Our Irish Theatre: A chapter of autobiography

by Lady Gregory

But that battle was not a very real one. We have put on Countess Cathleen a good many times of late with no one speaking against it at all. And some of those young men who hissed it then are our good supporters now.

The next year English actors were again brought over to play, this time in the Gaiety Theatre. A little play by Miss Milligan, The Last Feast of the Fianna was given, and Mr. Martyn’s Maeve, and on alternate nights The Bending of the Bough, founded by Mr. George Moore on Mr. Martyn’s Tale of a Town. They were produced on the evening of February 20, 1900. “On the evening before the production,” I wrote, “Mr. Yeats gave a little address on the play, Maeve, in which he said there is a wonderful literary invention, that of Peg Inerny, the old woman in rags in the daytime, but living another and second life, a queen in the ideal world, a symbol of Ireland. The financial question touched in The Bending of the Bough was chosen, because on it all parties are united, but it means really the cause nearest to each of our hearts. The materialism of England and its vulgarity are surging up about us. It is not Shakespeare England sends us, but musical farces, not Keats and Shelley, but Titbits. A mystic friend of his had a dream in which he saw a candle whose flame was in danger of being extinguished by a rolling sea. The waves sometimes seemed to go over it and quench it, and he knew it to be his own soul and that if it was quenched, he would have lost his soul. And now our ideal life is in danger from the sea of commonness about us.”

The Bending of the Bough was the first play dealing with a vital Irish question that had appeared in Ireland. There was a great deal of excitement over it. My diary says: “M. is in great enthusiasm over it, says it will cause a revolution. H. says no young man can see that play and leave the house as he came into it.... The Gaelic League in great force sang Fainne Geal an Lae between the acts, and The Wearing of the Green in Irish! And when ‘author’ could not appear, there were cries of ‘An Craoibhin,’ and cheers were given for Hyde. The actors say they never played to so appreciative an audience, but were a little puzzled at the applause, not understanding the political allusions. The play hits so impartially all round that no one is really offended, certainly not the Nationalists and we have not heard that Unionists are either. Curiously, Maeve, which we didn’t think a Nationalist play at all, has turned out to be one, the audience understanding and applauding the allegory. There is such applause at ‘I am only an old woman, but I tell you that Erin will never be subdued’ that Lady ——, who was at a performance, reported to the Castle that they had better boycott it, which they have done. G. M. is, I think, a little puzzled by his present political position, but I tell him and E. Martyn we are not working for Home Rule; we are preparing for it.”

In our third year, 1901, Mr. F. R. Benson took our burden on his shoulders and gave a fine performance of Diarmuid and Grania, an heroic play by Mr. George Moore and Mr. Yeats. I wrote: “I am so glad to hear of Benson’s appreciation. Anyhow, he can hardly be supposed to be on the side of incendiarism; he is so very respectable. Trinity College won’t know whether to go or to stay away.” Mr. Yeats wrote: “Yesterday we were rehearsing at the Gaiety. The kid Benson is to carry in his arms was wandering in and out among the stage properties. I was saying to myself, ‘Here are we, a lot of intelligent people who might have been doing some sort of decent work that leaves the soul free; yet here we are, going through all sorts of trouble and annoyance for a mob that knows neither literature nor art. I might have been away, away in the country, in Italy perhaps, writing poems for my equals and my betters. That kid is the only sensible creature on the stage. He knows his business and keeps to it.’ At that very moment one of the actors called out, ‘Look at the kid, eating the property ivy!’”

This time also we produced Casad-an-Sugan, (The Twisting of the Rope) by the founder of the Gaelic League, Dr. Douglas Hyde. He himself acted the chief part in it and even to those who had no Irish, the performance was a delight, it was played with so much gaiety, ease, and charm. It was the first time a play written in Irish had ever been seen in a Dublin theatre.

Our three years’ experiment had ended, and we hesitated what to do next. But a breaking and rebuilding is often for the best, and so it was now. We had up to this time, as I have said, played only once a year, and had engaged actors from London, some of them Irish certainly, but all London-trained. The time had come to play oftener and to train actors of our own. For Mr. Yeats had never ceased attacking the methods of the ordinary theatre, in gesture, in staging, and in the speaking of verse. It happened there were two brothers living in Dublin, William and Frank Fay, who had been in the habit of playing little farces in coffee palaces and such like in their spare time. William had a genius for comedy, Frank’s ambitions were for the production of verse. They, or one of them, had thought of looking for work in America, but had seen our performances, and thought something might be done in the way of creating a school of acting in Ireland. They came to us at this time and talked matters over. They had work to do in the daytime and could only rehearse at night. The result was that Mr. Yeats gave his Kathleen ni Houlihan to be produced by Mr. Fay at the same time as a play by Mr. George Russell (A.E.), in St. Theresa’s Hall, Clarendon Street. I had written to Mr. Yeats: “If all breaks up, we must try and settle something with Fay, possibly a week of the little plays he has been doing through the spring. I have a sketch in my head that might do for Hyde to work on. I will see if it is too slight when I have noted it down, and if not, will send it to you.”

Early, in 1902, Mr. Russell wrote to me: “I have finished Deirdre at last. Heaven be praised! in the intervals of railway journeys, and the Fays are going to do their best with it. I hope I shall not suffer too much in the process, but I prefer them to English actors as they are in love with their story.” A little hall in Camden Street was hired for rehearsal, Mr. Russell writing in the same year: “I will hand cheque to Fay. I know it will be a great assistance to them as the little hall will require alterations and fittings and as none of the Company are in possession of more than artisan’s wages. They have elected W. B. Y. as president of the Irish National Dramatic Society, and A. E. as vice-president, and we are the gilding at the prow of the vessel. They have begun work already and are reading and rehearsing drama for the autumn.”

Mr. Fay was very hopeful and full of courage. He wrote in December, 1902: “I have received your letter and parcel. I am not doing this show on a large scale as I am leaving The Hour-glass off till the middle of January.... I am just giving a show of The Pot of Broth, The Foundations, and Elis and the Beggarman, and I’m not making a fuss about it, as I want to try how many people the hall will hold, and what prices suit best, so it is more or less an experimental show and then, about the middle of January, I will do the first real show with The Hour-glass as principal feature. The hall took a great deal of work to get right, and as we had to do all the work ourselves, we had very little time to rehearse.” And he says later: “I received your kind note, also enclosures, for which we are very much obliged. We are indeed getting into very flourishing conditions, and if things only continue in the present state, I have no doubt we shall be able to show a fairly good balance at the end of the year. I have all but concluded an arrangement with a branch of the Gaelic League to take our hall for three nights a week, and that will leave us under very small rental if it comes off. About the performance and how it worked out. I spent twenty-five shillings on printing, etc., and we took altogether about four pounds fifteen shillings, so I see no reason to complain financially. But I find the stage very small, and the want of dressing-rooms makes it very difficult to manage about the scenery, as all your actors have to stand against the walls while it is being changed. I think, however, we can struggle through if we don’t attempt very large pieces. The hall was rather cold, but I think I can manage a stove and get over that.”

That show of The Hour-glass went well, and in that year—1903—two of Mr. Yeats’s verse plays were produced, The King’s Threshold and Shadowy Waters. In that year also, new names came in, my own with Twenty-five, Mr. Padraic Colum’s with Broken Soil, and that of J. M. Synge with The Shadow of the Glen. I wrote to Mr. Yeats, who was then in America: “After Shadow of the Glen your sisters and Synge came in and had some supper with me. Your sister had asked one of her work girls how she liked Synge’s comedy, and she said, ‘Oh, very well. I had been thinking of writing a story on that subject myself.’ They asked quite a little girl if she thought the girl in Colum’s play ought to have stayed with her lover or gone with her father. ‘She was right to go with her father.’ ‘Why?’ ‘Because her young man had such a big beard.’ ‘But he might have cut it off.’ ‘That would be no good. He was so dark he would look blue if he did that.’ Saturday night brought a larger audience and all went well. The few I knew, Harvey, etc., were quite astonished at the beauty of Shadowy Waters, and some giggling young men behind were hushed almost at once, and I heard them saying afterwards how beautiful it was. I should like to hear it once a week through the whole year. The only vexing part was Aibric’s helmet, which has immense horns. A black shadow of these was thrown down, and when Aibric moved, one got the impression there was a he-goat going to butt at him over the side of the ship.” And again from Coole: “Synge wrote asking me if I could provide four red petticoats, Aran men’s caps, a spinning-wheel, and some Connacht person in Dublin who will teach the players to keen. The last item is the most difficult. All the actors want pampooties (the cowskin shoes worn by the Aran people), though I warned them the smell is rather overpowering. Tell Mr. Quinn what a great comfort his money is for such things as these, upon which the company might think they ought not to spend their little capital, and Synge would have been unhappy without.” Through the nuns at Gort I heard of a spinning-wheel in a cottage some way off, which, though it had been in her family over a hundred years, the owner wanted to sell. A cart was sent for this, and we have had it in the theatre ever since. As to the keening I found a Galway woman near Dublin who promised to teach the actors. But when they arrived at her house, she found herself unable to raise the keen in her living room. They had all to go upstairs, and the secretary of the company had to lie under a sheet as the corpse. The lessons were very successful, and at the first performance in London of Riders to the Sea, the pit went away keening down the street.