IRISH DRAMA

Sun (Auckland), Volume III, Issue 768, 14 September 1929, Page 26

IRISH DRAMA

Expressionist Play By New Author TRIUMPH OF PRODUCTION Expressionism lias at last found its way into Irish drama and the responsible author is a young Irish barrister who, for ethical reasons, conceals his identity under the pseudonym of “E. W. Tocher.” The play, which has the elusive title of “The Old Lady Says No!”, is Mr. Tocher’s first effort, and it has fallen to the good fortune of the Gate Theatre to stage it and to achieve thereby another triumph of production. The opening scene is that of a play “within the play.” It takes place in the garden of John Philpot Curran, at Rathfarnham, a suburb of Dublin. Sarah Curran is receiving a secret nocturnal visit from Robert Emmet when he is surprised by Red-coats under the command of the sinister Major Sirr. In the struggle. Emmet is struck over the head with the stock of a rifle and collapses. The scene goes on for a moment and then it is realised that the actor is unconscious. The curtain comes down and there is a call for a doctor, who goes on to the stage from the audience. Presently the curtain rises again and the doctor is seen bending over the unconscious form. He goes in search of a rug to place over the actor’s feet, j There is complete darkness for a moment and then a strange light plays on the prostrate figure. It stirs slightly i and “Emmet” gradually rises to his ; feet. What follows takes place in j the brain of the unconscious actor and the period of time taken is the infinitesimal fraction of a second. Emmet holds the stage and all the other figures are mere shadows. Sarah Curran becomes a dual She is alternately the charming girl of Emmet’s dreams and a haggish vampire who is occasionally blended in with Kalhleen-ni-lioulihan, the price of whose love is blood. Emmet comes to College Green full of his romantic dreams for Ireland, but the people are too busy to heed him. Grattan, from his pedestal, warns him that it is all in vain today, but Emmet will not be easily turned from his sublime purpose. He comes to the home of the Free State Minister of Arts and Crafts, where a Sunday evening salon is being held. There he meets a strangely-assorted company. A lady of the old Ascendency Party who is endeavouring to adapt herself to the new regime and who babbles about “the nucleus of an academy” is presented. There is a general of the army, whose singing is interrupted by Emmet’s romantic appeals. In the corner is Sean O’Cooney, the “famous dramatist,” whose lurid language is accepted as part of the artistic side of the man. A Socialist painter and a Bolshevik novelist complete the picture of the new Irish society. The scene is succeeded by a room in a tenement house, the home of the vampire flower woman, whose resemblance to Kathleen-ni-Houlihan and Sarah Curran puzzles the already overladen brain of poor Emmet. In this scene the woman lias three sons. One is a poet, the second is a Republican die-hard and the third is a Free Stater. They are all babbling away about politics, but ignore the presence of Emmet, whom the mother is endeavouring to seduce. The poet dies from sheer neglect and immediately there is a large gathering of prominent citizens who come to lament his death. Gradually everything fades away and the curtain falls on the doctor as he returns with the rug. The play is a complete study of conditions as they exist in Dublin today, presented in expressionistic form. The author’s purpose is obvious and it may be summed up in a single phrase, “The pity of it all!” Mr. Tocher gets his effects in most striking fashion. The rhythmic chanting of the shadows, which recurs at very frequent intervals, conveys absolutely the pounding, the never-end-ing pounding of the active subconscious brain. The distortions brought about, as, for instance, the complex figure of the woman, who is Sarah Curran, Kathleen-ni-Houlihan, a flower-woman, a harridan, a vampire and a prostitute, in turn and all at once, is one of the finest and cleverest conceptions that an author could devise as proceeding from a numbed brain.

Interesting Plays for Melbourne REPERTORY MOVEMENT “RACE WITH THE SHADOW” The Melbourne Repertory Theatre, under the direction ol Frank D. Clewlow, is performing some interesting plays this year. Two of them will be “St. Simeon Stylites” and “The Race with the Shadow.” The first, by F. Sladen-Smith, is a fantasy with a very strongly humorous situation. In “The Race With a Shadow,” a three-act drama, the author, Wilhelm Von Scholz, has found a new way of presenting the eternal triangle. The husband is a sensitive, highly-strung neurotic, who is strongly affected by the mental state of those about him. The wife is a beautiful, apparently saint-like woman who dominates his sub-conscious mind to such a degree that he portrays her former lover as the principal character in liis book. The lover, who has been away for several years, is unaware that she has married. He hears a reading of the partly finished novel, and is astonished to recognise the description of himself. He forces an interview with the novelist, and the two men discuss the phenomenon. They are both equally puzzled, and agree to part until the book is finished, the novelist to find out if imaginative writing is nothing less than the breaking into the lives of others in a mysterious way, and the lover to endeavour to elude the uncanny foresight that has enabled the other man to expose his innermost feelings. When he discovers that the woman is married to the novelist, the lover thinks she has told her husband about him, but she convinces him that she has not revealed any of her past life. Desperately afraid of the shadow of the other man’s mind, he resolves to live in a way he would never dream of. And the method chosen makes an unexpected situation.

“Strange Interlude,” Eugene O'Neil’s nine-act drama, ran for 72 weeks on Broadway. When the play opened in January, 1928, considerable doubt was expressed as to whether the “freak” production could hope for much of a run after the novelty had worn off. Nevertheless, the gross receipts for the New York run total £216,000. The play is still doing good business in other cities, and there will be two companies on tour next season.