Sean O'Casey and the Road to Expressionism

SEAN O'CASEY AND THE ROAD TO EXPRESSIONISM STUDENTS OF SEAN O'CASEY generally agree that his plays describe a course of technical development from naturalism to expressionism. The point of definite change of genre is usually established as the second act of The Silver Tassie (1928). Shortly after the first performance of the play, Curtis Canfield wrote: "In The Silver Tassie [O'Casey] gives evidence of relinquishing a medium and a method in which he was most effective for the sake of a different subject matter and a different technique.... The Silver Tassie opens in the familiar Dublin tenement but the last acts move away from realism into the realm of philosophic expressionism." A decade later, the same interpretation persisted. For example, Walter Starkie commented that in The Silver Tassie O'Casey '1eft behind the plays of his former manner, and he began to grope towards new dramatic values. . . . The first act is written in true O'Casey manner-there is movement, there is life: the characters are real beings.... The second act, which is set in the trenches 'somewhere in France: is a queer, fantastic scene that recalls slightly the dream play in Masses and Men by Toller." After still another decade, S. Marion Tucker and Alan S. Downer were indicating that in The Silver Tassie O'Casey ''began experimenting with form and trying his hand at expressionism."! And so on. Numerous other examples could be offered. The point of this paper is that O'Casey's application of expressionistic techniques actually began not with The Silver Tassie, but with The Plough and the Stars (1926). The expressionistic techniques are, to be sure, not dominant-the earlier play is almost universally recognized as realistic or naturalistic-but still they appear strongly enough to warrant interested study. Exactly what "naturalism" or "expressionism" may be, of course, is open to dehate.2 There are probably as many analyses as there are commentators. However, it should be made clear that for the purposes of this study, naturalism is conceived as being basically a picture of life in which people, places, and events appear as they really are, without any coloring of idealism, romanticism, or sentimentality. In1 . Plays of the Irish Renaissance (New York, 1929), p. 296; "Sean O'Casey," in The Irish Theatre (London, 1939), pp. 166-167; Twenty-Five Modern Plays (New York, 1948), p.723. 2. Probably one of the people least interested in a definition is O'Casey himself. In 1949 I exchanged several letters with him on this subject. He wrote me on 17 April: "I've often heard of, & read about, 'naturalism' & 'expressionism,' but, God's truth, I don't know rightly what either means." 254 1961 THE ROAD TO EXPRESSIONISM 255 sofar as is possible, the naturalist observes the scene scientifically and coolly and describes it objectively. "These are," he says, «the facts. I have merely presented them. I have not interpreted them." In expressionism , conversely, the playwright takes "the facts" and uses them -most often in intentionally non-realistic ways-to give image to some inner vision, some personal view of experience. He may use colors, speech patterns, sound levels, or dozens of other devices, most of them freighted with symbolic values, to create his effects. "These are," he says, "facts which I have interpreted by shaping them in a way beyond their customary literal dimensions." (Obviously these definitions ignore the academic distinctions often made regarding the sordidness of naturalism, its deterministic essence, and so on, or the intuitional and associative aspects of expressionism, with other related qualities. Such distinctions, though valid, do not directly apply to this essay.) With these highly limited fields of reference in mind, we xnay trim to The Plough and the Stars. To begin with, a study of the characters in the play suggests that none is a truly dominating personality, except , perhaps, Bessie Burgess. This evenness and solidness of characterization is one of several indications that O'Casey was moving toward a less naturalistic form. Whereas naturalistic plays most often feature one or two characters who stand out beyond the others and who carry a great part of the burden of the drama (e.g., O'Casey's own...