The Theater in Dublin

THE THEATER IN DUBLIN DUBLIN is, very properly, the c[..J:jtal of Ireland; for, though the island is still divided (the northeastern section remaining as part of the United Kingdom) the British city of Belfast cannot, for all its progressive material development, produce the kind of cultural climate in which a university stops being called "red brick" and an art collection ceases to be "municipal." Since this is to be an article on the Dublin rather than the Irish theater I can only mention the Belfast companies in passing; but as these are but two in number against Dublin's halfdozen (and the two cities are of roughly the same size with just over half-a-million inhabitants in each) it will be enough to say that while the Belfast Arts and the Ulster Group theaters have a vigorous outlook and more than competent styles of production they have rarely come forward with a resounding succes d'estime, nor, on the commercial side, do they in any measure constitute a tourist attraction. Productions of artistic importance are, I feel, no rare occurrence in Dublin-one may reasonably predict that the revival of the 1954 St. Joan with Siobhin McKenna and Mlcheal MacLlamm6ir, and directed by Hilton Edwards, which will be given in Dublin and later at the Paris Festival, will again prove to be such. Tourist-wise, the International Theatre Festival which will take place from August 14th through the 27th will be a success commercially; some of the world's finest companies will take part in it, and the Irish Tourist Board has already noted the interest this has aroused abroad. Some speculators fancy that Dublin is on the verge of another renascence of the drama; others, quite simply, believe the reverse; but ask anyone in any country to give an opinion on any aspect of the theater: contradict him with an opposing judgment-both sides of the question will probably be true and valid, for the theater can not be tied by any set rules. No one can ever tell for certain why this play was a flop and that one a sell-out; what is funny in London and Leningrad may not be funny in Madrid and Vancouver; Shakespeare, according to one critic, is dead and buried as far as the United States is concerned, and according to another he has never received so much enlightened attention here. These are random examples; the favourite cry of one section of the theater-conscious class in Dublin is that the art expired in Ireland at the close of the 'thirties when O'Casey exiled himself in England and Yeats died in Italy. The opposing battle-cry is, of course, that the Dublin theater has never been so alive as it is now. Which to believe? It is true that plays of the 289 290 MODERN DRAMA December calibre pf the Synge and O'Casey masterpieces, which had so profound an influence on dramatic writing throughout the English-speaking world, and which contributed so magnificently to the fame of the Abbey Theatre in its pioneering days, have clearly not been written during the last two decades; but surely one can not expect an Alexander in every army, nor a Socrates in every wine-cask? It is a common error, especially in America, to believe that O'Casey was the mainstay of the Abbey about twenty years ago and that his. works are still the most important part of the national repertoire; one must remember that in the old days the Abbey gave a different play every week and that in a year thirty different writers might be represented. Furthermore, for reasons best known to himself, Mr. O'Casey will not allow any of his works to be presented by the Abbey Players any more. It was Rutherford Mayne, Lennox Robinson, George Shiels, George Fitzmaurice, Brinsley MacNamara and numerous other fine dramatists who were the real backbone of the movement during what is now somewhat altruistically known as its "heyday"; the current crop of Abbey writers is now just as extensive and, I am told, the directors of the theater receive upwards of two hundred new plays each year. It...