[In the following essay, Kavanagh describes Yeats's interest in producing poetic works and the Catholic Church's suspicions of the Abbey's early plays.]

During the early years of the twentieth century the minds of the Irish people were occupied with problems of business and politics. They were thinking only of how they might get on in the world. In the evenings, the peasants would gather round their fires—not to tell stories of romantic Ireland but to listen to someone read The Freeman's Journal, which told them of the struggle for home rule. They had become realists and were applying their newly discovered standard to everything: does it pay? Romance was departing from their lives, and Ireland, like England, was turning into a nation of businessmen.

Irish idealists perceived the danger in this heresy. The Gaelic League believed the best answer to it would be to make the country completely Gaelic speaking. Sinn Fein maintained that an Irish republic would cure all her ills. Both groups were so concerned with discussing how Ireland could be saved that romance fled from them, and they consequently produced a negligible literature.

Yeats stood aloof from all their arguings. For him, a high art was the answer to everything; it was the only monument to a nation that no politician could stain nor any revolution destroy. Such a monument, he believed, was the Abbey Theatre, and he made every effort to see that it kept, at all times, its high dignity and purpose. He was constantly attacked for not encouraging playwrights to write about “realistic” subjects—politics and the problems of the Irish worker. But this was for Yeats a false realism; the true and highest realism was that of poetry. What Ireland needed was dreams, so that she might keep her eyes on the light that was ahead and not on the ditches along the way.

By 1911 it seemed as if Yeats's dreams of an Irish National Theatre had become reality—Irish plays played by Irish actors before an Irish audience in a theatre which he owned and dominated. Yet there was one disturbing feature: the Abbey Theatre movement was drifting away from his original conception of a poetic theatre. No dramatic poet of consequence had arisen, and the Abbey Theatre was dependent completely on Yeats for its poetic plays. The plays of Synge and of Lady Gregory were important, but they were strongly influenced by peasant drama and were directing the theatre away from poetry.

In 1909 Yeats had felt that if he were to avoid the degrading influence of politics and the market place, he would have to look for his inspiration outside Ireland—in some country, real or of the imagination, where the people were not snarled in the nightmare of self-consciousness, where life was not submerged under conventions and eternal debate. Obsessed always with the quest for truth, Yeats believed he could no longer penetrate it by continuing to write on Irish themes. He turned to the abstract and symbolist No plays of Japan. The plays he wrote under this influence were obscure from the first, and they became increasingly so until finally, in Purgatory (August 10, 1938), all was abstraction, and there was little that could be understood by an intelligent person.

Yeats believed that plays written under this new impulse were no less truly national than plays about Cuchulain and Kathleen Ni Houlihan. Truth, he believed, was a universal quality, essentially the same in every country. If a play was really good, it would automatically be nationalistic in the best sense if written by an Irishman, since enlightenment adds to a nation's prestige.

When Yeats became sole owner of the Abbey Theatre in 1911, he made one final effort to direct it back onto the road of poetic drama, to excite the imagination of the audience and bring the people into that most real of worlds, the make-believe world of the theatre. He, more than anyone else, knew it was as essential for a nation to feed its imagination as to fill its warehouses. Only through the imagination does a nation survive.

Had the Fays remained with the Abbey, Yeats's problem might have been easier, for they were excellent speakers of verse. At this time he might well have regretted their departure. Yet this minor obstacle was overcome by inviting Florence Farr, the English actress, to come over to the Abbey, if only for a short period, to chant the verse in his plays.

It was not only actors that Yeats needed; scenery and costumes would have to be in harmony with the spoken work, and no one at the Abbey had both the experience and the imagination to design suitable sets. Yeats was a friend of Gordon Craig, an experimenter in stagecraft, and was impressed with his work. He invited Craig to design costumes and scenery for a revival of his morality play The Hour Glass, with which he hoped to open the 1911 season. Craig believed in the beauty of extreme simplicity, and he designed a set of plain screens, following a mathematical pattern, which he forwarded to Yeats in Dublin. The screens were a success, but the dresses made from Craig's designs were very ugly, and Yeats came before the curtain after the play and apologized for them.¹ Craig's screens were used for many years at the Abbey, but his help was not again asked. Yeats was well satisfied, however, with the production of The Hour Glass, and he delighted to tell his friends how the earlier version so influenced a music-hall singer that he attended Mass every day for six weeks.

The Abbey Theatre was now dependent for its financial support on people of fashion. Yeats's slightly obscure verse plays were exactly what was needed to attract middle-aged, aristocratic ladies. Once again, in this small matter, Yeats showed his genius as a diplomat. When the 1911 season opened on January 12, Yeats was to be seen in the vestibule of the theatre in full dress, receiving his upper-class guests.² He needed their money, though he would make no fundamental concession to obtain it. If they contributed to the endowment fund, he would be pleased; if they enjoyed his plays he would also be pleased; but whatever they might do, Yeats was insistent that they keep quiet during the performances and avoid shuffling their feet or talking while the actors were onstage.

Yeats now undertook to rewrite his earlier poetic plays. Many of them had been written when he was young and inexperienced in the art of the theatre. Before he would allow them to be staged again, he would have to alter them to correspond with his more developed principles. The Land of Heart's Desire, his first play to be staged, had not been shown at the Abbey, despite the need for poetic plays. Yeats now reworded it, and the revised version was performed at the Abbey Theatre on January 26, 1911. It was very successful, and it found a permanent place in the Abbey repertory.

On the same program was performed a new play, King Argimenes and the Unknown Warrior by Lord Dunsany. Dunsany, as much as Yeats, believed in the significance of romance in contrast with the realistic plays of Ibsen and his imitators. There was this difference, however, between the ideas of Yeats and those of Dunsany: while Yeats informed his romantic plays with a high purpose, Dunsany believed in employing fantasy for its own sake. King Argimenes and the Unknown Warrior was a play of this kind. It was a pure fantasy, with an Eastern setting, and took for its theme the belief that there is something in the blood of a king which makes him royal and distinguishes him, however low he may fall, from the ordinary man. It had some appeal for the audience, but it lacked those essential qualities of sincerity and truth which must appear even in fantasy if it is to be successful on the stage. Dunsany was not the answer to Yeats's demand for a poetic dramatist.

Yeats also rewrote The Countess Cathleen and began a translation of Oedipus Rex. Although he had the assistance of a good Greek scholar, the translation was not to his liking and it was not played or printed. Sir Gilbert Murray had advised against translating this play by Sophocles and had himself refused to translate it for production in Ireland. “I will not translate Oedipus Rex,” wrote Sir Gilbert, “for an Irish theatre. It has nothing Irish about it; no religion, not one beautiful action, hardly a stroke of poetry. … It has splendid qualities as an acting play, but all of the most English-French-German sort … it is all construction and no spirit. … It ought to be played … at the Lyceum with a lecture before and after. And a public dinner. With speeches. By Cabinet Ministers. …”³ Yeats later returned to the task and in 1926 produced a translation under the title Oedipus the King at the Abbey Theatre.

Another new playwright, St. John Ervine, came to the Abbey in 1911. He belonged to the school of peasant playwrights, but Yeats welcomed him. Yeats's theories of a national theatre did not extend so far as to demand poetic plays to the exclusion of all other types; he wanted only to make them the dominant influence. Ervine was a North of Ireland Protestant, and his Mixed Marriage (March 30, 1911) was the first play produced at the Abbey Theatre dealing with the peasant of that region. Yeats hoped Ervine might be able to do for the North of Ireland what Synge and Lady Gregory had done for the west. His hope was not realized; Ervine wrote competent plays on Irish subjects but had not enough sympathy with Ireland or with her people to write well about them. He possessed the qualities of the critic rather than of the creator.

Mixed Marriage, aptly enough, dealt with an extremely vital problem—the consequences of a marriage between a Catholic and a Protestant in Ireland. It is not easy for a person outside Ireland to understand the violence such a union can create among the relatives of married persons. In some of its aspects it is comparable to the furore caused by the marriage of a white girl to a colored man in Georgia. Ireland is all tensions, political, religious, social. An incident which to an American writer might be of passing interest only, to an Irishman writing for an Irish public might have in it the seeds of revolution. George Russell's alleged description of an Irish literary movement as consisting of a number of writers living in an Irish city, fighting continuously with one another, was more than a quip on the part of George Moore, who recorded it.

It was the policy of the Abbey Theatre at this time to re-create interest in poetic plays, yet the business aspects were not neglected. On the contrary: few businessmen could have handled its affairs with the expert skill which Yeats demonstrated. He was always on the alert, and it has been said of him that he could judge the important features of a balance sheet as soundly as he could judge a play or a poem.

Up to 1911, Abbey playwrights had not been paid royalties. They were happy to give their work free, and they felt that having their plays produced in a theatre of such artistic integrity as the Abbey's was more than adequate compensation. This attitude may surprise people abroad who have dealt with Irish poets and playwrights; it is not unusual for the latter, in their relations with the non-Irish, to display extraordinary interest in money. In Ireland their attitude is quite different: they would rather have their work printed in impecunious magazines of high standards than in popular magazines which pay well. Even Yeats adopted this attitude in relation to his own work, although he was often badly in need of money. But he felt he was being somewhat compromised as a consequence of not paying royalties to other Abbey playwrights: they might consider Yeats and the other directors under obligation to them, and the suggestion was implicit in the situation that the playwrights had the right, even if extremely tenuous, to a voice in the theatre's direction. The implications were intolerable to Yeats, and one of his first moves at this time was to pay royalties, however small, to every playwright. The effect upon the directors, exercising their authority, would be significant.

Still more essential to Yeats's absolute control of the Abbey was his control of the actors, stage designers, and all other persons connected with the theatre. He would pay the actors and all the others. He would compel them to work under contract, and thus develop in them a sense of responsibility to the directors—and, perhaps more important, a sense of their subservience. This arrangement would make the organization so efficient that it could carry on during Yeats's extended absences in England and Lady Gregory's in her west Ireland mansion.

In July, 1911, Yeats with Lady Gregory took the company on tour in England. Dublin was Yeats's emotional home, but London was where he found intellectual excitement. Most of his friends were there and he kept in close contact with them. He had reason to be friendly with them, for in April of 1911 they arranged with the British government that Yeats should receive a Civil List pension of £150 per year. Although he needed the money badly, he was in some doubt as to whether he should take money from a British king. When he decided to accept it, the nationalist press in Dublin jeered. The Leader always referred to Yeats thenceforth as “Pensioner Yeats” and the same paper published a parody on his play The King's Threshold, in which it portrayed Yeats lying on the doorstep of the king's treasury demanding a pension. Part of it ran:

BARD:
Here will I lie
Before the golden palace of my dreams
And take no food until I get a pension.
How long, I wonder, will their flinty breasts
Hold out against my fasting at their door?
If they do think my proud heroic soul
Will from its Pagan purpose budge an inch
Until its wistful longings are appeased
With fat donations from the public purse
They make a vast mistake. If so they think
They little know the economic sense
That rules the raptures of a Celtic Bard.
Upon these rocks in hunger I will stretch
Until the State becomes the goose to me
That lays the golden egg.
                                                            (Enter Two Lords)
1ST Lord:
I bring thee, Bard, a fairy wand of old
To conjure visions out of Tir-na-nOg
I prithee take it and depart at once.
BARD:
I tell thee, man, I'm here for minted dross.
A golden lever, not a magic wand,
Will lift me from these stones. …
Here will I remain
Until I get a pension.

The Abbey company's English tour was a success in many ways. Not only did they make five hundred pounds profit,⁴ but they received an offer to tour America with The Playboy. All expenses were guaranteed, and the company was to receive thirty-five per cent of all profits. Though this offer came at an awkward time—Yeats was experimenting with the poetic play—yet it was too generous to turn down. It had always been the ambition of Yeats and Lady Gregory to take the company to America, for they were justly proud of their achievements and were anxious to display them to the world. At one time it had even been agreed upon by Yeats and Lady Gregory that if ever it seemed the Abbey Theatre was in danger of dying, they would collect all possible funds and take the company to America. If the Abbey Theatre were to die, then it would die dramatically.

Yeats started planning how he could best continue his propaganda for a poetic theatre while the company was in America. He decided to organize a second Abbey company and brought over to Dublin, Nugent Monck, organizer of the Norwich Players, to become director of a school of acting. Monck, an Irishman residing in England, had learned his art under Poel of the Elizabethan Stage Society. He favored simplicity of staging and insisted on clarity of diction from his actors.

Yeats left Monck at the Abbey and went off with the players to America. He had received a promise from Lady Gregory that she would follow in a week and relieve him in the tedious tour of that country. Yeats returned to Dublin as soon as possible after Lady Gregory arrived in America. He then set about helping Monck produce a series of mystery and morality plays, while he supervised the revival of his own The Countess Cathleen.

The Abbey second company opened its 1911 season with two mediaeval plays: The Interlude of Youth (November 23) and The Second Shepherd's Play (November 23). For these two plays Monck built a triple stage: back of the regular stage was a small platform raised a few feet above the normal level; beyond the footlights was another platform on a lower level, extending out into the auditorium. The stage was beautifully and simply hung. Backstage, a choir sang “Sumer is y-cumen in,” illustrating secular delights, in contrast with a very devotional “Ave Maria” of 1545, which was also sung. The Interlude of Youth, a short morality play, depicts Youth alternately swayed by the seductions of Riot, Pride, and Lady Luxury, on the one hand, and by the injunctions of Charity and Humility, until finally he surrenders himself to the Virtues.

The Second Shepherd's Play, from the Wakefield Cycle, included a traditional “Gloria in Excelsis.” Between the two plays, Monck gave a lecture on mediaeval drama. An imprudent remark almost caused a disturbance in the Abbey. In speaking of The Second Shepherd's Play, he mentioned that the author drew the shepherds on the model of Yorkshire shepherds, and he had no doubt that many people then protested it was an insult to draw Yorkshiremen like that. This was a pointed reference to Synge's portrayal of Irish characters. A member of the audience called out, “Better not introduce that!” Other members of the audience joined in: “You must not make a disturbance,” “Shut up,” “I'll not shut up. I'll do as I please,” “Throw him out.” The incident developed into a minor scuffle and then died down.⁵

On November 30 a one-act play by Douglas Hyde entitled The Marriage was performed, and the following week Red Turf (December 8) by Rutherford Mayne. Red Turf was disliked by everyone. The scene was placed in the west of Ireland, and according to the critic of The Irish Independent (December 8), “It relies on curses and swear words to give distinction to a dreary dialogue. … It is a wretched attempt at drama—the only dramatic incident was the explosion of a cartridge and that happened off the stage. … Red Turf is redolent rubbish.”

Monck's production of the revised version of The Countess Cathleen (December 14) enjoyed a good reception. This time there was no need to have police in the house. Yeats did not alter the play in any of its essential parts, and we find the Protestant Irish Times, a Dublin sheet, protesting against the heresy contained in it.

Monck put on a play in Gaelic, The Tinker and the Fairy, by Douglas Hyde on January 15, 1912. Immediately after Christmas, The Annunciation had come, and The Flight into Egypt (January 4). Monck staged another morality play, then a short sketch by Lady Gregory, MacDonagh's Wife (January 11), the title of which was later changed to MacDarragh's Wife; Lady Gregory had written this on the boat that took her to America. With this, Monck brought to an end his season with the Abbey.

Yeats had a motive in offering these religious plays. He had come to the conclusion it would not be possible to make the poetic drama a dominant feature of the Abbey Theatre unless he received help, and the help he now was willing to solicit was that of the Catholic Church. His first move being to stage some religious plays, he then approached Edward Martyn and asked him for his opinion. Would the Church help if he were to continue having the second company perform religious plays?

Martyn replied that the Church still was suspicious of the Abbey Theatre and of Yeats, and he might expect no help from that quarter. Yeats was disconsolate. When Lady Gregory returned from America, he let her assume complete control of the Abbey and he went off to England. His attempt at bringing back poetry to the stage had failed, and he would waste no more time on the experiment. From now on, the Abbey was to become a “people's theatre.”

Yeats had wearied of the effort to make the Abbey exclusively, or at least primarily, a poetic theatre. His hopes of an Irish dramatic poet arising were not realized. Reluctantly he became reconciled to the idea of producing prose plays of a high standard. If this much could be achieved, then he could periodically restate the original purpose of the theatre by offering a poetic play written by himself.

Notes

1. Diary, Jan, 13, 1911.

2. Ibid.

3. W. B. Yeats, Hone, p. 274.

4. Diaries, Blunt, ii, p. 351.

5. Irish Times, Nov, 24, 1911.