[In the following essay, originally published in 1947, Fay, one of the original actors at the Abbey Theatre along with his brother, Frank Fay, provides his personal impressions of the founding of the Abbey Theatre.]

When Seumas O'Sullivan saw at the Antient Concert Rooms, Dublin, the first performance of W. B. Yeats' verse play, The Countess Cathleen, amongst the audience was James Joyce. What neither of them was aware of, as they watched the performance of The Countess Cathleen, was that it was to be responsible for the formation of the Irish Players and the founding of the Abbey Theatre.

Appreciation of poetry was not one of my best points at that time, but my brother Frank insisted that for the good of my soul I should come with him to see the play. It was a fatal suggestion, for it led to our inflicting on our innocent country a theatre which it did not want.

For a performance on a fit-up stage of a verse play it was very much hampered, but it got over and we enjoyed it. However, on our way home we came to the conclusion it would have been much more effective if the actors knew what they were talking about. Frank said that if there was to be a modern Irish drama at all it must be played by Irish actors, for English actors could never get the atmosphere right.¹ As chief of the Ormond Dramatic Society² he believed that if we could get a play his team could give a performance that would be ‘Irish and proud of it too!’ I said: ‘Let's go to it.’

He kept well informed of all theatrical events both in England and on the continent and told me how a clerk in a Parisian gas works who, with some friends, wanted to act but had no money, managed to hire a small hall in Montmartre and began productions that in a few years were so successful that Antoine³ was able to open a theatre in Paris—the Théâtre Libre. If Antoine could do it in Paris, why could not the same idea be used in Dublin?

Some time later a friend of Frank's drew his attention to two acts of a play called Deirdre, published in Standish O'Grady's All Ireland Review, signed AE, which, his friend said, was the pen name of George Russell. When I read it I saw at once that, given a third act, it was just the sort of material the Ormond Dramatic could give a production, and suggested he should interview Mr Russell, whom he had met at Lady Gregory's with Mr Yeats.

It was useless, for AE told Frank that he had no knowledge of, or interest in, the theatre. He wrote because he wanted to see what the greatest of ‘The Three Sorrows of Story Telling’ would look like in play form. It was a great blow to us, but Frank said to me: ‘I've tried; now you go and see if you can persuade him. I'll fix an interview for you.’

My principal reading from the time I was fifteen was the Restoration drama, which we could buy off the stalls on the quay at twopence a copy—bound in calf and tooled in gold—and that, helped by cutting and altering plays on tour when we had not enough cast to play them completely, made me a not inefficient play doctor.

I very nervously agreed to visit AE and try to get him to finish the play, and met for the first time a man who was to be an inspiration to me for the rest of my life. When AE told me the background of the Deirdre story it was quite evident that the third act was the return to Ireland of Fergus with Deirdre and the sons of Usna; their murder by Concobar; and the death of Deirdre. We roughed out a scenario and he promised to finish the play.

We had a play. How could we produce it? Frank put in £5 and I emptied the teapot and found another five. So the original finance of the Irish National Theatre was £10!

Where could we stage it? We had played many times to help the Temperance Society attached to St. Teresa's, Clarendon Street. They had a large hall with a good stage. We asked if we could have the use of it for a week. We could have it for a month and welcome!

When W. B. Yeats heard we were going to stage Deirdre he offered us a short play he had written, called Kathleen Ni Houlihan, on condition that Maud Gonne (Madam MacBride) played Kathleen. What a bit of luck for us! Miss Gonne was the living embodiment of Kathleen.

I made the scenery and painted the cottage. AE designed the costumes, made by Helen Laird⁴ assisted by Miss Gonne, and painted the sets for Deirdre. Strenuous days followed, for we could only work in the evenings when time was our own, but on Wednesday, 2 April 1902, at St. Teresa's Hall, Clarendon Street, Dublin, W. G. Fay's Irish National Theatre Company⁵ produced Deirdre, a play in three acts by AE, followed by Miss Maud Gonne in Kathleen Ni Houlihan, by W. B. Yeats.

The production was so successful that we determined to keep together and we formed the Irish National Theatre Society to produce Irish plays. The President was AE; Vice-Presidents, Miss Maud Gonne and Dr. Douglas Hyde; Secretary, Fred Ryan, and the following members: Maire T. Quinn, Maire Nic Shiubhlaigh, Helen Laird, Seumas O'Sullivan, George Roberts, Frank J. Fay, Dudley Digges, P. J. Kelly, T. Keohler, J. H. Cousins, Padraic Colum, Henry Norman, Frank Walker and W. G. Fay.

Having formed a society, the next thing was to find a location, which we did at 34 Lower Camden Street. A bare hall at the back of a provision merchant's on the one side and a butcher's shop on the other, made it a perilous voyage for the audience to reach the box-office on a Saturday night.

We had to make our own stage, scenery and seats, but we produced four [sic]⁶ plays there before we decided it would only do for rehearsals. We then produced plays at the Molesworth Hall, making the receipts of one show pay for the next.

The production of W. B. Yeats' verse play⁷ brought his friend, Miss A. E. F. Horniman, over to Dublin to design the costumes and pay for the making of them. She grew interested in our adventure and came again to costume On Baile's Strand, the play that opened the Abbey Theatre, for which she had paid £7000.

The first time we met, during conversation I asked her if her hotel was comfortable. She said it was. At breakfast her table was a bit rickety and she called the waitress's attention to it. The girl said: ‘It's real sorry I am, ma'am’, crossed to the sideboard, cut a thick slice of bread and propped it under the short leg.

The next time she visited us I asked if the bread was still there. She said: ‘Yes, but they have toasted it!’

Notes

1. In ‘The Irish Literary Theatre’, United Irishman (Dublin), 6 (2 Nov 1901) 2, Frank Fay argued against English actors performing Irish plays.

2. For a while the Fay brothers took on the stage names of W. G. Ormond and Frank Evelyn, and in 1892 the name ‘Ormond Dramatic Society’ was adopted for their company. In 1902, the ‘W. G. Fay's Irish National Dramatic Company’ was founded.

3. André Antoine (1858-1943), the first of the distinguished line of directors. His Théâtre Libre, founded in 1887, operated for only nine seasons, but this period was long enough to establish his revolution and to create a standard for the type of realistic production which is the basis of the modern French theatre.

4. Helen S. Laird [Honor Lavelle] was also one of the first official founders of the Irish National Theatre Society.

5. The company was called W. G. Fay's Irish National Dramatic Company. After the success of these performances, the Fays decided to make a permanent society of players; and so the Irish National Theatre Society was founded.

6. Not four plays, but three. The playbill for the performances of the Irish National Theatre Society on 4, 5 and 6 Dec 1902 announces the programme as: The Laying of the Foundations, by Fred Ryan; The Pot of Broth, by W. B. Yeats; and Elis agus an Bhean Deirce, by P[eadar] T. Mac Fhionnlaoich.

7. It is not clear what Fay means by ‘verse play’ since he does not say ‘latest verse play’. Actually, the play was The King's Threshold, first staged at the Molesworth Hall on 1 Oct 1903. Miss Horniman financed the production, designed and made the costumes.