At the Abbey Theatre

front cover stamped with a progressively deteriorating die. The "book design" is credited to Barbara Anderson and her choice of a smoother textured cloth with plain sides and smaller, less strident lettering on the spine gives the book a much more pleasing format than that of previous volumes. Edwin Gilcher Cherry Plain, New York 5. AT THE ABBEY THEATRE Saddlemyer, Ann, ed. Theatre Business. University Park, PA: Pennsylvania State Univ. Press 1982. $20.00 Anyone who has been Involved with the daily business of theatre—especially so-called "little theatre"—will immediately feel empathie nervous pangs on reading these selected letters of the Abbey Theatre's three founding directors: Lady Gregory, J. M. Synge, and W. B. Yeats. Certainly they capture the feelings Yeats expressed in the lines that gave the book its title, as cited by Saddlemyer: My curse on plays That have to be set up fifty ways, On the day's war with every knave and dolt, theatre business, management of men. "The Fascination of What's Difficult," Collected Poems (London: Macmillan, 1952), p. 104. And just as certainly, Yeats's feelings in that brief quotation come across in these selected letters. Although he is quoted less frequently, and thus seems less involved in the day-by-day "theatre business" of the Abbey's hectic beginnings, Yeats impresses the reader as the least sympathetic of the three. His irritation at the difficulties they mutually faced is more on th'e surface here. As the king-pin of the theatre's financial founding under the terms of their backer, Miss Horniman, and as the major public spokesman for the theatre (to riotous audiences as well as in the press), Yeats seems to have been least willing to become embroiled in the messy business of actual theatre operations. Indeed, the places from which these letters were written Indicate the fact that, far more than Lady Gregory or Yeats, it was Synge who was on the scene, fighting through the scut-work of performance requirements , dealing with the secession of splinter-groups, even assuring for Yeats the purchase of the proper color of light bulbs for his Shadowy Waters. Yeats was at Coole—he seemed always to be at Coole, or in London—and Synge, as always, was in the thick of the battle, usually centered In Dublin, though skirmishes frequently broke out "on the road." Like Yeats, Lady Gregory was ordinarily geographically removed from the tribulations this book describes. Still, the correspondence we have here makes her Involvement appear more direct, more concerned, and more willing than the effect we get of Yeats's aloofness. Since these letters consist of correspondence that was not always entirely shared among the three, there are many instances of "Don't tell so-and-so I said this, but . . ." This results in the creation of an ironic quality in the book, 324 with the reader's awareness being greater than that of any of the participants. This dramatic quality is one of the book's chief fascinations. Adding to this drama is Saddlemyer's voluminous scholarly apparatus. A fiveline letter may evoke a fifteen-line footnote, giving the reader the final outcome of a situation or the future career of an individual. Not only does this add texture to the developing story before us, but also it provides a sense of inevitability , while at the same time giving us information against which we can judge the wisdom of the actions proposed to each other by the main characters. All this results In the kind of response we can expect in reading well-written historicallybased fiction. We know the outcome: the Abbey Theatre survives. But despite that knowledge, from moment to moment in this book we are not at all sure that it can. These effects of suspense, of drama, make it compelling reading. Saddlemyer's notes, It must be confessed, are rather Intimidating as she begins the story told by these letters. She has established her authority by having published a book on each of these three playwrights, as well as having edited not only the plays of Synge and Lady Gregory but also two collections of Synge's letters. This impressive background...