Acting in Dublin

...Ely has become a sort of village curiosity, much like the ungainly cast-iron cherub that holds up the fountain in the square, opposite the red brick town hall...

...In a talk on Murray with me, Yeats emphasized this point, and lamented the dimming of the au-thor's memory of his native county with the passing years...

...The actors bravely kept up the fight against the shouts of the infuriated audience, and at the conclusion of the perform- ance W. B. Yeats appeared like a raging fury to lash the crowd with bitter words of reproach for their conduct...

...That shows the true spirit of the theatre with an ideal, and the row over his new play hinged on O'Casey's refusal to submit to similar treatment...

...Ely's father owned the land on which the Inter-urban Station now stands, beside other holdings...

...He is a regular encyclopedia of Abbey infor- mation, and I am sure in the theatre plans he made provision for the niche in the vestibule he occupies during intervals...

...I have heard com-plaints of long delays, but this seems inevitable, for Yeats winters in Italy, Robinson and Starkie undertake lecture tours lasting for months, and Lady Gregory lives away in County Galway...

...Says he--he was a shrewd fellermfrom town, he was--'the only thing that's savin' this republic is the little Hun- garmn grocery stores...

...The holding of the mirror up to nature is the actor's best guide, and this, with the Irish distaste of artificiality, produces the natural effects so profusely praised...

...Each play submitted, if it gets past the reading of the first director, is then read by the other three...

...On the first night of his The Plough and the Stars, pandemonium reigned both inside and outside the theatre...

...His latest play, The Lone Wolf, a tragic Hungarian affair, disappointed his admirers who would have him stick to the solid earth of County Cork whence he drew all his inspiration...

...Whatever it is, they do not let themselves go with anything like the same spirit which marks the men...

...Ely has friends who are ready to say, "Wouldn't want a better neighbor...

...It offended the political susceptibilities of many of the audience, and in the street out- side notable women paraded up and down carrying placards denouncing this latest insult to nationality...

...Barry Fitzgerald has all the attributes of the artistic comedian, and F. J. McCor-mack is a most resourceful actor, excellent in straight parts and rich in comedy...

...Perhaps when he retires from school direction he will return to his native heath and write a fine play about the life he knew in Dublin...

...Jest petered the money away...

...Martyn, nearly immortalized by George Moore, was asso-ciated with the beginnings of the Irish Theatre movement, but parted from Yeats principally, I think, on account of his ultra-religious scruples...

...No one seems to be slighting Ely's reputation when they say, as the doctor did, " 'Twas too bad there wasn't income tax t' figure on in them days--I could have chalked it all off to charity...

...Judas, that place's worth well nigh onto ten times that amount nOW...

...In spite of all the tragic happenings we kept on until I918, when we were practically forced to evacuate...

...He talks lovingly of the good old nights when there were not a dozen people in the house, but never-theless rejoices that the seed sown for twenty-five years now bears rich fruit, even though he "doesn't know half the people coming in these nights...

...for the greater part, he is not looked upon in that light...

...Plainfield will show you that and add, "Likely as not the kids are in bed without a bite of supper...

...A nightly visitor throughout the year is the architect who converted the morgue into a theatre retaining much of the original gloom...

...Funny part about it, let me tell you, aimin' every fall to set out for Nevady and I ain't got there yet...

...As Yeats told me: "O'Casey sent them in and we sent them back again and again until we got them right...

...Lennox Robinson, another director, glides like a wraith from the stage to the auditorium, and, between handshakes, may be seen drinking tea alone, with an air of wonderment and detachment as if he were amazed at finding himself among real human beings in a real world...

...With the disappearance, in time, of the present directors will the Abbey live up to the high standards set by them...

...Murray, the schoolmaster dramatist whose fine plays have been the backbone of the Abbey for years, beams on all...

...Most people getting on in years love to recall the good old days, and there are many who hold that the original Abbey Players will never be equaled...

...Have t' laugh, worried for fear I was cheating th' feller...

...and the rusty, rickety house on a scant two acres...

...And despite what the outsider might think, and notwithstanding that I have heard women in the vil- lage shrug and say, "I don't see how she stands him-- I'd throw him out so quick...

...The venerable Dr...

...When donations of food and other necessities come to his door, Ely, tinkering with a broken-down gas engine in the kitchen, or parts of a radio which he has scattered over the dining-room table--and out of which he is "Aimin' t' build a set that will drag in anything worth hearin'," but which never becomes any more complete than a fanciful hooking up of wires and a childish soldering of grids--looking up, squints, ejaculates his moth-eaten "Christian virtue l" and resumes his mindless puttering...

...In conjunction with Thomas Mac-Donagh and Joseph Plunkett, both executed as signatories of the republican proclamation in x916, he then founded the Irish Theatre in I914, with myself as manager and producer, to stage non-peasant plays and foreign masterpieces...

...This surprises local people who are not really conscious of such perfection in their midst...

...And when Ely can be drawn out, he will spit, make a noise with his teeth and admit: "Four other kids, but they all died the spring the diptheria took on so bad...

...but most of all are the players surprised, for they have had no real training beyond having their natural talent harnessed by intelligent direction...

...They had Murray transferred to a school in Dublin, he told me, to enable him to study the theatre at close range...

...Nope, Ely Marks ain't never goin' t' be no dif-ferent...

...Thus did he refer to the highbrows...

...The three plays which have established his reputation as a sound dramatist are Maurice Harte, Birthright, and Autumn Fire, which sucess-fully stood the test of transplanting to London with an English cast, a sure test of worth...

...He is part of the town and he belongs to the town, as does the fountain...

...Although, more than once, it has depended upon their charity to supply clothes for an expected arrival...

...He is the "oldest inhabitant" and has lately been invested with a uniform, much to his embarrassment...

...One of the sights which Plainfield has to offer is the feature of Min and Ely squatting on the crumbling steps, their faces some intangible bisque color in the soft blunt twilight of summer evenings, Ely's raucous, rasping fiddle whining, Min crooning accompaniment in her sad-sweet, Negro spiritual tones...

...Lady Gregory seldom now graces the theatre with her pres- ence...

...The aged practitioner has given his services gratis when Min's babies came...

...Down they come in a certain locality, and stick there like a bed bug.' Says he, 'if it wasn't fur them, those chain fellers would have this country monop'lized in two weeks.' Smart duck, he was...

...He was a tradesman sent to do some job in the theatre, and was standing in the wings watching a rehearsal...

...They roll off names to maintain their case: the Fay Brothers, J. M. Kerrigan, Sara Allgood, Sinclair, Fred O'Donovan and the rest...

...ACTING IN DUBLIN By JOHN MAcDONAGH T HE Abbey Theatre, Dublin, the little theatre with the big reputation, is always crowded to full capacity on first nights...

...The director, wanting a part read, handed the script by mistake to the astonished tradesman, who, scenting fame and glory, threw himself into the part, and has not worked since--at his trade...

...And the ioo-acre farm that bordered the turnpike gave the road its name of Marks Turnpike Road...

...At present Ely Marks has nothing except a dowdy, untidy wife and four dirty, uncared-for urchins...

...As ever the men outshine the women...

...One night a sprouting poet accosted him in the vestibule of the theatre, and presented him with a parody he had written on Yeats's famous poem, The Lake Isle of Inisfree...

...Nowadays the Abbey has become very popular, mainly through the success of the Sean O'Casey plays which raised the box-office receipts and hell at the same time...

...All these have won fame on the stages of the world, but in the present Abbey com- pany they have worthy successors...

...In fact, the very heart of Plainfield's business section was checker-boarded by lots in his possession...

...Said it twenty years ago--saw it in the boy...

...Soon they will be planning ways and means of sending Aimee to high school...

...Perhaps the native restraint of Irish women prevents their abandoning themselves to the requirements of the stage...

...Thinks I, sounds prompt right t'me...

...Ely is historic: "I can't imagine Plainfield without Ely Marks...

...Martyn almost resented strangers coming to our little theatre, but was always excited when any of "the hairy fel- lows" turned up...

...It would seem that the villagers are aloof, but they have given up trying to straighten Ely...

...The ticket checker at the Abbey is a most interesting and intelligent man with a good Teutonic name...

...There are new writers in plenty and their work, though immature, must occasionally be produced so that their faults may be seen and corrected...

...It seats only 5oo, and you can see only a portion of the stage if you are perched on the side balcony...

...He is preserved, one is inclined to believe, as a contrast and a scarecrow that accentuates in the minds of Plainfield youths the benefits of industry, and the destitution of indolence...

...No one has tried for two decades...

...Yeats read, and then tearing the paper into small pieces, threw them into the face of the astonished parodist...

...Yeats usually stalks about the greenroom declaiming his theories of disciplining audiences to the proper appreciation of art in the theatre, while Lady Gregory, like an alert bird, sits picking up the crumbs as they fall so that they may enrich a future play--her eagle eye on those present watching their intellectual reaction to the words of her fellow-director...

...Strangers when they first behold the natural acting of the Irish Players usually go into ecstasies of praise...

...The Abbey now enjoys a state subsidy and is comparatively on easy street with its struggles over and the battle won, but the repetition of the popular plays which draw the crowds must be resisted...

...186 THE COMMONWEAL June 19 , 1929 Yeats does not tolerate interruptions when he is developing his ideas, and has the distracted aloofness, the romantic figure and the calculated enunciation which have so effectively at- tracted people, like moths, to the flame of art he has helped to light on the banks of the Liffey...

...During intervals the lobby is filled with people in a haze of cigarette smoke...

...Everyone of note in Irish artistic and professional circles gathers within the building which once served as a morgue...

...Got $3,000 for it...

...Just as easy, I 'spose," with a chuckle, "this waymthe whole bizness is done with, anyway...

...Cannon sighed as he said, "Ely hain't ever been no different...

...The story of how one of the original players got into the Abbey is still told...

...Much of the success of the Abbey is due to the intimacy existing between the players and the audience...

...Her comedies are still regularly played to keep her memory green and the audience amused...

...I got hold of it all when m' dad died...

...In time he naturally came to forget the hard life of the country- side which gave such reality to his early plays, and wrote only from his memory of it...

...They cannot bear to see them hungry or cold...

...At least, he has given up hope long since of ever getting paid...

...Exception was taken to Yeats's Countess Cathleen by rigid Catholics, and Edward folded his manuscripts and departed lest contamination should jeopardize his eternal salvation...

...He is a man of gestures, mental and physical, and rules his satellites with a phrase and a sweep of the hand...

...they are mostly comic slices of country life, simple and ingenuous, "little plays for little people," as Edward Martyn once humorously described them to me...

...The early attempts of O'Casey were altered by suggestions from the directors until they reached production stage...

...Truly, the good ladies of the Saint Vincent de Paul Society have no program of benevolence that does not include one or more items for the Marks children...

...You have disgraced yourselves again I" he shouted, alluding to the scenes at the first production of Synge's The Playboy of the Western World presumably, and finally brought silence by yelling, "This is apotheosis !" The audience desisted to inquire of each other the meaning of the word, and as everyone gave a different interpretation, emptied the theatre to consult their dictionaries, and Scan O'Casey's name was made, especially in England where an Irish row is worth a ton of press notices...

...June I9, I929 THE COMMONWEAL I85 these here chain stores is menacin' this country...

...Aimin' t' see the West, so I sold the farm...

...Each plays its part and beneath any petty jealousy and criticism there is a deep-rooted pride in the theatre as an institution which has put Ireland on the theatrical map of the world...