Theatre and Nationalism in 20th-Century Ireland ed. by Robert O'Driscoll (review)

480 MODERN DRAMA February THEATRE AND NATIONALISM IN 20TH-CENTURY IRELAND, edited· by Robert O'Driscoll. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1971. 216 pp. $8.50. It is appropriate that the Irish Dramatic Movement-itself productive of fertile collaboration-should be reappraised in a book which is a collection of papers originally read at the second inter-university Seminar in Irish Studies, held at St. Michael's College, University of. Toronto. The inevitable comparison arises between this book and the Ellis-Fermor's monumental work. on the same topic The Irish Dramatic Movement; the immediate difference being that whereas in the unifying vision of Miss Ellis-Fermor the Irish drama formed a "web that, though of varying colours, is seamless," in Theatre and Nationalism there is no such unity of conception. But the title Theatre and Nationalism absolves the editor, Robert O'Driscoll from the need to present a unified viewpoint; and the resultant diversity is not merely refreshing, but a reminder that the story of the dramatic movement, like that of old Granuaile herself, is one of struggle and dissension (it was George Russell (AE) I believe who defined a literary movement as "five or six people who live in the same town and hate each other.") Professor o'Driscoll, in his scholarly introduction, prepares us for the theme of tension which prevails throughout the work and presents an arrangement of the essays in roughly chronological order. Accordingly the book begins with Stars of the Abbey's Ascendancy, Ann Saddlemyer 's· workmanlike recapitulation of the early history of the Abbey Theatre and its place in a dramatic movement whose origins were as much international as national; though Professor Saddlemyer's emphasis on the Irish emulation of Ibsen should be taken in conjunction with Miss Ellis-Fermor's earlier suggestion that the poetic side of the movement was the first reaction against the moral severity of the Norwegian. George Mills Harper follows with a discussion of W. B. Yeats's ambivalent attitude towards Irish politics, and this, in turn gives way to two lectures by the poet himself (one hitherto unpublished, the other a reprint) introduced by Robert O'Driscol1, which prove, if proof were needed, that Yeats is still one of the finest advocates for poetic drama. One wonders how many more 'lost' lectures and articles by the distinguished founders of the Irish dramatic movement will come to light: it would be a great service to have them reprinted. Thomas Macanna next considers the struggle between the nationalists and the Abbey Theatre; and incidentally illustrates one of the problems of trying to wed literature and nationalism: for the refusal of giants like Synge and O'Casey to be defined, reduces one to fitting the nationalistic movement round them, rather than fitting them into the movement, and accounts for that critical disagreement which, according to Oscar Wilde merely proves that the artist is in accord with himself. Thus, Macanna's view of O'Casey as one who "Stands aside . . . does not get involved," contrasts sharply with that of David Krause, who, in one of the best essays in the book, Sean O'Casey and the Higher Nationalism sees him as "outraged over the way the nationalist rhetoric ignored the indiscriminate slaughter." Theatre and nationalism only touch gloves in Roger McHugh's anecdotal essay The Rising, in which he admits to having "alluded briefly" to the effects of the rising on our writing," and in which there is, surprisingly to me, no mention of Brendan Behan, whose life and writing were unquestionably affected by that historical event; but it is refreshing to see that Shaw (whom Ellis-Fermor dismissed as an English writer) is slowly being forgiven for his remarks about the Irish peasantry. If M. J. Sidnell in Hic and Ille ultimately fails (as Shaw and Yeats themselves both failed) to introduce Shaw into the Irish dramatic movement, he 1972 BOOK REVIEWS 481 at least documents his collision with it by examining the literary relationship existing between the two men; though I find somewhat disappointing his conclusion that, while Yeats is· the enduring poet, Shaw is merely "a great public man to whom his contemporaries were much indebted for the...