UPROAR IN DUBLIN
\ 'HEN Sean O’Casey wrote The Silver Tassie controversy raged in Dublin. O’Casey had made his reputation with plays about the troubles in Ireland which, produced at the Abbey CDP BBP PPP EOP BP LBP PPL --ero
Theatre in Dublin, did much to restore the fortunes of that famous little playhouse. The Silver Tassie was his first play about the First World War, and the directors of the Abbey, where the public regarded him almost as resident playwright, rejected it. The poet W. B. Yeats, who was one of the directors, wrote to O’Casey: "You are not- interested in the Great War. You never stood on its battlefields or walked its hospitals, and so write out of your opinions." To this O’Casey retorted: "Do you really mean that no one should or could write or speak about a war because he has not stood on its battlefields? Was Shakespeare at Actium or Phillipi? Was G. B. Shaw in the boats with the French or in the forts with the British when St. Joan and Dunois made the attack that relieved Orleans?" Interest was added to this conflict when C. B. Cochran produced the play in London with Charles Laughton in the leading part of Harry Heegan. Adapted and produced by Raymond Raikes, this tragi-comedy has turned out to be very well suited to radio, especially in the scene behind the lines in Flanders, where O’Casey introduced symbolic characters and used to great effect the chanting of verse by soldiers; and when it was broadcast by the BBC, Raikes received a letter of congratulation from O’Casey. It is now to be heard from NZBS stations, starting from 3YC at 9.30 p.m. on Thursday, July 15.
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https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/periodicals/NZLIST19540709.2.24
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New Zealand Listener, Volume 31, Issue 781, 9 July 1954, Page 11
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286UPROAR IN DUBLIN New Zealand Listener, Volume 31, Issue 781, 9 July 1954, Page 11
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Copyright in the work University Entrance by Janet Frame (credited as J.F., 22 March 1946, page 18), is owned by the Janet Frame Literary Trust. The National Library has been granted permission to digitise this article and make it available online as part of this digitised version of the New Zealand Listener. You can search, browse, and print this article for research and personal study only. Permission must be obtained from the Janet Frame Literary Trust for any other use.
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