"THE PLAYBOY OF THE WESTERN WORLD."

Press, Volume XLIX, Issue 14842, 6 December 1913, Page 9

"THE PLAYBOY OF THE WESTERN WORLD."

TO THE EDITOK OF "THB PBESfI."

Sir,—The best, reply to "Mr W. D. Andrews's letter about "The Playboy of the Western World" is to advise him to read tho play. " I shall be dolighted to lend him the book. Ho ought to know that such a brief summary of the story as appeared in your leader note cannot do justice to a play; the writer of such a note would not claim for a moment thaKit-could. One might wrjte of "Macbeth? , .: '.This is .a! story o£- a Scottish nobleman who, at the instigation of his wife, murders his Royal and venerable guest, and then, to protect himself,, murders a friend, and tho wife and children of another chief." Would Mr Andrews say, "I have not read 'Macbeth ,* not finding the alleged romance of such, atrocities particularly inviting?" Now, just as the bloodiness of "Macbeth" is redeemed by superb dramatic situations, soaring . poetry, and unsurpassed psychology, bo the repulsiveness of the idea of "The Hayboy" when stated baldly, is redeemed by intellectual and" imaginative qualities that in kind are unique, and in degree have not been surpassed, and perhaps not equalled, in any drama' since Shakespeare. To write of "admiration for a lad on the alluring grounds that he professes to . have murdered his father," as the motive power i of the i play, is to write a half-truth, because it ignores the dramatist's wonderful, psychology. There are wore© things.than Mayo's "bias towards romance" which Mr Andrews says 'deters the average TJlsterman from accepting JHome Bule, Of Ulster bipod on both sides of my house, I freely admit that romance is not popular in Ulster. There is no money in it. I have a most profound admiration for the good qualities of my kinsmen, but it may not bo out of place here to prophesy that the poetry of Synge will live long after the name of Harland and Wolff is forgotten. The new Irish drama has . not v overlooked Ulster. I woold, on the whole, sooner; live with Synge's peasants than with the people of the Ulster plays I have read. . , • Ono word more. Mr Andrews says it is "the fashion of the hour to exalt" Synge. I fancy it will bo a long hour. When you love a writer from the depths of whatever sense of truth and beauty may be in yon, it is a little annoying to see the word "fashion" applied to the object of your worship. Mr Andrews, of course, has a proper respect for the leaders in contemporary English criticism. Well, "Tho Times" the "Athe-. najum," the "Spectator," and Mr Edmund Gosso (these are all I have by me —many more could be cited) acclaim Synge a genius j "The Times" says he "accomplished m play-writing something which had not been accomplished for centuries." I do not mind being led by profound conviction into a "fashion" with such authorities for company.-Yours, etc., QYRANQ TO THE EDITOR O* "tHB TRESS." Sir, —In his letter bearing date December 2nd, 1913, Mr W. l>. Andrews has shown tho spirit of Ulster in one flash of folly. Long ago it was a sneer that Ulstermen sometimes forgot God in remembering the Ten Commandments. The thing eeetns possible, in vievr of Mr Andrews's letter. By hia work in "The Press!' we know him as an amateui of letters, a careful critic with a well-balanced tasto, and a memory .for the more apt quotations. He cites authorities, and chooses from them, k> that oven one who has not heard their names before is tempted to accept his word in unbacked statements. But beyond all. it seems he is an Ulsterman. Ho has wrapped the name about him ac though it were a garment, and so clad has thrown all the craft of his criticism away. Criticism? —that is a thing for wetj idle afternoons when he is restless. He is an Ufeterman; and ho would riot deign to- read the works of John Millington Synge. This Syngo person, "whom it is the fashion to exalt, finds expression amongst Mayo peasants." The thing is absurd. The man who preferred Mayo, 'Connemara, the Aran Islands to the chimneys of Belfast, the

shot-battered walls <jf Iterry,-» ***"': worthy of the name of wnter*r^ 1, « n ' tn * to bo read by an Ulsteraan. : --. . All of which goes to show,th*t-Mr Andrews cannot at onoo man and a critic of Synge.' i.Then* i&a prejudice, rather the critic should go through the ally-for-mality of reading the workHe is about to condemn. . -• .-*.-%•_ , It- was twelve years ago that I ea« beneath Mr Andrewe at Christie 00l- , loge, in the Upper Forth form, 1 Ivthink. The memory of the fine flings he said is very fresh to-day;-and I.do thank him after these years for • having pointed mc to books worth while. Once or twice he lent books to mc. Now. in all humility, I ask that I maylend to him. I ha.ye by mc "Tho Play Boy of tho "Western World," "Deirdro of the Sorrows," "The Shadow of tho Glen, . "Riders to the Sea," 'fThe Well of the Saints," "The Tinker , * Wedding." I shall be pleased to try-to- borrow for him Synge'e notes on his sojourns amongst the "peasantry." There seems to mc no question of ."fashion" involved. that to be real the characters in a piay must be men and women, not heroes and , super-women—not poppete and parodies of neurotic little ladies. Synge has abandoned the accepted formulas of phrase: ho has shown himself the master, of words, not their servant. The praise of "the psychologically-minded critic" he has not sought: he has found life for his brief dramaa in the study of loneliness, the undeviating march of Fate-ordered events, tho banalities of sunshine and love, of rain and death. -Three months ago 1 lent the books I offer .Mr Andrews to a young Irish, girl who had'lived her life in one of tho small Irish settlement* in mid-Can-terbury. She .had been educated there; and the atmosphere of her youth had been more Irish than colonial. To her the books were a joy. Each turn ofphrase had memories for her, each,' character was a typo she knew. Aβ she spoko of them, she dropped uneon-" eciously into the curiously expressive "talk"of Syngo's? characters—it her native tongue. Can Mr- Andrews point mc to a modern dramatist who has done-the like for quotidian spoken EngKshP * > r ! '?.The y«iaiß,-tfc» km%fedge, the reed- - ing, tho character arson Mr Andrews'* side. If he will read tho books I shall profit by Mβ crrKcasm. But if he shall condemn v them—why, "1 shall not .Dβ ashamed of my xQ-taste in liking >them. I shall have erred in very pamr.' The Editor has my address.—Youraetc, ""PANOPTER"