The Abbey Theatre Circa 1930
The Creation of the Irish National Theatre
The Irish National Theatre was created in 1904 as a successor to the Irish Literary Theatre. The Abbey Theatre is their venue. The National Theatre was founded by William Butler Yeats and Lady Isabella Augusta Gregory with help from Edward Martyn and the Fay brothers. Lady Augusta Gregory and W.B. Yeats saw the creation from birth to success, Edward Martyn helped with the Irish Literary Theatre but did not continue with the pair when they moved on to the National Theatre project, and the Fay brothers left before the real success of the theatre.
Michael West’s Dublin by Lamplight is a fun, twisted take on the creation of a national theatre in Ireland. It does not follow the story exactly, but West was sure to include tributes to the Irish National Theatre and its creators in his text. Basically, the play alludes to and references the creation; it acts as more of a tribute to, as opposed to a recreation of, the history of Irish theatre.
- Danielle Sampson
The Inception of the Irish National Theatre
During the late nineteenth century various political groups began questioning and even opposing the British rule, challenging all Irish citizens to decide what they stood for—the monarchy or Ireland. As more Irish citizens, primarily located in the southern regions, became more aware of the negative influence the English were having on their homeland a resistance commenced. In realizing that all the forms of art were wholly British, “…the most unpopular [being] music hall frolics which, as a reviewer complained to the United Irishman, ‘sought to make women unthinking dolls’ instead of ‘intelligent comrades’” (Ward 55) people began questioning their options. W.B. Yeats, one of
-Shana Pereira
Historical Context of the Irish National Theatre
In her Introduction to Ireland’s National Theatres, Mary Trotter stresses that the theatrical organisation headed by W.B. Yeats and Lady Gregory was one of many groups attempting to creating a national theatre for Ireland, and indeed the most successful one Alongside the Irish Literary Theatre founded by Yeats and Gregory were, most importantly, the Gaelic League, Inghinidhe na hEireann(The Daughters of Erin), the boys at Padraic Pearse’s school and (despite the British association in its name) the Queen’s Royal Theatre. Members of the Irish Literary Theatre often collaborated with members of the Gaelic League and Inghinidhe na hEireann, and the Irish National Theatre Society was eventually formed from members of the Irish Literary Theatre and the Daughters of Erin, along with artists who had worked on Gaelic League productions. The INTS thus became the company that “brought national attention to the entire Irish revival and helped legitimate Irish theatre as both a nationalist activity and an art” (Trotter 32). But so active was the national theatre scene in Dublin at the turn of the 20th century that “had Yeats and his companions not founded the Irish Literary Theatre and the societies that followed it, some other group of young, possibly more militant enthusiasts would have plunged ahead and done it (MacAnna 89).
- Jonathan Khaiat
Irish National Theatre Timeline: 1897-1904
1897
W.B. Yeats, Lady Gregory, George Moore and Edward Martyn send out letter asking for subscriptions to support founding the Irish Literary Theatre.
1899
The Irish Literary Theatre gives its first season.
1900
The Irish Literary Theatre gives its second season.
1901
The Irish Literary Theatre gives its third and final season. George Moore hires Willy Fay to direct Douglas Hyde’s play in Irish The Twisting of the Rope. The company also produces Moore and Yeats’ Diarmuid and Grania.
The Fays, Inghinidhe na hEireann and Yeats decide to collaborate on a production in the spring of 1902, through the Fays new company, the Irish National Dramatic Society. The creation of this company marked “the first time the word ‘national’ was used in connection with the stage in Ireland or the English-speaking world” (MacAnna 92).
1902
The Irish National Dramatic Company performs Yeats’ Kathleen ni Houlihan, which is a great success.
1903
The Irish National Theatre Society is formed, “with Yeats as president, Maud Gonne [among the] vice presidents, [and] Willy G. Fay as stage manager” (Saddlemyer 37).
Kathleen ni Houlihan is revived for the Irish Naitonal Theatre Society’s first season.
1904
Annie Horniman funds the Irish National Theatre Society’s acquisition of the Abbey Theatre, the patent for which is taken out in Lady Gregory’s name.
Kathleen ni Houlihan is revived a second time to be one of the inaugural plays in the Society’s new home.
Adapted from Trotter 174-77 and Ritschel “1904”
- Jonathan Khaiat
Maud Gonne’s Role
While Lady Gregory and Yeats saw the creation of the Irish National Theatre, a great deal of that creation is owed to the persistency of Maud Gonne. Gonne persuaded Frank and Willy Fay (whose first names are like those of the two men in Dublin by Lamplight) to coach some of her girls, which did as much for Irish theater as it did for the Daughters of Erin. Yeats, upon seeing the talents of these girls, and impressed with the Fay brothers talents, became excited and adament for the need for Ireland to become self-reliant in drama. Gonne’s contagious enthuasiam for acting gave Irish drama the jolt of energy that it needed at the perfectly opportune time (Sawyer, 67-68).
- Evangelia Kambites
Gonne also debuted and reprised the title role in Yeats’ and Lady Gregory’s Kathleen ni Houlihan. Although Eva St. John is her more obvious counterpart in Dublin by Lamplight, her behaviour during the first revival of Kathleen ni Houlihan in 1903, as part of the Irish National Theatre Society’s first season, is echoed in the character of Maggie. Although she was by no means called upon to debut the role at the last minute, Maggie’s slip into voicing her own concerns onstage rather than speaking her lines can be read as a respectful nod to Gonne’s spellbinding delivery of the “peasant dialogue” written for her (MacAnna 93).
Photo: “Kathleen ni Houlihan,” taken from http://diaryofaheretic.blogs.com/
- Jonathan Khaiat
The Irish National Theatre of Ireland Compared to the Irish Literary Theatre
An article on the Irish Literary Theatre in the Irish Daily Independent from 22 February 1900 proclaims, “The aim and object of the Irish Literary Theatre was to embody and perpetuate Irish feeling, genius and modes of thought” (qtd. in Trotter 1). Effectively, this sums up the objective of all the attempts at creating a national theatre for Ireland, including that of Willy Hayes in Dublin by Lamplight. A much more specific similarity between the actual and fictional theatres, however, is their reliance on Celtic myth for the subject matters of their plays. Like Willy’s The Wooing of Emer, Edward Martyn’s Maeve (produced in 1900) is based on the Ulster Cycle, centred around the life of Cuchulainn, and George Moore and W.B. Yeats’ Diarmuid and Grannia comes out of the Fenian Cycle.
Because of the personal fortunes of Lady Gregory and Edward Martyn, however, the Irish Literary Theatre never faced the struggle for financial solvency that plagues the Irish National Theatre of Ireland. This set it apart from its contemporaries who “had to rely on volunteer efforts, ticket sales, or passing the hat at events to float their theatrical entreprises” (Trotter 14). Moreover, while Willy’s company seems to be most concerned with mounting its production, a part of the Literary Theatre’s objective (as its name suggests) was to produce a body of what Lady Gregory describes as “a Celtic and Irish school of dramatic literature” (qtd. in Trotter 11).
Despite similarities in motivation and inspiration from Celtic myth, the Irish National Theatre of Ireland actually seems to resemble the Irish Literary Theatre’s contemporaries more closely than the Literary Theatre itself. Dublin by Lamplight thus not only retells the story of the Irish National Theatre, but also depicts the smaller companies, whose contribution to the national theatre movement in Ireland have been largely obscured by the Irish National Theatre Society and its predecessors.
- Jonathan Khaiat
The Irish National Theatre of Ireland Compared to the Irish National Theatre Society
The Irish National Theatre Society in its first year resembled Willy Hayes’ company much more closely than the more elitist and literature-concerned Irish Literary Theatre. Dublin by Lamplight humorously sets Willy’s Frank Fay-like fussiness and Yeats-like desire for personal glory alongside the clearly amateur nature of the company, adding to its general charm. Amateurism was actually one of the INTS’s mandates. The company’s two main principles, as outlined by the Yeats and the vice-presidents, were: “that the society be a ‘purely cooperative one,’ with all members involved in the artistic and administrative decisions of the group, and that ‘all the members were to be amateurs’” (Trotter 103).
The only important difference is that the Irish National Theatre of Ireland seems to exist in isolation from any other theatrical organisations. In Dublin by Lamplight, Irish nationalism outside the theatre – particularly as embodied by the IRB –is portrayed as exclusively violent. Even Eva’s involvement with Inghinidhe na hEireann is limited to protest, though members of the Irish National Theatre Society who were also a part of the Daughters of Erin would almost certainly have acted with that company as well. However, at the same time, this apparent vacuum strengthens the parallel between Willy Hayes and Willie Fay as the founder of the first “national” theatre company in Ireland.
- Jonathan Khaiat
The Significance of 1904
Whereas 1904 is supposed to be “the [year] of reckoning, the [year] of destiny, the [year] in which the Irish National Theatre of Ireland would take her place” (Dublin by Lamplight 12), it was a year of major change within the Irish National Theatre Society, which made it much less like the more popular-oriented contemporaries of the Irish Literary Theatre, and so much less analogous to the Irish National Theatre of Ireland that resembled these, as noted above. The most significant change was that Yeats’ turn “away from [a] philosophy of inclusiveness toward an increasingly narrow, focused style of presentation – one that favoured art over indeology, text over performance, and the unity of the mise-en-scène over the individuals who took part in it” (Trotter 107). In reaction, several founding members including Maud Gonne resigned from the company – an event possibly alluded to in Eva’s being displaced from Willy’s company.
Nevertheless, the INTS’s move into the Abbey Theatre as its permanent home was a highly significant moment in the history of Ireland’s national theatre movement. Indeed, Michael West explains his choice of 1904 as the year in which to set Dublin by Lamplight by that year’s association “with two cultural touchstones: the founding of the Abbey Theatre and the setting for Joyce’s Ulysses” (3).
- Jonathan Khaiat