeys End in Lovers Meeting" (1894), which served for a year or so as one of the little plays that characterized the repertoire of the Irving-Terry Company. Just what was Mr. Moore's share in this play I do not know, but that, slight as it is, it served as apprentice work in the art of collaboration there can be no doubt, or that it added to his familiarity with the stage.

It is certain that Mr. Martyn and Mr. Yeats were glad of the assistance of Mr. Moore in founding "The Irish Literary Theatre," not only for the prominence of his name as novelist and as Moore of Moore Hall, and for his known provocativeness in pamphleteering and his capacity for drawing the fire of opponents, but for what knowledge he had of playwriting and for what experience he had in getting together and training actors for special performances such as those of "The Independent Theatre."

I have already spoken of what Mr. Moore did to "A Tale of a Town" to make it "The Bending of the Bough." From the beginning of Act II on to the end, he rewrote almost all of it, retaining only now and then an eloquent or a biting line from Mr. Martyn's play. Mr. Moore changes the scene of the play from Ireland to Scotland, that its allegory may not be so obvious; he develops Kirwan's character until he becomes not only a sort of composite spiritual portrait of the leaders of the Renaissance but a believable leader of men; and he makes Millicent's moulding of Dean to her will human, as I have said, and—Dean being the weakling that he was—inevitable. Mr. Moore cuts the play down where it is stodgy, he expands it where expansion realizes for you more of character and motives of his people, he infuses into it more of the spirit of the movement, and he makes its patriotism wider in its appeal, a bigger and a better thing at once more concrete and more concerned with the things of the spirit.

"Diarmid and Grania" (1901), the prose play written in collaboration by Mr. Yeats and Mr. Moore, I write of here rather than in the chapter devoted to Mr. Yeats because, as the legend is shaped in the play, it has more of Mr. Moore than of Mr. Yeats in it. As neither of the collaborators was satisfied with the play as produced, and as neither has been willing to give it up to the other to rewrite, "Diarmid and Grania" has never been published. The notices of its production, on October 21, 1901, at the Gaiety Theatre, Dublin, are so full, however, and the legend on which it is based so familiar, that it is possible to say as I have said, when one knows well the work of both authors, whose influence is dominant in it. It seems, from the notices, to have been finely played by the Benson Company, which was brought over from England especially to produce it. The results of "the scratch company" of the second year's performances, even though these were transferred from the Antient Concert Rooms to the better stage of the Gaiety Theatre, were not very satisfactory artistically, but the third year's experiment was in every way more successful. "The Daily Express" of Dublin, in those days very much interested in Irish Ireland, thus records, on October 22, 1901, the impressions of the first night. "The 'house' was not merely crowded but representative. We counted among the audience the heads of all the great professions in Dublin, a considerable number of literary critics, and an extremely large representation of 'le monde où l'on s'amuse.' The Gaelic League, which flooded the gallery, was very friendly to Mr. Moore and Mr. Yeats, and became enthusiastic over Dr. Douglas Hyde ['The Twisting of the Rope,' by Dr. Hyde, was played by him and company of amateurs, in Irish]. Between the acts of 'Diarmid and Grania' several members of the 'gods' sang number of Gaelic songs with great gusto and a good deal of musical ability."

There are several versions of the old legend, some of them cynical, leaving Grania in the end lighter even than Helen of Troy; others closing with Diarmid slain by the boar as Adonis is slain, and Grania weeping his death. In all it is Grania who tempts Diarmid to take her away from Finn on the eve of her wedding to the old king. In some he goes willingly, in love with her, in others unwillingly, ashamed of his disloyalty to Finn, but under giesa not to refuse a woman's request. In the play of Mr. Moore and Mr. Yeats Diarmid and Grania "do not live," says the "Daily Express," "the exciting life of flight from cromlech to cromlech. They settle down very comfortably in the monotony of a prosperous farm. Diarmid busies himself with his sheep. Grania ... begins to pine for the society from which she has wilfully cut herself off, and to think more and more of the grim old warrior Finn. Then Finn comes upon the scene, patches up a sort of truce with Diarmid, and becomes more friendly with Grania, his lost sweetheart, than Diarmid is able to tolerate. Mutual recriminations ensue between Diarmid and Grania, and finally Diarmid goes forth to his portended death, with the taunts of Grania and the rude jeers of the Fianna ringing in his ears. As the play closes, the Fianna bear away the body of Diarmid, Finn comforts the weeping Grania, and we remember the words of the legend that 'some say she was married to Finn.' The curtain falls—a happy touch of purely modern cynicism—upon the solitary figure of Conan, the Thersites of the play, the prophet of evil chances, the scorner of high things, the prompter of foul suggestions."

As the play was being written a good deal of discussion about it found its way into the newspapers. It was rumored that it would be translated into Irish, and then back again, by Lady Gregory, into English, but no such fantastic scheme as that Mr. Moore tells us of in "Ave" was suggested in any of the paragraphs that came my way. Because they could not agree on the kind of diction they were to use in the play, Mr. Yeats, who wanted a peasant Grania, agreed, writes Mr. Moore, to his suggestion that he write the play in French. Mr. Moore gives these as the words of Mr. Yeats: "Lady Gregory will translate your text into English. Taidgh O'Donoghue will translate the English text into Irish, and Lady Gregory will translate the Irish text back into English." "And then," Mr. Moore makes himself reply to Mr. Yeats, "you'll put style upon it."

More remarkable than the scheme was the actual attempt of Mr. Moore to realize it. On leaving Galway, where he and Mr. Yeats had been collaborating at Coole, Mr. Moore began the second act in French. He gives us enough of the dialogue (pages 370 to 376 of "Ave") to show us his high pride in his French, the tolerance of his humor, and his idea of the kind of style the play should have.

If Mr. Moore had given the subject to Mr. Yeats and to Lady Gregory, as he had some thought of doing, it would only have been a return of a subject already theirs by right of their long discussion of it together. Lady Gregory was not yet working upon it for "Gods and Fighting Men" (1904); but it was she who had reduced it to the proportions of a scenario for them to work upon. This scenario was published in "Samhain" of October, 1901, that all of the audiences of the play might be in possession of the story as a Grecian audience was in possession of the story of Elektra. And did not Mr. Moore say in his speech at the dinner given to the supporters of "The Irish Literary Theatre" in February, 1900, in speaking of his collaboration with Mr. Yeats in "Diarmid and Grania": "It would be difficult to name any poet that Ireland has yet produced more truly elected by his individual and racial genius to interpret the old legend than the distinguished poet whose contemporary and collaborateur I have the honor to be"?

The story, of course, had been retold only less often than the story of Deirdre by Irish writers, in one form or another, but there had been no memorable play made out of it. Mr. Yeats had met it in "The Death of Dermid," which Sir Samuel Ferguson included in "The Lays of the Western Gael" (1864), as well as in the direct translations of such scholars as Mr. Standish Hayes O'Grady and in the versions of such popularizers as Dr. Joyce. One cannot, not having read the play, declare it is not what Mr. Moore would have it, "that dramatic telling of the story which Ireland has been waiting for these many years," but it does not seem so to have impressed those who saw it and heard it at the performances in the Gaiety Theatre.

Now that Lady Gregory has done her "Grania" (1912), it is hardly likely that Mr. Yeats will return to the story, and with the waning of Mr. Moore's interest in old Irish legend it is very unlikely that he will wish to rewrite the play. It would seem we have lost it, whatever its value, until the "literary remains" of Mr. Moore are given to the public.