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Makers of a Modern Theatre: Frank and William Fay

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  23 January 2009

Malcolm Kelsall
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Extract

‘Our two best men actors were not indeed chosen by chance, for one was a stage-struck solicitor's clerk and the other a working man who had toured Ireland in a theatrical company managed by a Negro.’ With these arrogant and misleading words, W. B. Yeats chose not to name to the Royal Academy of Sweden the two men who trained the original Abbey Theatre Company: the brothers Frank and William Fay. No one now credits Yeats's account, but a scholarly history of the Fays' work for the theatre has yet to be written, in part because the Irish theatre movement itself is only just emerging from the regions of anecdote and gossip, but in part also because of the dominance of the readily available material by the Fays' denigrator, Yeats himself. Thus, the best account of the stage-craft of the early Abbey, James W. Flannery's book W. B. Yeats and the Idea of a Theatre, sets the poet at the heart of the Irish dramatic movement, and although it is admitted to be ‘unjust and erroneous’ to dismiss the Fays' views on theatre as ‘simply ignorant’, it is with the ‘literary and intellectual’ values of Yeats's plays, and their stage-worthiness, that Flannery is primarily concerned. No other published study approaches the thoroughness and intelligence of Flannery's and the brothers Fay continue to suffer the penalties of modesty, inarticulateness, and partial failure.

Type
Articles
Information
Theatre Research International , Volume 3 , Issue 3 , May 1978 , pp. 188 - 199
Copyright
Copyright © International Federation for Theatre Research 1978

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References

Notes

1. Autobiographies (London, 1961), p. 563.

2. (New Haven and London, 1976). The Fays are discussed in Ch. 7. Useful material is reprinted in Hogan, Robert and Kilroy, James, The Modern Irish Drama a documentary history I & II (Dublin, 1975 & 1976)Google Scholar and Hogan, Robert ed., Towards a National Theatre, The Dramatic Criticism of Frank J. Fay (Dublin, 1970)Google Scholar, but these are works of compilation rather than criticism. The most important unpublished study is Saddlemyer, Ann, Dramatic Theory and Practice in the Irish Literary Theatre, Ph.D. Thesis for the University of London, 1961.Google Scholar There is a useful selected bibliography in Flannery which lists many of the earlier histories of the Irish dramatic movement, including W. G. Fay's principal works. Of these the most pertinent is Fay, W. G. and Carswell, Catherine, The Fays of the Abbey Theatre, (London, 1935).Google Scholar

3. A. E. (G. W. Russell), Letters from A. E., ed. Denson, Alan, (London, 1961), p. 96Google Scholar (he is criticising Lady Gregory for centralising herself too much in her Our Irish Theatre); A.E.F. Horniman, letters to W.B. Yeats, 23 June 1906 and 14 November 1906, NLI ms 10952; Shiubhlaigh, Maire Nic, The Splendid Years (Dublin, 1955).Google Scholar Flannery ignores her reminiscences, which are clear, factual and detailed.

4. The material is conveniently collected in Stokes, John Alec Anthony, The Non-Commercial Theatres in London and Paris in the Late Nineteenth Century, Ph.D thesis for the University of Reading, 1968.Google Scholar

5. Letter to Fay, Gerard, 05 1952Google Scholar, a moving plea for the recognition of the work of the Fays, NLI ms 10954.

6. Henderson papers, NLI ms 1730–2(1) p. 25.

7. The Mail, 20 05 1908, quoting The Chicago Sunday Tribune. This account, however, was specifically denied next day by W.B. Yeats and other members of the Company.

8. Fay, W. G. in The Scottish Stage, 09, 1930.Google Scholar

9. Holloway papers, NLI ms 13267 (6), letters of 26 February 1910 and 19 October 1915. For the ten year plan, see F.J.'s letter to Yeats, 25 July 1902 NLI ms 13068 (13) comparing their work with Le Théâtre de l'Oeuvre.

10. Fay, F. J. letter to Yeats 18 12 1902Google Scholar (Stokes, op.cit.); Holloway papers NLI ms 13267(6) letter of 3 April 1912; Fay papers, NLI ms 10952(3), Fay, F. J. to Matthews, Baile 24 08 1926.Google Scholar I have assumed W.G.'s assent to F.J.'s views. See also Montague, G. E. to , F. J., 12 11 1912, NLI ms 10952(3).Google Scholar

11. op.cit.n. 1, p. 200.

12. Shiubhlaigh, Nic, op. cit. n. 3, p. 43.Google Scholar

13. Hogan, & Kilroy, , op.cit. n. 1. II, p. 100Google Scholar; letter from Poel, to , F. J., 30 11 1907Google Scholar, NLI ms 10952(6), quoted in F.J.'s ‘Some Thoughts on Acting’ p. 30, NLI ms 10953.

14. Dublin, 1969, pp. 20–3. He continues by discussing Coquelin and Stanislavski. I entirely agree with Fallon's emphasis on the elements of technique the Fays learnt from Coquelin's L'Art du Comedién direct, and via Arthur Symons's Plays, Acting and Music, especially as regards restraint, natural elocution and conscious development of character. None the less, it was Antoine who was seen as the revolutionary and inspirational force behind the movement.

15. Stokes, article B from NLI ms 10953.

16. Letter to Garvey, Maire, 13 06 1904, NLI ms 8320Google Scholar

17. Towards a National Theatre p. 16 and p. 100. I unite F.J.'s specific praise of Coquelin in these passages, with the general inspiration of Le Théâtre Libre.

18. Aberdeen Daily Journal, 13 06 1906.

19. NLI ms 10953.

20. , F. J.'s letter to Yeats 20 03 1903Google Scholar, cited by Stokes; F.J. to Dawson Byrne in Byrne's The Story of Ireland's National Theatre (Dublin, 1929) p. 21; , F. J. ‘Some Account of the Early Days of the INTS’ p. 3Google Scholar, NLI ms 10953; , W. G. ‘Production’ p. 11Google Scholar, NLI ms 5981; F.J.'s essay for Yeats on M. le Bargy, Stokes, p. 529.

21. Letter to Yeats, , 14 12 1906Google Scholar, NLI ms 10952 (l.ii).

22. The Saturday Review, 12 06 1909.

23. ‘Some Thoughts on Acting’, p. 19.

24. NLI ms 13267(6).

25. Holloway papers, NLI ms 1804, p. 169; Belfast Evening Telegraph, 3 1908; United Irishman, 24 10 1903.

26. The phrase is Synge's, letter to Gregory, Lady 13 12 1906Google Scholar, NLI ms 10552 (l.v), but cf. F.J.'s letter to Yeats NLI ms 10952(8) dated August 13 (no year given) on the subject.

27. Henderson papers, NLI ms 1731 p. 105.

28. Flannery, op.cit., n.1, reproduces one illustration of the 1908 production, plate 12, from the Henderson papers NLI ms 1729–32. The photographic archives of the Department of English, University of Reading contain a good collection.

29. loc.cit. n. 27.

30. Holloway papers, NLI ms 1804, p. 638, quoting the Osservatore on the requirements for a great actress.

31. Belfast Evening Telegraph, 3 12 1908.

32. See my ‘The Playboy before the Riots’, TRI I (1975–1976), 29–37.

33. Henderson papers, NLI ms 1731, pp. 12–13.

34. Holloway papers, NLI ms 1803(2), p. 726 and p. 740.

35. Scattering Branches, ed. Gwyn, Stephen (London, 1940), p. 133.Google Scholar

36. James W. Flannery, ‘W.B. Yeats, Gordon Craig and the Visual Arts of the Theatre’ and Karen Dorn, ‘Dialogue into Movement: W. B. Yeats's Theatre Collaboration with Gordon Craig’ in O'Driscoll, Robert and Reynolds, Lorna (eds), Yeats and the Theatre (London, 1975).Google Scholar

37. op. cit. n. 3, pp. 33–4.

38. p. 59.

39. idem, p. 82.

40. Flannery, plate 11.

41. Holloway papers, NLI ms 1804, pp. 496–7, and 509.

42. , W. G.,‘Production’, p. 12, NLI ms 5981.Google Scholar

43. cf.n. 13.

44. , W. G., ‘The Amateur and the Theatre’, p. 13 and 20, NLI ms 5981.Google Scholar

45. Henderson papers, NLI ms 1730–2(1), p. 251.