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The Playboy before the Riots

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  23 January 2009

Malcolm Kelsall
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Extract

Was the Abbey Theatre company partly responsible for the original Playboy riots? Synge's comedy would have shocked Irish patriotism and propriety under any circumstances, but did the author and Frank and William Fay provide fuel for the flames by the manner in which they produced the work? The reaction of Dublin has been readily dismissed as mere philistinism, but without any attempt to assess how much the audience was provoked. Yet one thing is clear: the first night audience of Saturday, 26 January 1907, did not come to riot. On the contrary, they gave the play a fair critical hearing, and all accounts are agreed that vocal protest (far short of a riot) did not break out until late in the evening. It is also known that after the death of Synge and the departure of the Fays, the interpretation of the play was radically revised to make the production more palatable. It is reasonable to enquire, therefore, what the company originally had in mind.

Type
Research Article
Information
Theatre Research International , Volume 1 , Issue 1 , October 1975 , pp. 29 - 37
Copyright
Copyright © International Federation for Theatre Research 1975

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References

Notes

1. Useful accounts of criticism of Synge are given by Alan Price in the introduction to his Synge and Anglo-Irish Drama (London, 1961)Google Scholar, and in ‘A Survey of Recent Work on Synge, J. M.’ pp. 279–95Google Scholar of Sunshine and the Moon's Delight, ed. Bushrui, S. B. (Gerrards Cross and Beirut, 1972).Google Scholar

2. Now available as Towards a National Theatre, ed. Hogan, Robert (Dublin, 1970)Google Scholar, cited hereafter as F. J. Fay.

3. Fay, F.J., p. 100.Google Scholar

4. The Abbey and the Actor (Dublin, 1969).Google Scholar

5. Fay, F.J., pp. 107 and 105.Google Scholar

6. A relevant selection is now available as Joseph Holloway's Abbey Theatre, ed. Hogan, Robert and O'Neill, Michael J. (Carbondale and Edwardsville, 1967).Google Scholar

7. Fay, F.J., p. 107.Google Scholar

8. From the Henderson papers in the National Library, Dublin, M.S. 1,720, p. 2, cited hereafter as Henderson.

9. J. M. Synge, Greene, David H. and Stephens, Edward M. (New York, 1959), p. 242Google Scholar, cited hereafter as Greene and Stephens.

10. Greene, and Stephens, , p. 265.Google Scholar

11. Fay, F.J., p. 105.Google Scholar

12. Yeats, J. B.' viewGoogle Scholar, Greene, and Stephens, , p. 146.Google Scholar

13. 30 January 1907.

14. Henderson, , p. 157.Google Scholar

15. Fay, F.J., p. 85.Google Scholar

16. The Fays of the Abbey Theatre (London, 1935), pp. 212 and 213.Google Scholar Subsequent quotation from pp. 211–13. Cited hereafter as W. G. Fay.

17. The Splendid Years (Dublin, 1955), pp. 40, 44, 47Google Scholar, cited hereafter as Nic Shiubhlaigh.

18. Greene, and Stephens, , p. 244.Google Scholar

19. idem, p. 235.

20. Loc. cit. note 16.

21. Synge, J. M., Collected Works, IV, ii, ed. Saddlemyer, Ann (London, 1968), pp. xxii and xxiii.Google Scholar

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23. Shiubhlaigh, Nic, p. 82Google Scholar, and Henderson, , p. 131.Google Scholar

24. Henderson, , p. 63Google Scholar (The Telegraph), and p. 75Google Scholar (The Leader).

25. Shiubhlaigh, Nic, p. 135.Google Scholar

26. Henderson, , pp. 3 and 75.Google Scholar

27. Hail and Farewell: Vale (Ebury edn., London, 1937), p. 143Google Scholar, cited hereafter as Moore.

28. Monday, 10 June 1907.

29. Henderson, , p. 119.Google Scholar

30. Moore, , pp. 142 and 143.Google Scholar

31. 14 May 1908.

32. Henderson, , p. 11Google Scholar and Fay, Gerard, The Abbey Theatre (London, 1958), photograph facing p. 14.Google Scholar

33. The Road Round Ireland (New York, 1926), p. 368.Google Scholar

34. Moore, , p. 144.Google Scholar

35. Henderson, , p. 204.Google Scholar

36. Henderson, , p. 156.Google Scholar

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38. idem, pp. 126, 106, 107.

39. ‘Synge and the Actor – A Consideration of Style,’ J. M. Synge Centenary Papers 1971, ed. Harmon, Maurice (Dublin, 1972), pp. 63–74.Google Scholar

40. Fay, W. G., pp. 137 and 140.Google Scholar

41. Henderson, , pp. 157, 132, 146.Google Scholar

42. Henderson, , p. 63.Google Scholar