"THE STAGE IRISHMAN."

Taranaki Daily News, Volume XLVII, Issue 8135, 15 June 1906, Page 2

"THE STAGE IRISHMAN."

10 IHE EDITOB. Sib,—We vould wish to bring under your notice a matter that particularly oonoerns some hundreds of your readers, and generally the thinking body of your subscribers. On Monday and Tuesday nights there was placed on the stage in New Plymouth a play entitled "The Fatal Wedding." In this play, which we had, on the second night, the painful experience of witnessing, appeared, amongst others, two artists taking the parts of Irish (P) peasants—a male and femalo. The part assigned to the male could be passed over unnoticed, but tho part taken by tho female character approached the breaking point of insult. In these days, the stage is to a great extent the criterion ..f a race or country, and if the audiences on Monday and Tuesday nights were to assume that " Bridget, the Cook," as put before them, represented any typo of Irish womanhood, they were, >vo are pleased to say, mistaken. From the time our friend Bridget began her part until her exit, nothing escaped the Irish (H) peasant's lips that was not bracketed with profanity—in what appeared to tho audience to be a "jolly Irish kind of style." There was sandwiched in between this pro-

funity a good deal of " strong drink." We would take particular exception to the style of representing the Irish character—for whatever an Irishwoman's faults may be, they are not generally speaking those of intoxication. We are living in a free :ountry, where everyone has an absolute right to place before the public what that one's mind may suggest to amuse his fellow man, but we question the right -the moral right -oE any person or dramatic company to slander such a groat section of the British people by producing such a representation of the [rish character aa appeared on the stage a few nights ago. We are pleased to note that the ques ■ tion is engaging the attention of Irish societies throughout the world with no little effect, and that the repulsive stage Irishman is a d ,'ing ember. This would-be Hibernian production showed a countenance that was typical of ignorance and" ugliness combined—the distorted features, the thick lips, the abnormally large teeth, the unkempt ,ind unclean appearance. All possible latitude may be allowed to humorists, a little exaggeration may be harmless, but wholesale fabrication should not be allowed, The Irish claim that their country should not be advertised is the personification of all that is vile and vulgar, for have they not gtveu to ; lie world a percentage greater than any other nation of saints, scholars, warriors, and statesmen i* We have uo desire to carry the subject further, but hope that this protest may go a good way towards ridding our stage of sueh productions as the stage Irishman of the present day, and of which we had a slight—but frr us a sufficiently large—representation a few nights ago. —We are, etc., PUEEI HIUBBNAE,