Profiles of a Poet

PROFILES OF A POET THE YEAR NINETEEN HUNDRED AND TWENTY-ONE was not the best of times for the Abbey Theatre. Its finances were at their lowest ebb. Ireland's war of independence was rising to a peak-point; the notorious Black-and-Tans were loose upon the land; the streets of Joyce's Dublin were pocked with daily and nightly ambushes; a British curfew declared that citizens must be within their dwellings by 8:00 p.m. When a 9:00 p.m. curfew closed all the other theatres, the Abbey had remained defiantly open, but the additional hour was just one hour too much. Shaw, Yeats, and Lady Gregory, taking advantage of this temporary closure, gave lectures in London to help to keep the Abbey's doors open and to payoff its debt to the bank. Most of the Theatre's leading players had gone off to the U.S. on a tour of Lennox Robinson's The Whiteheaded Boy leaving behind a handful of part-time players-of whom I was a junior member-a promising School of Acting and a seasoned actor from the main company who remained behind to direct the School. A gift of £ 500 from Lady Ardilaun, added to the takings from the London lectures, gave the Theatre a new lease of life and, as soon as the British lifted their curfew to a more reasonable hour from the Theatre's point of view, Lady Gregory left the Black-and-Tan terror of Coole Park, Galway, for the Black-and-Tan terror of Abbey Street, Dublin, and ordered rehearsals to commence. These she attended in person, primly sitting-a better looking version of Queen Victoria-in the middle seat of the front row of the stalls. The rehearsal over she would gather us around her in the Green Room and distribute her praise and blame. She wanted a little more of this or a little less of that; as for the other thing, it ought not to be even mentioned amongst us if we wished to retain our places in the Abbey Theatre Company. One afternoon she told us that she was bringing Mr. Yeats to the following afternoon's rehearsal. William Butler Yeats, she informed us, was a very great poet; and to make clear this fact she drew our attention to the framed Cuala Press copies of his poems that adorned the Green Room's walls. There, for instance, was "The Pity of Love," there "The Lover tells of the Rose in his Heart," and there "The Lake Isle of Innisfree." 330 MODERN DRAMA December She read them for us in her ageing quavering voice with its intriguing habit of transforming "th"s to "deh"s. We duly looked impressed, and with some of us our looks did reflect our inner feelings. 1 couldn't help wondering how the author of these poems would react to The Lord Mayor, the semi-political farce by Edward McNulty (a bank manager relative by marriage of George Bernard Shaw) which we were then rehearsing. The next afternoon we assembled for rehearsal at the usual time and as we stood in the wings were told that Lady Gregory and the poet were out front. The rehearsal went through with a little more vigour than usual, the effect of an upsurge of nerves, undoubtedly due to the fact that we were acting in the presence of two-thirds of the Abbey Theatre's Directorate (Lennox Robinson, the remaining third, with whom we always felt much more at home, being on holidays in Paris). .our acting ability wasn't helped by the report of a small-part player (who had surveyed the auditorium through a hole in one of the flats) that the poet had spent most of the time with his head bent over the pages of some literary journal. The rehearsal over we trooped up the stairs to the Green Room and tried to compose ourselves while we awaited the arrival of that Director whom most of us knew only by sight. Soon we heard a familiar voice saying, "Now, Willie, 1 want you to meet the players." (Good Heavens, she was calling the man...