Poetry and the Theatre

Irish Jesuit Province

Poetry and the TheatreNo Time for Comedy by S. N. Behrman; An Italian Straw Hat by Labiche; Marc-Michel;Thomas Walton; The Bower of Wandel. A Lyrical Drama in Three Scenes by GordonBottomley; The Flame. A Play in One Act by Austin Clarke; Lovers' Meeting. A Tragedy inThree Acts by Louis D'AltonReview by: Gabriel FallonThe Irish Monthly, Vol. 69, No. 822 (Dec., 1941), pp. 577-585Published by: Irish Jesuit ProvinceStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/20514958 .

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577

Sitting at the lay.

Poetry and The Theatre

By GAiRnEn FALLON.

No Time for Comedy. By S. N. Behrman. E3dwards MacLiamm6ir Productions. Gaiety Theatre, October, 1941.

An Italian Straw Hat. By Labiche and Marc-Michel (adapted

by Thomas Walton). Longford Productions. Gate Theatre, October, 1941.

The Bower of Wandel. A Lyrical Drama in three scenes. By Gordon Bottomley.

The Flame. A Play in one act. By Austin Clarke. Dublin Verse-Speaking Society. Peacock Theatre,

I October, 1941.

Lovers' M-eeting. A Tragedy in three acts. By Louis D'Altdon.

Abbey Theatre First Production. October-November, 1941.

T--11 HE art of the theatre is a jealous art, intolerant of strange gods, indifferent alike to the individual charms of litera ture, music, painting, and the dance, yet ever willing to

accept their tribute in return for a submission to the yoke of

drama. Hard terms,9indeed, for the poet, painter, musician or dancer

anxious to tread Thespian ways; yet terms inexorably defending the theatre's life and law. The theatre has always refused to



578 THE IRISH MONTHLY

tolerate what is merely poetry, merely music, merely painting, merely dancing, in the theatre. There must be something more, and that more must be theatre. There is a world of difference between the poetry of a Hamlet and the poetry of a Paradise Lost, and that world is the world of theatre, the rich and complex materials of the stage, the laws of theatrical circumstance, the let and hindrance of dramatic necessity.

Nowadays, when the poet is showing signs of returning unto his own again, of accepting that heritage usurped by realism, it is as well, perhaps, to warn him of ways no longer familiar to him.

It is one of the tragic futilities of English literature that the Victorian poets expended a waste of energy in writing plays for a theatre that was very far from poetry. That these plays, for the most part, lacked the significant form of dramatic poetry was due mainly to the fact that the poets themselves lacked the use of theatre.

Elaborated lyrics thrown arbitrarily into an inert dramatic form do not result in poetic drama. Poetic drama, as the term implies, is a work which is dramatic as well as poetic. It is poetry applied and kept subservient to dramatic necessity. There may be as

much poetry, as much sheer lyricism, as the poet likes in the drama, but it must be subordinate to the essential requirements of theatrical presentation.

Here in Dublin at the beginning of this century a poet founded a theatre. That foundation helped in a great measure in consoli dating the attempt to restore poetry to its place again. But what, happened to poetry in that theatre which the poet founded? Gordon Bottomley asks the question: " Has a body of poets built up for it a repertory of poetic drama at all comparable with that of prose realistic drama that has followed the start given to it by Synge and Lady Gregory?" And says: " The answer is very

much in the negative. The reason cannot be that there are no



POETRY AND THE THEATRE 579

poets available: it is not to be believed that so many Irishmen

could come together in the service of a theatre without there being a substantial number of essentially poetic minds among

them. The answer can only be that the poets in the Abbey

Theatre are all writing realistic prose." It would be pleasant to be able to believe that Dr. Bottomley's

answer was more correct than conjectural, that all the Abbey

playwrights had to do to restore poetry to its rightful place was to change over from prose. The actual circumstances are more complex. The Abbey Theatre itself is much to blame in the

matter. Audiences fed on prose-realism are likely to respond only to more prose-realism.,

Yet something might be done to make amends. An extension of the young Dublin Verse-Speaking Society into an -audience organised body for the production of poetic drama; a gesture on the part of the Abbey by giving such a body special privileges inaregard to Sunday night theatre; some public declaration of

the Abbey's attitude to drama. At the Dublin_Verse-Speaking Society's first production in the

Peacock, Vice-Chairman Roibeard 0 Farachain, in his opening speech, asked the audience not to accept the works presented in the spirit of " ju?st another play ". Is the Abbey determined

to be satisfied with its being "j ust another theatre " ? Perhaps

not; for it has recently taken to printing the work of contem porary poets in the blank spaces on its programmes. That is a

good thing to do; the better is to continue it. But poetry in

the theatre means somnething more than printing on programmes. It means wearing it nearer the heart's core.

There is little to be said for S. N. Behrman's No Time for

Comedy, and that little not good. The work is a striking

example of the drivelling extreme to which prose-realism can




go. No amount of setting, costume, acting or London reputs tion can make a play of what is not a play. No Time for Comedy,

with all these blessings thick upon it, is not even passable enter tainment.

" I've got nothing to say," declares a playwright character in the piece. " Oh, but you say it so charmingly," responds his

wife. Had she said " boringly ", the remark would no doubt have missed point, but the audience might at least have been allowed to treat itself to a slow wintry smile. As it was, it was dullness, dullness all the way, with admiration for the patience of the players who must have had considerable difficulty in com

mitting the stuff to memory. Meriel Moore, Shelah Richards, T. St. John Barry, Stanley Illsley and Alfred Lugg did wonders under the circumstances. And Lucy Glazebrook performed a minor miracle in characterising a coloured maid amidst circum stances which, despite MaeLiammoir's fine settings and Perrott's striking costumes, were consistently drab.

Remembering the glories of Edwards-MacLiammoir theatre, one thinks of No Time for Comedy and-well, one wonders.

* * * *

Perhaps those who had seen An Italian Straw Hat in Ren6 Clair's delightful screen version might have had some misgivings as to its behaviour on the stage. If they had, they swiftly for got them. Lord Longford's production of the work proved that the comic spirit embodied in it provides stuff that is the very poetry of theatre. An Italian Straw Hat carries on its escutcheon a quality that is to be found in the lineage of the Clown, the Circus, the Commedia Dell' Arte, Punch and Judy.

Here is comedy existing in and for itself; its personalities arti ficialised into types; its facts never wholly related tco the actual conditions of life. It does not concern itself with the topical and the temporary as lesser works of humour do; it is not a mirror



POETRY- AND THE, THEATRE 581

of the times. Yet, in its appeal to the spirit of laughter.in us, it reflects the general lineaments of humanity and it possesses a universality which passes beyond both time and place. ([t is a work of pure theatre, in which the dialogue hardly matters; the spirit of the thing is embodied in its action and situations and in the antics of its actors.

A hat is lost and it is searched for. They search for it indi vidually and collectiyely, in parties of relatives, in top-dressed wedding groups, in fleets of cabs, through private flats, through milliners' salons, through ladies' drawing-rooms, through public squares and perspiring police stations; the hat ever eluding, the pursuers ever in pursuit. They pursue, good-humouredly, angrily, placidly, speedily, with flowers (and even shrubs), with song, with dance, through day and night, in fine weather and in foul. Finally the hat is- found. It is where it was from the

beginning, in the place whence they had set out to find it.

The whole pursuit bristles with situations of the most comic kind, which, with the types presented, give the actors full scope for burlesque and clowning. This was magnificently availed of by Lord Longford's players, and Blake Gifford, who led the pur *suit, entered completely into the spirit of the work (or rather he allowed the spirit of the work to enter him) and gave a first-class performance as Fadinard. ilamlyn Benson's Nonancourt was a

magnificent piece of clowning, delightfully conceived, and pre sented with a competence rarely met with in this type of enter tainment. He was splendidly partnered by Wilfred Brambell's Boby. Mr. Brambell has already given Dublin audiences a hint or two of his talent in this direction, and it is a tribute to the casting of Gerald Pringle that he picked him for the part.

The lengthy cast played well. There was not one flat persona

tion, just as there was not one single dull moment, and while a

little more use might perhaps have been made of music, particu




larly in closing each scene, the work was wholly satisfying. Gerald Pringle produced at speed and Carl Bonn set and cos tumed the work with grace and colour. An Italian Straw Hat

must be ranked as one of the outstanding successes of the season. An early revival of it is certainly due.

The visit of the Dublin Verse-Speaking Society to the theatre (Peacock) resulted in the very fine presentation of two poetic

plays. The Flame, by Austin Clarke, Chairman of the Society, is short and slight in theme, a poetic rendering of a story based

on the practice of tending the Flame of St. Brigid (which is said to have existed for several centuries until suppressed by Norman ecclesiastical authorities). A reading of the play conveys little of its presentation in theatre.

It moved swiftly, poetically and dramatically, and allowed three members of the Society to sustain its burthen in three very fine presentations of its leading characters. Florence Lynch played the Old Nun; Maureen Kiely played the part of the Novice,

Attracta; Eve Watkinson played the Abbess; three first-class performances, the quality of the acting hardly less than the quality of the verse-speaking, the two moving as one, a consum

mation always to be wished. The Bower of Wandel, though successful, lacked something of

the fusion which dominated the presentation of The Flame. Th'is may have been in part due to the form of the play itself. Described as Lyrical Drama, it is more consciously " poetically dramatic " than Mr. Clarke's play. There is a chorus, excel lently spoken as poetry by Robert Mooney and Maureen Kiely (and not so happily by Florence Lynch). And there are a number of scenes between choruses. Here the casting was not entirely effective; there was a tendency to speak the verse as prose (possibly in the interests of " good acting "), but failure we




averted by the performances of Eve Watkinson and Marjorie Williams.

Apart from the plays there was some very fine rendering of solo poetry. Liam Redmond's Ua Bruadair (James Stephens) was a fine piece of work? and Eve Watkinson's rendering of Roibeard

O Farachain's The Beset Wife was almost (but not quite) a good match to it. Vachel Lindsay's The Congo was the best of the ensemble pieces.

It is a pity that there was not a little more ensemble work, but one cannot have everything with two whole plays in the pro gramme, and to some of us at any rate, the plays matter more than the ensemble work. If there is any hope of a restoration of poetry to the theatre it lies, at the moment, in the hands of the members of the Dublin Verse-Speaking Society. If their sense of responsibility in the matter is as keen as it ought to be, all will be well.

(At the conclusion of the first evening's performance Austin Clarke paid a well-merited tribufe to the pioneer work of Marjorie GuIlam and to the activity of the Verse-Speaking Fellowship in the art of choral speaking. He implied that there are methods and methods. It would be interesting to hear him develop the implication.)

Louis- D'Alton's latest work of theatre is described as a tragedy. Yet it fails tQ live up to that description, and mainly, one feels, for reasons over which Mr. D'Alton had some control.

Despite certain academic view-points one can have tragic comedy in the theatre, but it must always be work in which the comic spirit is never allowed to hamper much less transcend the tragic. The comedy of the work may proceed broadly in parallel relief; or it may move more quietly along a lower plane,




but in the last analysis tragedy should bestride the piece like a colossus.

In Lovers' Meeting comedy and tragedy meet and mingle to a degree which is disastrous to both. Sornetimes this happens in a clash of characters, sometimes at a point in situation. In one instance it is embodied in a single character.

It is futile to blame the audience for laughing at Hannie Martin. Audiences will insist in laughing at what is laughable, and despite Mr. D'Alton's tragic intent with the character, there is much in poor Hannie to be laughed at. Mr. D'Alton may insist that Hannie was drawn whole and entire, that Hannie

would be less Hannie without the laughable bits, that Hannie is, in other words, life-like. But Mr. D'Alton is too much a man of the theatre not to see that life and drama, no matter how closely related, are not the same.

Had Ria Mooney been allowed to take her Hannie in a lower key, had she been permitted to dispense with the St. Vitus-like

movements and to concentrate a little more on that economy which is the secret of all great tragic playing, the result might have been a different one so far as that particular and important character was concerned. Despite the praise that critics have heaped upon Miss Mooney for her performance, one felt that had she been more subjective in her playing, more a part of her part, so to speak, her performance might have been less laughable and

more tragic. Economy is a word which Mr. D'Alton himself might profit

ably study, particularly when attempting a work of tragedy. He has enough richness of characterisation and wealth of dramatic

idea to suffice a dozen dramatists, to say nothing of his possession of whole stocks of theatrical situations and devices. He shoud

use all sparingly. tovers' Meeting failed as a tragedy and did not succeed sa




comedy simply because it was overstocked with the stuff of both. Too much tragedy tends to become comic and one murder and two hangings, to say nothing of Jane Sheridan's " living sin is far more than a comedy-fed audience can tolerate in one

evening. The play was excellently produced by Frank Dermody, and it

embodied some of the Abbey acting at its best. Michael Dolan and Maureen Delaney were responsible for very fine playing and some magnificent team-work. Denis O'Dea, F. J. McCormick,

W. O'Gorman and Eileen Crowe gave first-class characterisa tions of difficult parts. Phyllis Ryan played an excellent Mary Sheridan. Whatever may be said about the writing of Batt Seery, Seamus Healy did not over-play the part. Other actors

might, no doubt, give other interpretations of it, but Seamus Healy gave his own without additions. That audiences thoroughly enjoyed it, is a tribute to casting and to Mr. Healy.

Some other time Mr. I3'Alton may achieve success. He has done much in the theatre to deserve it.



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Poetry and the Theatre