Birthright, written by a young National schoolmaster in County Cork, had not been attacked in Ireland; both it and my own Hyacinth have been played not only at the Abbey but in the country towns and villages with the approval of the priests and of the Gaelic League. Birthright is founded on some of the most ancient of stories, Cain and Abel, Joseph and the pit, jealousy of the favoured younger by the elder, a sudden anger, and “the voice of thy brother’s blood crieth to me from the ground.” In a photograph of the last scene a Boston photographer had, to fill his picture, brought on the father and mother looking at the struggle between the brothers, instead of coming in, as in the play, to find but a lifeless body before them. This heartlessness was often brought up against us by some who had seen the picture but not the play, and sometimes by those who had seen both.
The Playboy was announced for October 16th, and on the 14th the Gaelic American printed a resolution of the United Irish Societies of New York, in which they pledged themselves to “drive the vile thing from the stage.”
There was, however, very little opposition in the Plymouth Theatre. There was a little booing and hissing, but there were a great many Harvard boys among the audience and whenever there was a sign of coming disapproval they cheered enough to drown it. Then they took to cheering if any sentence or scene was coming that had been objected to in the newspaper attacks, so, I am afraid, giving the impression that they had a particular liking for strong expressions. We had, as I have already told, cut out many of these long ago in Dublin, and had never put them back when we played in England or elsewhere; and so the enemy’s paper confessed almost sadly, “it was a revised and amended edition that they saw ... the most offensive parts were eliminated. It was this that prevented a riot.... But most of those present and all the newspaper men had read the excised portions in the Gaelic American and were able to fill the gaps.”
Because of the attacks in some papers, the Mayor of Boston sent his secretary, Mr. William A. Leahy, to report upon The Playboy, and the Police Commissioners also sent their censor. Both reports agreed that the performance was not such as to “justify the elimination of any portion of the play.” Mr. Leahy had already written of the other plays: “I have seen the plays and admire them immensely. They are most artistic, wonderfully acted, and to my mind absolutely inoffensive to the patriotic Irishman. I regret the sensitiveness that makes certain men censure them. Knowing what Mr. Yeats and Lady Gregory want to do, I cannot but hope that they succeed and that they are loyally supported in America. My commendation cannot be expressed too forcibly.” And after he had seen The Playboy, he wrote: “If obscenity is to be found on the stage in Boston, it must be sought elsewhere and not at the Plymouth Theatre.” After speaking with some sympathy of the objections made to the plays, he says: “The mistake, however, lies in taking the pictures literally. Some of these playwrights, of course, are realists or copyists of life and like others of their kind they happen to prefer strong brine to rosewater and see truth chiefly in the ugliness of things. But as it happens the two remarkable men among the Irish playwrights are not realists at all. Yeats and Synge are symbolists, and their plays are as fantastic and fabulous as the Tales of the Round Table.”
There was no further trouble at Boston. There was nothing but a welcome for all the plays, many of them already so well known, especially through Professor Baker’s dramatic classes at Harvard, that we were now and again reproved by some one in the audience if a line or passage were left out, by design or forgetfulness. I wrote home on October 22nd: “Gaston Mayer came yesterday, representing Liebler. They are delighted with our success, and want us, urged us, to stay till May. We refused this, but will certainly stay January, possibly a little longer. It is rather a question for the Company. They want me to stay all the time. I said I would stay for the present. If I get tired, Yeats will come back.... We had the sad news last night that we are only to have one more week here, and are to do some three night places, opening at Providence on the 30th. Mrs. Gardner came to the theatre this morning, furious at our going so soon.”
We said farewell to Boston October 30th. Yet it was not quite farewell, for on our last day in America—March 5th—we stopped there on the way from Chicago to New York and gave a “flying matinée”; and I brought home the impression of that kind, crowded audience, and the knowledge that having come among strangers, we left real friends.
On October 13th I had written from Boston: “I am sorry to say Flynn (Liebler’s special agent), who has been to Providence, announces strong opposition to The Playboy. A delegation came to demand its withdrawal, but he refused. I had also a letter saying the Clan-na-Gael was very strong there, and advising that we have police at hand. Of course, had we known this, we should not have put on The Playboy, but we must fight it out now. The danger is in not knowing whether we shall get any strong support there. A Harvard lad has interviewed me for a magazine. He promised to try and make up a party to go to Providence Tuesday night, and also to stir up Brown University.”
Though we all grieved at leaving friendly Boston, we found friends also at Providence, with its pleasant name and hilly streets and stately old dwelling houses. But a protest had been made before we arrived, and a committee had waited on the Police Commissioners and presented a petition asking them to forbid the performance of The Playboy.
“I had to appear before the Police Commissioners this morning. The accusations were absurd and easy to answer; most of them founded upon passages which have never been said upon the stage. I wish I had been allowed to take a copy. There was one clause which accused us of ‘giving the world to understand a barbarous marriage custom was in ordinary use in Ireland.’ This alluded to the ‘drift of chosen females from the Eastern World,’ one of those flights of Christy Mahon’s fancy which have given so much offence. I showed them the prompt copy with the acting version we have always used. Unluckily the enemy didn’t turn up. Of course the play is to be let go on, and there are to be plenty of policemen present in case of disturbance. The police people said they had had the same trouble about a negro play said to misrepresent people of colour.
“The Police Commissioners themselves attended and have published a report, saying they not only found nothing to object to in the play but enjoyed every minute of it. Nevertheless, the protesting committee published its statement: ‘How well our objections were founded may be judged from the fact that the Company acting this play has agreed to eliminate from it each and every scene, situation, and word to which we objected, and it is on the basis of this elimination that the play has been permitted to go on.’ And I gave my answer: ‘I think it may be as well to state that we gave the play to-night exactly as it has been given in London, Oxford, Cambridge, Manchester, and many cities in Ireland and the other night in Boston. The players have never at any time anywhere spoken all the lines in the published book.’” And after its production I wrote home: “Nov. 1st. The Playboy went very well last night, not an attempt to hiss.”