Part 23 (1/2)
Anglo-Irish humorous literature was a comparatively late product, but its efflorescence was rapid and triumphant. The first great name is that of Goldsmith, and, though deeply influenced in technique and choice of subjects by his a.s.sociation with English men of letters and by his residence in England, in spirit he remained Irish to the end--generous, impulsive, and improvident in his life; genial, gay, and tender-hearted in his works. The Vicar of Wakefield was Dr.
Primrose, but he might just as well have been called Dr. Shamrock. No surer proof of the pre-eminence of Irish wit and humor can be found than in the fact that, Shakespeare alone excepted, no writers of comedy have held the boards longer or more triumphantly than Goldsmith and his brother Irishman, Sheridan. _She Stoops to Conquer, The Rivals, The School for Scandal_, and _The Critic_ represent the sunny side of the Irish genius to perfection. They ill.u.s.trate, in the most convincing way possible, how the debt of the world to Ireland has been increased by the fate which ordained that her choicest spirits should express themselves in a language of wider appeal than the ancient speech of Erin.
On the other hand, English literature and the English tongue have gained greatly from the influence exerted by writers familiar from their childhood with turns of speech and modes of expression which, even when they are not translations from the Gaelic, are characteristic of the Hibernian temper. The late Dr. P.W. Joyce, in his admirable treatise on English as spoken in Ireland, has ill.u.s.trated not only the essentially bilingual character of the Anglo-Irish dialect, but the modes of thought which it enshrines.
There is no better known form of Irish humor than that commonly called the ”Irish bull,” which is too often set down to lax thinking and faulty logic. But it is the rarest thing to encounter a genuine Irish ”bull” which is not picturesque and at the same time highly suggestive. Take, for example, the saying of an old Kerry doctor who, when conversing with a friend on the high rate of mortality, observed, ”Bedad, there's people dyin' who never died before.” Here a truly illuminating result was attained by the simple device of using the indicative for the conditional mood--as in Juvenal's famous comment on Cicero's second Philippic: _Antoni gladios potuit contemnere si sic omnia dixisset_. The Irish ”bull” is a heroic and sometimes successful attempt to sit upon two stools at once, or, as an Irishman put it, ”Englishmen often make 'bulls,' but the Irish 'bull' is always pregnant.”
Though no names of such outstanding distinction as those of Goldsmith and Sheridan occur in the early decades of the nineteenth century, the spirit of Irish comedy was kept vigorously alive by Maria Edgeworth, William Maginn, Francis Mahony (Father Prout), and William Carleton. Sir Walter Scott's splendid tribute to the genius of Maria Edgeworth is regarded by some critics as extravagant, but it is largely confirmed in a most unexpected quarter. Turgenief, the great Russian novelist, proclaimed himself her disciple, and has left it on record that but for her example he might never have attempted to give literary form to his impressions of the cla.s.ses in Russia corresponding to the poor Irish and the squireens and the squires of county Longford. Maginn and Mahony were both scholars--the latter happily called himself ”an Irish potato seasoned with Attic salt”--wrote largely for English periodicals, and spent most of their lives out of Ireland. In the writings of all three an element of the grotesque is observable, tempered, however, in the case of Mahony, with a vein of tender pathos which emerges in his delightful ”Bells of Shandon.” Maginn was a wit, Mahony was the hedge-schoolmaster _in excelsis_, and Carleton was the first realist in Irish peasant fiction. But all alike drew their best inspiration from essentially Irish themes. The pendulum has swung back slowly but steadily since the days when Irish men of letters found it necessary to accommodate their genius to purely English literary standards. Even Lever, though he wrote for the English public, wrote mainly about Ireland. So, too, with his contemporary Le Fanu, whose reputation rests on a double basis. He made some wonderful excursions into the realm of the bizarre, the uncanny, and the gruesome. But in the collection known as _The Purcell Papers_ will be found three short stories which for exuberant drollery and ”diversion” have never been excelled. That the same man could have written _Uncle Silas_ and _The Quare Gander_ is yet another proof of the strange dualism of the Irish character.
The record of the last fifty years shows an uninterrupted progress in the invasion of English _belles lettres_ by Irish writers. Outside literature, perhaps the most famous sayer of good things of our times was a simple Irish parish priest, the late Father Healy. Of his humorous sayings the number is legion; his wit may be ill.u.s.trated by a less familiar example--his comment on a very tall young lady named Lynch: ”Nature gave her an inch and she took an ell.” In the House of Commons today there is no greater master of irony and sardonic humor than his namesake, Mr. Tim Healy. On one occasion he remarked that Lord Rosebery was not a man to go tiger-shooting with--except at the Zoo. On another, being anxious to bring an indictment against the ”Castle” _regime_ in Dublin and finding the way blocked by a debate on Uganda, he successfully accomplished his purpose by a judicious geographical transference of names, and convulsed the House by a speech in which the nomenclature of Central Africa was applied to the government of Ireland.
But wit and humor are the monopoly of no cla.s.s or calling in Ireland.
They flourish alike among car-drivers and K.C.'s, publicans and policemen, priests and parsons, beggars and peers. It is a commonplace of criticism to deny these qualities in their highest form to women. But this is emphatically untrue of Ireland, and was never more conclusively disproved than by the recent literary achievements of her daughters. The partners.h.i.+p of two Irish ladies, Miss Edith Somerville and Miss Violet Martin, has given us, in _Some Experiences of an Irish R.M._ (_i.e._, Resident Magistrate), the most delicious comedy, and in _The Real Charlotte_ the finest tragi-comedy, that have come out of Great Britain in the last thirty years. The _R.M._, as it is familiarly called, is already a cla.s.sic, but the Irish _comedie humaine_--to use the phrase in the sense of Balzac--is even more vividly portrayed in the pages of _The Real Charlotte_. Humor, genuine though intermittent, irradiates the autumnal talent of Miss Jane Barlow, and the long roll of gifted Irishwomen who have contributed to the gaiety of nations may be closed with the names of Miss Hunt, author of _Folk Tales of Breffny_; of Miss Purdon and Miss Winifred Letts, who in prose and verse, respectively, have moved us to tears and laughter by their studies of Leinster peasant life; and of ”Moira O'Neill” (Mrs.
Skrine), the incomparable singer of the Glens of Antrim. To give a full list of the living Irish writers, male and female, who are engaged in the benevolent work of driving dull care away would be impossible within the s.p.a.ce at our command. But we cannot end without recognition of the exhilarating extravaganzas of ”George A.
Birmingham” (Canon Hannay), the freakish and elfin muse of James Stephens, and the coruscating wit of F.P. Dunne, the famous Irish-American humorist, whose ”Mr. Dooley” is a household word on both sides of the Atlantic.
REFERENCES:
Goldsmith: Vicar of Wakefield, She Stoops to Conquer; Sheridan: The Rivals, The School for Scandal, The Critic; R. Edgeworth: Essay on Irish Bulls; M. Edgeworth: Castle Rackrent, The Absentee; Maginn: Miscellanies in Prose and Verse; Carleton: Traits and Stories of the Irish Peasantry; Mahony (Father Prout): Reliques of Father Prout; John and Michael Banim: Tales of the O'Hara Family; Lover: Legends and Stories of Ireland, Handy Andy; Lever: Harry Lorrequer, Charles O'Malley, Lord Kilgobbin; Le Fanu: The Purcell Papers; Barlow: Bogland Studies, Irish Idylls, Irish Neighbours; Birmingham: The Seething Pot, Spanish Gold, The Major's Niece, The Red Hand of Ulster, General John Regan; Stephens: The Crock of Gold, Here are Ladies; Hunt: The Folk Tales of Breffny; Purdon: The Folk of Furry Farm; Somerville and Ross: The Real Charlotte, Some Experiences of an Irish R.M., All on the Irish Sh.o.r.e, Dan Russel the Fox.
THE IRISH THEATRE
By JOSEPH HOLLOWAY.
The Irish theatre and secular drama may be said to begin with the production of James s.h.i.+rley's historical play, _St. Patrick for Ireland_, in Werburgh Street Theatre, about 1636-7; and though Dublin was a great school for acting, and supplied many of the best players to the English stage, such as Quin, Macklin, Peg Woffington, Miss O'Neill, and hosts of others, it never really possessed a creative theatre (save at the Capel Street Theatre for a few years during the Grattan Parliament) until the modern movement in Ireland came into being and the Abbey Theatre became its headquarters.
Of course, innumerable plays by Irish writers were written, but most of them were not distinctively Irish in character; and the names of Goldsmith, Sheridan, O'Keeffe, Farquhar, Sheridan Knowles, Oscar Wilde, and dozens of others will always be remembered as great Irish writers for the stage. And when fine impersonators of Irish character like Tyrone Power, John Drew, or Barney Williams arrived, there were always to be found several clever writers to fit them with parts, the demand always creating the supply.
Even before Dion Boucicault took to writing Irish dramas of a more palatable and less ”stage-Irish” character than those of his immediate predecessors, some excellent plays, Irish in character and tone, had from time to time found their way to the stage. However, Boucicault sweetened our stage by the production of _The Colleen Bawn, Arrah-na-Pogue_, and _The Shaughraun_, and showed by his rollicking impersonations of Myles, Shan, and Conn, how good-humored, hearty, and self-sacrificing Irish boys in humble life can be. He had great technical knowledge of stagecraft, and that has helped to make his Irish plays live in the popular goodwill right up to today.
A revolt against Boucicault's Irish boys, all fun and frolic, and charming colleens, who could do no wrong, has made our modern playwrights go to the other extreme; so that now we find our stage peopled with peasants, cruel, hard, and forbidding for the most part, and with colleens who are the reverse of lovable in thought or act.
Neither picture is quite true of our people. What is really wanted is the happy medium, which few, if any, of our new playwrights have yet given us.
If our great popular Irish drama has yet to come, I think the Fays have made it possible to say that a distinct and really fine dramatic school has arisen in Ireland, evolved out of their wonderful skill in teaching, producing, and acting; and if we are not always really delighted with what our playwrights give us, the almost perfect way in which the plays are served up by the actors invariably wholly satisfies. It is the actors who have made the Abbey Theatre famous, and not the plays. Such acting as theirs cast a spell over all who see them. What pleasing memories do the names of W.G. Fay, Frank J.
Fay, Dudley Digges, Sara Allgood, Arthur Sinclair, Maire O'Neill, Maire ni Shuiblaigh, J.M. Kerrigan, Fred O'Donovan, Eileen O'Doherty, Una O'Connor, Eithne Magee, Nora Desmond, and John Connolly recall!
With the production of W.B. Yeats's poetic one-act play, _The Land of Heart's Desire_, at the Avenue Theatre, London, on March 29, 1894, began the modern Irish dramatic movement. When the poet had tasted the joys of the footlights, he longed to see an Irish Literary Theatre realized in Ireland. Five years later, in the Antient Concert Rooms, Dublin, on May 9, 1899, his play, _The Countess Cathleen_, was produced, and his desire gratified. The experiment was tried for three years and then dropped; plays by Yeats, Edward Martyn, George Moore, and Alice Milligan were staged with English-trained actors in the casts; and a Gaelic play--the first ever presented in a theatre in Ireland--was also given during the third season. It was _The Twisting of the Rope_, by Dr. Douglas Hyde, and was played at the Gaiety Theatre, Dublin, on October 21, 1901, by a Gaelic Amateur Dramatic Society coached by W.G. Fay. The author filled the princ.i.p.al part with distinction.
It was while rehearsing this play that the thought came to Fay: ”Why not have my little company of Irish-born actors--the Ormond Dramatic Society--appear in plays by Irish writers instead of in the ones they have been giving for years?” And the thought soon ripened into realization. His brother, Frank, had dreamed of such a company since he read of the small beginnings out of which the Norwegian Theatre had grown; and just then, seeing some of ”ae's” (George Russell's) play, _Deirdre_, in the _All Ireland Review_, he asked the author if he would allow them to produce it, and, consent being given, the company put it into rehearsal at once. ”ae” got for them from Yeats _Kathleen-Ni-Houlihan_, to make up the programme. Thus it was that this company of amateurs and poets, now known as the Abbey Players, came into existence, and at St. Teresa's Hall, Clarendon Street, Dublin, gave their first performance on April 2, 1902.
Shortly afterwards they took a hall at the back of a shop in Camden Street, where they rehea.r.s.ed and gave a few public performances. On ”ae” declining to be their president, Frank Fay suggested the name of W.B. Yeats, and he was elected, and in that way came again into the movement in which he has figured so largely ever since.
The company played occasionally in the Molesworth Hall, and produced there, among other pieces, Synge's _In the Shadow of the Glen_ (October 8, 1903) and _Riders to the Sea_ (February 25, 1904); Yeats's _The Hour Gla.s.s_ (March 14, 1903) and _The King's Threshold_ (October 8, 1903); Lady Gregory's _Twenty-five_ (March 14,1903); and Padraic Colum's _Broken Soil_ (December 3, 1903).
On March 26, 1904, the company paid a flying one-day visit to the Royalty, London, and Miss A.E.F. Horniman, who had given Shaw, Yeats, and Dr. John Todhunter their first real start as playwrights at the Avenue, London, in March-April, 1894 (Shaw had had his first play, _Widowers' Houses_, played by the Independent Theatre in 1892), saw the performance, and was so impressed that she thought she would like to find a suitable home for such talent in Dublin, and fixed upon the old Mechanics' Inst.i.tute and its surrounding buildings, and there the Abbey Theatre soon afterwards--on December 27, 1904--came into existence.
In writing of this Irish dramatic movement, one must always bear in mind that it was Yeats who first conceived the idea of such a movement; the Fays who founded the school of Irish acting; and Miss Horniman who, like a fairy G.o.dmother, waved the wand, and gave it a habitation and a name--the Abbey Theatre--and endowed it for six years.
Play followed play with great rapidity, and dramatic societies sprang up all over the country, playing home-made productions in Gaelic and English. All Ireland seemed to be play-acting and play-writing; so much so that Frank Fay was heard to say that ”he thought everyone had a play in his pocket, and that anyone in the street could be picked up and shaped into an actor or actress with a little training, Ireland was so teeming with talent!”
Dramatic Ireland had slumbered for a long while, and awoke with tremendous vigor for work. New dramatists sprang up in all parts of Ireland; The Ulster Literary Theatre started in Belfast; The Cork Dramatic Society, in Cork; The Theatre of Ireland, in Dublin; and others in Galway and Waterford soon followed. In Dublin at present more than half a dozen dramatic societies are continually producing new plays and discovering new acting talent. There are also two Gaelic dramatic societies. And nearly every town in Ireland now has its own dramatic cla.s.s and its own dramatists. All this activity has come about within the last ten or twelve years, where, before, in many places, drama and acting were almost unknown.