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Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. STRUGGLES FOR RECOGNITION: THE WOMEN ARTISTIC DIRECTORS OF IRELAND’S ABBEY THEATRE
DISSERTATION
Presented in Partial Fulfillment o f the Requirements for
the Degree Doctor of Philosophy in the Graduate
School of The Ohio State University
By
Karin Ann Maresh, M.A.
*****
The Ohio State University 2002
Dissertation Committee: Approved by Dr. Joy Harriman Reilly, Adviser Dr. Thomas Postlewait Mlhnk&t Adviser Dr. Esther Beth Sullivan Theatre Graduate Pr
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. UMI Number 3039501
Copyright 2002 by Maresh, Karin Ann
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Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Copyright by Karin Ann Maresh 2002
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. ABSTRACT
This dissertation examines the lives and careers of four important women of the
Irish theatre, Lady Augusta Gregory (1852-1932), Ria Mooney (1903-1973), Lelia
Doolan (1934- ), and Garry Hynes (1947- ). Each fulfilled the responsibilities of artistic
director at the Abbey Theatre at different points in the twentieth century. Gregory co
founded and helped run the theatre for thirty-two years, Mooney served as primary
producer from 1948 tol963, Doolan served as artistic director from 1971 tol973, and
Hynes held the same position from 1991 to 1993. None of the existing histories of the
Abbey Theatre gives these women their due credit. Thus, while Irish women playwrights
have received considerable attention, Irish women directors are still struggling for
recognition.
This study also compares the careers of Gregory, Mooney, Doolan, and Hynes
with those of their male counterparts in the theatre. In Ireland the legal system
contributed to the majority of women being unemployed and underpaid in the conservative
social, political, and economic climates of twentieth-century Ireland. Yet the Abbey
Theatre hired more women into authoritative positions than any other major theatre in
Dublin or London. Despite encountering resistance to their leadership, the four women in
ii
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. this study persevered and negotiated careers as directors in a theatre and a country
dominated by male influence.
Each of the women took a different path. Gregory became active in Irish theatre
in her late forties, after her husband died. Mooney and Doolan were, and Hynes has been,
committed to the theatre from their teens. Despite significant differences in their careers
these women have a common bond: they have been tenacious, innovative, and dedicated
to their craft. Not all o f their productions and policies for the Abbey were successful, and
two were forced to compromise their artistic goals. However, all four pushed against the
traditions of Ireland’s National Theatre, helping it survive economic difficulties and
changes in artistic policy to evolve into what it is today, a national treasure. Their stories
are proof that women have played a key role in the development of the Abbey Theatre.
iii
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Dedicated to Lady Augusta Gregory, Ria Mooney,
Lelia Doolan, and Garry Hynes for their inspiring work.
iv
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
I wish to thank the many educators and mentors who have guided me to this point,
especially my adviser, Dr. Joy Reilly. I will be forever grateful for her insight and the
emotional support she provided for me during this process.
Thanks also goes to Drs. Beth Sullivan and Thomas Postlewait for their time and
effort as members of my dissertation committee, and for their many comments,
suggestions, and words o f encouragement.
I am indebted to the staff at the National Library o f Ireland, Mary Clark at the
Dublin Civic Archive, Marie Kelly at the Abbey Theatre, and Jim Bracken at The Ohio
State University Library, all o f whom aided me with my research. I would also like to
thank Mrs. G. A. Duncan and Colin Smythe for permitting me to use photos from their
private collections in this dissertation.
I extend my greatest appreciation to the numerous individuals who granted me
interviews or responded to my inquiries, including: Tomas Mac Anna, Carolyn Swift, Ray
Yates, Christopher Fitz-Simon, John Slemon, Jim McGlone, James Pethica, and Dr. Mary
Trotter. I especially want to thank Lelia Doolan and Vincent Dowling for their
tremendous willingness to answer my barrage o f questions.
v
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Finally, I must express my gratitude for my family, my parents Richard Maresh and
Joan Keller Maresh for their love and support, my brother Daniel Maresh for his smiles
and hugs, and my fiancee Michael A. Silva for his love and encouragement.
This research was supported in part by an Elizabeth D. Gee Dissertation Fund
grant from The Ohio State University’s Department o f Women’s Studies.
vi
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. VITA
June 15, 1973...... Bom - Boulder, Colorado
1995 ...... B.A. Theatre Arts, Music Minor, Viterbo College, La Crosse, Wisconsin
1997 ...... M.A. Theatre, Illinois State University, Normal, Illinois
1997-2001 ...... Graduate Teaching Assistant, The Ohio State University
2001-present...... Guest Lecturer of Theatre, The Ohio State University and Otterbein College, Columbus, Ohio
PUBLICATIONS
1. Karin Maresh, Rev. ofIreland's National Theaters: Political Performance and
the Origins o f the Irish Dramatic Movement, by Mary Trotter, Theatre Journal
54.1 (March 2002).
2. Karin Maresh, “The Edinburgh Fringe Festival,” performance review,Theatre
Journal 52.2 (May 2000): 278-280.
3. Karin Maresh, “Meet Your Representatives,” interviews,The Graduate Voice 5-
6.17 (Spring 1998): 6.
FIELDS OF STUDY
Major Field: Theatre
vii
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. TABLE OF CONTENTS
Page Abstract...... ii
Dedication...... iv
Acknowledgments...... v
V ita...... vii
List of Figures...... x
Chapters:
1. Introduction...... 1
2. Lady Gregory: Abbey Theatre Founder, Director, and Administrator...... 22
3. Ria Mooney: The Abbey’s First Woman Producer...... 68
4. Lelia Doolan: The Abbey Theatre’s First Artistic Director...... 120
5. Garry Hynes: A Plough Astray Amongst the Abbey Stars...... 157
6. Conclusion...... 192
APPENDICES:
Appendix A Chronologies...... 199
Appendix B Women Directors at the Abbey...... 210
Appendix C Abbey Personnel...... 215
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Bibliography ...... 218
ix
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. LIST OF FIGURES
Figure Page
1.1 The Old Abbey Theatre...... 13
2.1 Bust of Lady Gregory...... 26
2.2 Profile of Lady Gregory...... 46
2.3 Lady Gregory on the go...... 52
2.4 Lady Gregory as Cathleen ni Houlihan...... 56
2.5 Lady Gregory at Coole ...... 62
3.1 Ria Mooney as Rosie Redmond with Sean O’Casey...... 78
3.2 Ria Mooney at rehearsal...... 93
3.3 Ria Mooney with fellow actors...... 105
3.4 Ria Mooney with Vincent Dowling inLong Day’s Journey...... 114
4.1 Lelia Doolan...... 124
4.2 Lelia Doolan with the author’s mother and brother...... 154
5.1 Garry Hynes ...... 162
5.2 Garry Hynes with Druid company...... 165
5.3 Garry Hynes accepting her Tony Award for Best Director...... 189
x
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. CHAPTER 1
INTRODUCTION
“Pit is surprising that there have been so many important women in Irish
theatre.”1
Dublin celebrated the seventy-fifth anniversary of Sean O’Casey’s Irish
masterpiece, Juno and the Paycock, with a revival directed by Garry Hynes in 1999. This
production, staged at the Gaiety Theatre by Noel Pearson, was significant not only
because it honored one of Ireland’s most cherished playwrights, but because it recognized
Hynes’s talent and her contribution to Irish theatre. No Irish woman director since Lady
Augusta Gregory early in the twentieth century has received the national and international
attention paid to Hynes in the last decade. However, Irish women did find success in the
theatre during the intermittent years between Gregory and Hynes, not only as actresses on
stage, but in theatrical management and administration. Women founded theatres, served
as artistic directors, stage managed, and administrated business and artistic matters
throughout Ireland. Often these theatres were smaller, semi-professional venues, similar
to the alternative and community theatres in England and the United States. The fact that
many Irish women in the theatre profession worked in smaller venues points to the scarcity
'Steve Wilmer, “Women’s Theatre in Ireland,”New Theatre Quarterly 7.28 (1991): 353.
1
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. of women in positions of management in major venues. However, the Abbey Theatre,
Ireland’s National Theatre, has been a leader in appointing women to executive positions.
During its almost one hundred-year history, the Abbey has placed several women in
positions of artistic management andadministration, unlike the major houses in Dublin, the
Gate and the Gaiety, and in London, the National and the Royal Court, which have never
had women artistic directors and employed very few women in management.2 Because
these contributions by women to the Abbey and to Irish theatre have not yet been
recognized by historians o f Irish theatre, this study will examine the careers of four
pioneering women in theatre against a backdrop o f the male-dominated Abbey Theatre.
To better appreciate the significant contribution of women directors to the Abbey
Theatre, one need only take a brief look at the involvement of women directors in other
Irish venues. Two women, Phyllis Ryan and Carolyn Swift, played a major role in the
creation of theatres outside the larger national and commercial houses of the 1950s. Ryan
founded Orion Productions in 1957 and Gemini Productions in 1958 with actor Norman
Rodway. Orion produced several plays, including Tennessee Williams’sA Streetcar
Named Desire and William Inge’sPicnic. Gemini made its name presenting the work o f
John B. Keane, including the premieresThe of Field, The Highest House on the
Mountain, andBig Maggie. It also staged Williams’sCat on a Hot Tin Roof. Ryan, who
had started her career as an actor at the Abbey, devoted her time with Orion and Gemini
to managing, performing tasks such as choosing the plays, the directors and the actors for
the company. Gemini continues to produce plays today, although Ryan is no longer
2This statement does not take female board members into account.
2
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. directly involved. Carolyn (Carol Samuel) Swift and her husband Alan Simpson founded
the innovative Pike Theatre in 1953. It folded in 1958 after a controversial court battle
concerning the moral integrity o f the Pike’s entry o f Tennessee Williams’sThe Rose
Tattoo into the Dublin International Theatre Festival. A scene in which a condom is
dropped onto the stage became thecause “ celebre” o f the festival, igniting Ireland’s
hyper-religiosity.3 Before founding the Pike, Swift worked as stage manager for Anew
McMaster’s company, and helped to form a short-lived Limerick theatre. The Mercury
Theatre Company (1947). The Pike’s most significant productions included the first
performance of Brendan Behan’sThe Quare Fellow in 1954, and the first Irish production
of Beckett’s Waiting For Godot in 1955. In addition to co-founding and naming the Pike,
Swift served as assistant director forThe Rose Tattoo, wrote several of the musical
reviews, and acted for the company. In the last forty years Swift has worked as a
freelance artist, and additionally served as a member o f the Abbey’s board of directors for
nine years.
Other Dublin theatres were founded or supported by women, such as
actress/director Shelah Richards and Madame Daisy Bannard Cogley. Richards is
primarily remembered as an actress, the creator o f Nora Clitheroe in O’Casey’sPlough
and the Stars , and as the wife o f playwright Denis Johnston. But she also established a
company with Michael Walsh that played at the Olympia Theatre, which was known for
variety entertainment during World War II or, as neutral Ireland called it, “the
3Robert Hogan, After the Irish Renaissance: A Critical History o f the Irish Drama Since The Plough and the Stars (Minneapolis: U of Minnesota P, 1967) 180.
3
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Emergency.” Because few foreign companies toured to Ireland during the war Richards
was able to fill the void with her own productions. Madame Cogley, known to her friends
as “Toto,” was also instrumental in starting a Dublin company. In 1920s Dublin she ran
her own theatre club, and in 1928 became, with Gearoid O Lochlainn, “patrons” of the
Dublin Gate Theatre.4
Dublin city was not the only place where women found work in theatre
management. Outside Dublin, beyond the pale, women made their mark on Irish Theatre
as artistic directors or founders of theatre companies. Belfast native Dorothy Wilmot with
her husband Hubert founded the Belfast Arts Theatre in 1946, and in 1951 Mary O’Malley
founded The Lyric Theatre in Belfast. Garry Hynes created the tiny Druid Theatre
Company in 1975 with Marie Mullen and Mick Lally. Both the Druid and the Lyric are
still thriving, and both have had productions transfer to London’s West End and to
Broadway. In 1983, five Northern Irish unemployed actresses who were frustrated with
the paucity of roles available to them, founded Charabanc.5 Before the company ceased to
be in 1995, it made an impact with its politically charged plays that often dramatized the
plight o f women in Northern Ireland.
As feminist and historiographical studies demonstrate, theatre historians in their
attempt to write a ‘Tactual” account of history, have often overlooked the
accomplishments of women within professional theatre. Ireland is no different. For
4Cogley and O Lochlainn contributed money to the burgeoning theatre in return for a position on the Gate’s board of directors.
5Charabanc was founded by Eleanor Methven, Carol Moore, Marie Jones, Brenda Winter, and Maureen Macaulay.
4
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. example, Wilmot’s involvement in the Arts Theatre is ignored by scholarly accounts of
that theatre. The Theatre in Ulster mentions that she served as a business manager for the
company and theatre, however, the focus of the book is her husband’s career rather than
her own.6 The fact that Wilmot’s career is not documented is a familiar circumstance for
female theatre directors and managers. Four women, Lady Augusta Gregory, Ria
Mooney, Lelia Doolan, and Garry Hynes, fulfilled the responsibilities of artistic director at
the Abbey Theatre at different points in the twentieth century. Yet the attention paid to
Gregory and the others by Irish theatre historians isminimal, or favors their contributions
as actress or playwright. Gregory, whose plays are now considered literary classics, has
received much less attention for her management of the Abbey and for her direction of
plays,7 and Mooney, who directed plays at the Abbey for sixteen years, is primarily
remembered for her acting career. This study will re-examine the work of these women as
directors and managers, and demonstrate that women were actively involved in both
artistic and administrative roles in the Abbey Theatre from its beginning.
Irish theatre and Irish culture experienced a second renaissance in the 1990s that
has continued to this day. The tourist industry is booming and the country is a member o f
the European Union. This expanded international development has rejuvenated Ireland’s
weak economy of the late 1970s and early 1980s that produced massive government debt
and unemployment. In the theatre, playwrights Martin MacDonagh, Frank McGuinness,
6The Theatre in Ulster is the only source I have found that mentions this information.
7The exception to this would be in Anne Saddlemeyer’sTheatre Business (1982) which, through letters from Yeats, Gregory, and Synge to one another, demonstrates Gregory’s involvement in the daily affairs of the Abbey Theatre.
5
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Marie Jones, and Marina Carr have enlivened West End and Broadway theatres with
successful Irish plays. This renewed interest in Ireland is reflected in Irish theatre studies
and scholarship. In the last four years, notable books have been published on the subject,
including Christopher Murray’s in-depth look at Irish playsTwentieth-Century in Drama:
Mirror to a Nation (1997) and editor Eberhard Bort’sState o fPlay: Irish Theatre in the
Nineties (1996), which contains scholarly articles on Irish plays, theatre companies, and
productions in Ireland.State o f Play is unique in the field of Irish theatre studies since the
majority of books focus on the drama rather than on the practice of theatre. One of the
contributors, Trinity theatre studies professor Anna McMullen notes in her article,
“Reclaiming Performance: The Contemporary Irish Independent Theatre Sector,” that the
usual perception of the theatre tradition in Ireland is one of “almost total reliance on text”
and avoidance o f theatre production, especially performative experiments.8 What this has
meant for Irish theatre history is a neglect of the theatre director’s contributions to Irish
theatre and, in particular, of the female director’s contribution. According to Lelia
Doolan, “[t]he notion of a Director (artistic or otherwise) [at the Abbey Theatre] was
hardly in vogue in the early days, devoted as they were to players and writers.”9 The
Abbey’s emphasis on writers and players is not confined to the past but is still alive in
scholarship today. This suggests the reason why Ria Mooney and Leila Doolan have
received scant attention in Irish theatre histories, as well as why Lady Gregory is primarily
8Anna McMullan, “Reclaiming Performance: The Contemporary Irish Independent Theatre Sector,” The State o f Play: Irish Theatre in the ‘Nineties , Ed. Eberhard Bort, Wissenschaftlicher Verlag Trier, 1996. 30.
9 Lelia Doolan, letter to the author, 21 February 2001.
6
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. remembered for her plays rather than her work as a producer and manager. While Garry
Hynes will undoubtedly be considered a significant contributor to Irish theatre in future
studies, her career is too recent to have received more than a brief mention.
Through my research, I have determined that the field of Irish Theatre Studies can
be divided into five categories, with Irish drama studies as the first and largest. Beginning
with Cornelius Weygandt’sIrish Plays and Playwrights in 1913 and continuing to
Murray’sMirror to a Nation, the tradition of examining Irish drama as literature rather
than performance has inspired the writing and publication of many books. This approach
includes Andrew Malone’sThe Irish Drama (1929), D. E. S. Maxwell’s Modem Irish
Drama 1891-1980 (1984), Anthony Roche’s Contemporary Irish Drama: From Beckett
to McGuinness (1994), and the Irish Literary Theatre’s publications,Beltaine, Samhain ,
andThe Arrow. Irish women writers receive cursory attention in these studies. For
example, in Irish Playwrights, 1880-1995: A Research and Production Sourcebook,
edited by Bernice Schrank and William W. Demastes, the lives and works o f thirty-three
Irish playwrights are briefly analyzed. Although the book is a fine source of basic
information about each playwright and the performances of their major plays, only five
women writers are included.
The second largest scholarship area is the history of the Abbey Theatre. There are
eleven histories of the Abbey, as well as such works as Rex Pogson’sMiss Homiman and
the Gaiety Theatre, Manchester (1952), W. G. Fay and Catherine Carswell’s The Fays o f
the Abbey Theatre (1935), and James W. Flannery’sMiss Annie Homiman and the Abbey
Theatre (1970). Of the early histories of the Abbey Theatre, Lennox Robinson’sIreland’s
7
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Abbey Theatre: A History 1899-1951 (1951) provides the most detailed and unbiased
account of the theatre’s early years. Peter Kavanagh’sThe Story o f the Abbey Theatre
(1950) also reveals much about the inner-workings of the Abbey Theatre from its
inception to 1950. His narrative is flawed, however, by clearly biased, deprecating
descriptions of Yeats, Gregory, Annie F. Homiman, and Edward Martyn, all of whom
were instrumental in founding the Abbey. These works place Irish drama in relation to the
administrative procedures of the Abbey Theatre, including the politics of its early days.
No significant attention is paid to Gregory’s work as producer and manager, and there is
even less mention o f Ria Mooney’s involvement as the Abbey’s producer. Yet both
worked at the Abbey during the years examined by Kavanagh and Robinson. Hugh
Hunt’sThe Abbey: Ireland’s National Theatre 1904-1979 illustrates more clearly the
history of the Abbey than any other source and is the most complete and impartial
account. Hunt notes briefly Lady Gregory’s nonlherary contributions to the Abbey, Ria
Mooney’s tenure as producer for the Abbey, and Leila Doolan’s appointment as the
Abbey’s artistic director in the early 1970s. He is also the only historian to provide details
of Doolan’s artistic directorship. The most recent Abbey history, written by Robert
Welch, gives a thorough account of the theatre’s early years, but moves quickly through a
discussion of the years 1970 to the present, providing only a mention of Doolan and
Hynes. A more complete analysis o f those years remains to be written.
A third category of scholarship is that o f general Irish Theatre Studies. The two
most prominent sources in this category are Christopher Fitz-Simon’sThe Irish Theatre
(1983) and Micheal O’hAodha’sTheatre in Ireland (1974). The first provides the
8
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. complete history of the Irish theatre from its beginnings, which Fitz-Simon locates in the
year 1171. The entire work, only 208 pages long, is obviously a mere survey of a broad
topic. He mentions Hynes in connection with the Druid Theatre in Galway, and devotes
one paragraph to Lady Gregory, which is conspicuously brief when compared to the pages
devoted to Yeats. His interest in Gregory focuses on her literaryaccomplishments and her
maternal “instincts” for the Abbey company. In his short study of twentieth-century Irish
theatre, O’hAodha foils to mention either Mooney or Doolan. He devotes more attention
to playwrights and their plays than to the staging of the plays or to the people who
brought them to the stage.
The fourth category of scholarship considers the contributions by Irish women to
drama and theatre. While there are no books about the history of women in twentieth-
century Irish theatre, there are a number of articles, and several studies concerning Irish
women writers and the characterization of women in Irish writing.Gender in Irish
Writing (1991), edited by Toni O’Brien, et. al, andIreland’s Women: Writings Past and
Present (1994) provide discussion and examples, respectively, of the representation of
Irish women in writings by both men and women and how those representations have
affected the greater cultural perspective of Irish women. Anna McMullan’s article in
British and Irish Women Dramatists Since 1958: A Critical Handbook, edited by Trevor
R. Griffiths and Margaret Llewellyn-Jones, is an important contemporary critical account
about Irish women playwrights, and includes discussion of Marina Carr, Christina Reid,
and the Charabanc Theatre company. But because her focus is women playwrights, she
makes little mention of women directors, producers, or managers. Steve Wilmer’s article,
9
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. “Women’s Theatre in Ireland,” publishedNew in Theatre Quarterly, is the only study that
begins to focus on Irish women directors and managers. Women playwrights are still an
important part of the discussion, but the attention Wilmer gives to women theatre
practitioners is significant.
The fifth category includes those books and articles on well-known Irish theatre
personalities. Biographies have been written of Lady Gregory, Siobhan McKenna,
Micheal MacLiammoir, W. B. Yeats, and other twentieth-century leaders of the Irish
theatre. More significant to this study are the number of autobiographies and memoirs
written by former Abbey personnel, including Lady Gregory, Ria Mooney, Carolyn Swift,
Phyllis Ryan, Catherine Nesbitt, and Maire nic Shiublaigh. Over the past decade a number
of biographies of historically prominent non-theatrical Irish figures have also been
published, including recent biographies of several Irish women such as Maud Gonne and
Constance Markiewicz, both of whom worked for the Irish Republican cause in the early
twentieth century, and Mary Robinson, the former president of Ireland. The stories of
many women who were less visible, less extraordinary, remain to be told.
Until recently Ireland existed as a patriarchal society that constitutionally relegated
women to the role of wife and mother. The social structure for women in twentieth-
century Ireland was, in several respects, analogous to the social structure for women in
Victorian England and America. For example, a woman’s earnings were considered the
property of her husband. Before gaining its status as a Free State in 1922, Ireland was a
country divided according to class, heritage, and religion. The English and Anglo-Irish
Ascendancy minority controlled the native Irish majority. Even without English
10
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. interference, Ireland remained a relatively poor country from 1922 until the 1990s. Ireland
also was a distinctly church-dominated Catholic society in which Irish men legally
controlled women's access to resources and benefits outside the home. Powerful male
leaders continue today to run the churches which make decisions affecting all parishioners.
It is because of the Church’s stance on marriage, and its influence on the overall populace,
that Irish women were unable to legally escape a failed marriage until 1995.
Irish women have made significant contributions to Irish theatre as artistic
directors, producers, and administrators despite the restrictions placed on them by society.
Studies completed by Tracy C. Davis and J. K. Curry10 o f actresses and women managers
in nineteenth-century England and America, respectively, have demonstrated that women
have often risen to important, powerful positions within theatrical organizations in spite of
living in an oppressive society. Such is the case at Ireland’s National Theatre. Women
were also appointed to offices of great responsibility at the Abbey Theatre without
significant opposition from the theatre’s male leaders. Remarkably, the laws and social
norms that restricted the employment of women in administrative and management roles in
most professions in twentieth-century Ireland did not prevent women from working in
authoritative roles at the Abbey Theatre.
To re-examine the history of the Abbey Theatre, and the contributions of women
to the national theatre, is not a new idea. Behind In the Scenes: Yeats, Homiman, and the
Struggle for the Abbey Theatre (1990), Adrian Frazier suggests the traditional history of
I0See Tracy C. Davis, Actresses as Working Women: Their Social Identity in Victorian Culture (London: Routledge, 1991), and Jane Kathleen Curry,Nineteenth-Century American Women Theatre Managers, (Westport, CT: Greenwood P, 1994).
11
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. the Abbey, which tends to position Yeats as the genius visionary who created the Irish
dramatic movement and the Abbey, is inaccurate. He demonstrates that others, especially
Annie Homiman and Lady Gregory, were equally as important, and that Yeats was more
interested in his own career than in the creation of an Irish theatre. Theatre historian Mary
Trotter also rewrites history in Ireland’s National Theaters: Political Performance and
the Origins o f the Irish Dramatic Movement.11 She questions the centralization of Yeats,
Gregory, and the Abbey Theatre in the Irish Dramatic Movement, arguing that other
nationalist groups had as much or more influence upon the creation of an Irish theatre.
For example, Inginidhe na nEireann (Daughters of Erin), a women’s nationalist
organization, led by Maud Gonne, that presented its own pieces and made up the majority
of the Abbey’s first company, are for the first time discussed in-depth within the context of
the Irish Dramatic Movement in Trotter’s work.12 These studies underscore the need for
current Irish theatre scholars to question the assumptions made by past historians.
The history of the Abbey Theatre is as interesting as the people who have kept it
running for the past ninety-seven years. It is located on the corner of Lower Abbey and
Marlborough streets in Dublin, and opened its doors on 27 December 1904. The theatre’s
founders, W. B. Yeats and Lady Augusta Gregory,13 comprised the Abbey’s directorate,
"Mary Trotter, Ireland’s National Theaters: Political Performance and the Origins o f the Irish Dramatic Movement (Syracuse: Syracuse UP, 2001). l2See Crucibles o f Crisis, edited by Janelle Reinhalt, for an earlier publication of this chapter.
I3The Abbey’s stage manager, W. G. Fay, is not considered a founder. However, Fay did find and suggest the location on which the theatre was built, and he served as consultant to the architect of the theatre, Joseph Holloway.
12
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Figure 1.1. The original Abbey Theatre, c. 1936.
13
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. along with J. M. Synge. All three wrote plays, and tried to create a playwright’s theatre in
which the text held importance over other aspects o f performance. Above all, their intent
was for the Abbey to be a place to present plays with an Irish subject, setting, and
characters, for an Irish audience. The old Mechanic’s Institute was rebuilt as the Abbey
Theatre by Annie F. Homiman, an Englishwoman o f wealth who had affinityno for Irish
nationalism, but was a friend to Yeats and wanted to help him create a forum for his plays.
Horniman’s subsidy ended in 1910, and for fourteen years the theatre wavered on the edge
of bankruptcy. Then in 1924, the government granted the Abbey an annual subsidy,
making it the first state-subsidized theatre in the English-speaking world. The next
milestone occurred on 18 July 1951 when fire destroyed the main building, forcing the
company to temporarily move to the Queen’s Theatre, a nineteenth-century theatre known
for sentimental, patriotic melodramas and variety shows. Fifteen years later, on 18 June
1966, the newly rebuilt Abbey Theatre opened and, a few days later, the Abbey’s smaller
Peacock Theatre re-opened.
The management structure at the Abbey has changed considerably over the years.
The directorate, or “triumverate” as it is sometimes called, of Gregory, Yeats, and Synge,
had complete authority over the actors and staff. Homiman had some influence upon the
directors, as Frazier has noted, but she was limited in her role by livingEngland in rather
than Dublin. After Synge died in 1909, control of the Abbey remained with Yeats and
Gregory, until 15 April 1924 when the playwright and director Lennox Robinson became
part of the directorate. This arrangement changed later that year when the government
appointed a representative to the newly named board o f directors. The most influential of
14
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. government appointees was Ernest Blythe, who served asm anagingdirector of the theatre
from 1941 to 1967. Between 1935 and 1972 the board consisted o f five members, one o f
whom served as managing director, and two who were appointed by the state. The board
agreed to co-opt, or invite, two new members in 1972, one from the Player’s Council and
another from the staff, bringing the number of board members to seven. Today that
number has risen to eight.
The Abbey’s artistic staff has also experienced change through the years. The
Abbey’s first stage manager, W. G. Fay, who served as director according to modern job
definitions, left the theatre in 1908. From 1909 to the mid-1960s, the title given to the
person in charge of staging the plays at the Abbey was usually “producer,” and less
regularly, “play director.” In 1965 the board reluctantly agreed to elevate the role of the
theatre’s primary producer by establishing the post o f artistic advisor. This meant
relinquishing some production responsibilities and a certain amount of control. Power
over artistic matters shifted further in 1969 when the “artistic advisor” became the “artistic
director.” The evolution of the Abbey Theatre’s artistic management has, in comparison
to its Irish and British counterparts, been slow to change. The slow transition from
“producer,” to “artistic advisor,” to “artistic director” reflects this conservatism. Overall,
the Abbey’s reluctance to embrace change imposed major limitations on the careers o f
three of the four women examined in this dissertation.
By examining the careers of Gregory, Mooney, Doolan, and Hynes, I wish to
chart the history of women’s involvement in the Abbey Theatre positions of leadership.
My study will reveal through the lineage of women artistic directors and managers how
15
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. active women have been in the running o f that theatre. There involvement is, as Wilmer
suggests, “surprising” since Irish women had difficulty maintaining careers in twentieth-
century Ireland. Irish laws contributed to the majority of women being unemployed and
underpaid in the conservative social, political, and economic climates of twentieth-century
Ireland. Therefore, one must examine the careers of Gregory, Mooney, Doolan, and
Hynes in the context of working women in twentieth century Ireland and compare their
experiences with those of their male counterparts in the theatre. The study will also
address the contradictions between the policies Irish legislators put in place to limit
women’s involvement in the workplace and the actual practice of women working in
Ireland. Of special import is the way each of the women in this study negotiated a career
as a director, a traditionally authoritative role, in a theatre and a country dominated by
male influence. Due to the scarcity o f published sources on this topic, I have conducted a
series of interviews with those who knew and worked with them, and in the case of
Doolan, with the woman herself.
Each chapter in this dissertation presents a study of one woman’s career as
manager, producer, or artistic director at the Abbey Theatre. I provide biographical
information for each woman, and background about the socioeconomic situation for
women during each concurrent period. I also analyze what occasioned the appointment of
each woman at the Abbey and what caused each to leave. In my research I have examined
both secondary and primary sources for information about the women’s careers at the
Abbey Theatre, and I draw upon many interviews and reviews from Irish, English, and
American newspapers and journals. Following the lead of historians Frazier and Trotter, I
16
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. have reassessed the history of the Abbey Theatre. Historian Robert Hogan, inAfter the
Irish Renaissance, argues that an analysis of Irish drama must include discussion of the
Abbey Theatre because of the national theatre’s “enormous influence on Irish
playwriting.”14 By focusing on the Abbey’s productions rather than its plays, and on its
female rather than male contributers, I will demonstrate that the Abbey is also significant
for the enormous influence it has had upon women’s involvement in Irish theatre.
Chapter One discusses the Abbey management career of Lady Augusta Gregory
(1852-1932), which began when Gregory co-founded the theatre in 1904 and lasted until
her death in 1932. In addition to managing two American tours in 1911, 1912, and
fulfilling many of the daily responsibilities in running the Abbey, Gregory also directed
productions, although few sources highlight that information. Most historians of Irish
theatre have chosen instead to remember her for her extensive collection of writings. For
example, Lennox Robinson considered her to be a master of the one-act play and one of
Ireland’s “most important playwrights.”13 She introduced dialect into her plays as Synge
did, and as Yeats never could. She created the Kiltartan dialect, which was based on the
working-class dialect in the region around her home, Coole Park. During her lifetime her
plays won lukewarm critical success, but they never failed to bring in audiences in Dublin,
the United States, and England. These facts have been thoroughly examined by scholars
of Irish theatre. Historians such as Anne Saddlemeyer, who edited the complete collection
l4Hogan, 3. ,5Lennox Robinson,Curtain Up: An Autobiography (London: Michael Joseph Ltd., 1942) 117.
17
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. of Gregory’s plays, and Colin Smythe, who has published extensively on Gregory,16 also
comment on Gregory’s skill as an all-around woman of the theatre, who tirelessly
campaigned for funds to keep the Abbey going, directed or managed rehearsals when
needed, and read thousands of play submissions. However, Gregory’s skill as a writer of
plays, essays, folklore, and sonnets, and her friendship with so many influential literary
figures of her time, such as W. B. Yeats and Sean O’Casey, overshadow accounts of her
administrative and directorial work in Saddlemeyer’s and Smythe’s studies. For example,
their combined effort on editingLady Gregory, Fifty Years After (1987) generated an
important collection of essays addressing the many facets of Lady Gregory’s life. Yet only
one of the almost twenty sections in the work focus on her work as a director and
administrator for the Abbey Theatre. In this chapter I explore the reasons for this
emphasis on Gregory’s literary achievements over her practical work for the theatre,
noting that the lack of evidence of her directorial and administrative work for the theatre,
especially during the yearsl909-1916,17 has made scholarship in that area difficult.
However, I argue that without Gregory’s directing, management, and fundraising skills the
Abbey Theatre might have ceased to exist after Homiman stopped the subsidy. In order
16See the following: Lady Gregory, Seventy Years: Being the Autobiography o f Lady Gregory, ed. Colin Smythe (New York: Macmillan Publishing Co., Inc., 1974); Colit Smythe, A Guide to Coole Park, Co. Galway: Home o f Lady Gregory (Gerrards Cross, Bucks: Colin Smythe, 1983); Colin Smythe, ed.,Robert Gregory 1881-1918 (Gerrards Cross: Colin Smythe, 1981).
17After the Fays left in February 1908, and Synge died in March 1909, Gregory took on more management responsibilities. When Robinson returned to the Abbey in 1919, after a five-year hiatus. An indication that Gregory’s time at the theatre was much in demand between these years is the fact that she did not keep a regular journal between 1909-1916. 18
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. to demonstrate her directing skills, I examine a representative sample o f productions
directed by Gregory, includingThe Full Moon, The Deliverer, The Miser, The Shewing-
Up o f Blcmco Posnet, andJohn Bull’s Other Island, providing commentary by Abbey
actors and reviews of those productions.
Chapter Two concerns the career of Ria Mooney (1903-1973), sometimes mis-
identified as “Rita,” the first woman producer, or director o f plays, at the Abbey. Mooney
started out at the Abbey as an actress in 1924, but quickly moved on to other projects.
She acted, directed, and taught in several theatres in Ireland, England, and the United
States, including the Civic Repertory Theatre, the Gate Theatre, the Abbey Experimental
Theatre, and the Gaiety School of Acting. Her fifteen years as Primary Producer, or
director, for the Abbey, from 1948 to 1963, establish Mooney as one o f the Abbey’s
longest-tenure employees. A biography o f Mooney by Jim McGlone is due in 2002, but
until then nothing has been written about her remarkable contributions to the theatre. I
present a critical account o f her directorial work at the Abbey, and suggest why she
retained her position at the Abbey despite likening her situation there to a nightmare.18
Chapter Three is an exploration of the career of Leila Doolan(1934- ), who
became the Abbey’s first full-time artistic director in1971, remainingin the post until
1973 when she was forced to resign. Only Hugh Hunt writes about Doolan and her
artistic directorship at the Abbey, and that information though important, is inadequate.
Drawing upon Abbey memos and board meeting notes in the National Library of Ireland
l8Ria Mooney, “Players and the Painted Stage, Part Two,” ed. Val MulkemsGeorge Spelvin's Theatre Book 1.3 (1978) 116.
19
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. as well as interviews with Doolan and others, I will illustrate more thoroughly how the
Abbey’s first attempt to modernize its organization by appointing a full-time artistic
director faltered because of its own unwillingness to allow for change. I also suggest that
Doolan’s Abbey career is significant because it coincided with the government’s
recognition in 1972 that changes in women’s social and economic conditions were
overdue.
Chapter Four focuses on the Abbey career of Garry Hynes, who served as Abbey
artistic director from 1991 to 1993. In particular, I examine the problems that existed
between Hynes and the board. I also demonstrate her contributions to the theatre. Hynes
attempted to bring new artistic life to the Abbey with experimental plays and styles, but
the pressures to conform to the traditions of the Abbey compelled her to forego signing
another three-year contract. Despite her short appointment, Hynes had a significant
impact on the Abbey because her demands caused the board to make major adjustments in
its policies after she left. The Tony award-winning director,19 the first woman to win the
award, is examined in this chapter within the context o f a revitalized “Celtic Tiger” Ireland
that has produced two women presidents during the 1990s, the first of whom was elected
months before Hynes took up her position at the Abbey.
In 1993, Irish theatre historian Anna McMullan wrote that since “the indefatigable
effort and enthusiasm invested by Lady Gregory in the founding of Ireland’s first national
19Garry Hynes won the Tony award for best director for her production of McDonagh’s Beauty Queen o f Leenane in 1998.
20
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. theatre in 1898, women have formed an integral part of the backbone of Irish theatre.”20
The purpose of this dissertation is to provide the first study that reveals how women
administrators, producers, and artistic directors were an indispensable part of the
evolution of the Abbey Theatre. Today the Abbey is considered one of Ireland’s finest
treasures, representing the country’s heritage and future as a member of the European
community. Without the leadership, sacrifice, struggle, and vision of Gregory, Mooney,
Doolan, and Hynes, the Abbey would not be the artistic force it is today.
20Anna McMullan, “Irish Women Playwrights Since 1958,”British and Irish Women Dramatists Since 1958: A Critical Handbook. Eds. Trevor R. Griffiths and Margaret- Llewellyn-Jones (Buckingham: Open UP, 1993) 110.
21
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. CHAPTER 2
LADY GREGORY: ABBEY THEATRE FOUNDER, DIRECTOR, AND ADMINISTRATOR
“She was in her element: running other people’s business,
authoritative, commanding in a kindly way..
Members of the Abbey Theatre’s board have rarely had a good rapport with each
another or with the players and staff at any time during the Abbey’s ninety-seven years.
This was especially true o f the decade following the death of Lady Augusta Gregory (15
March 1852 - 22 May 1932). According to Frank O’Connor, a member of the Abbey
Theatre’s Board of Directors during from 1935-1940, the Abbey Theatre declined during
the 1930s because of the board’s abuse of power regarding play selection, and Lennox
Robinson’s alcoholism. O’Connor also termed the administration ineffective, due to a lack
of cooperation among the devious personalities comprising the management. Ultimately,
he admitted that where the Abbey failed “was in the lack o f an administrator,”2 observing
'Marsh, “Selfless’ energetic generous - that was the Lady of the Abbey,”Evening Press 13 Aug. 1976: 8. 2Frank O’Connor, “Myself and the Abbey Theatre,”The Abbey Theatre: Interviews and Recollections, ed. E. H. Mikhail (Totowa, NJ: Barnes & Noble Books, 1988) 151. The men charged with overseeing the Abbey between 1935-1940 were Ernest Blythe, F. R. Higgins, O’Connor, Lennox Robinson, and W. B. Yeats, though the latter had by then little to do with the running of the theatre. All were respected in Dublin society.
22
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. that Lady Gregory had been that during the early years of the theatre. O’Connor, for
example, points to Gregory’s mediation skills, which he believed the board greatly missed
after her death. Gregory, the dutiful young wife of an older patrician landowner, devoted
the second half of her life to the Irish theatre she helped create. Known as the “Old Lady”
of the Abbey Theatre, Gregory wrote and translated more than forty plays and twenty-two
non-dramatic works. However, as O’Connor articulates, Gregory’s contribution at the
Abbey was not limited to writing and serving on the board of directors. She managed,
directed, and rehearsed the Abbey company throughout her almost thirty years at the
theatre. The extent of her participation at the Abbey as manager and administrator is
unclear, though, because it has never been fully examined. For example, how involved
was Gregory with the theatre’s finances and its daily affairs? How dependent were the
players and the staff upon her guidance? This chapter will answer these questions and
attempt to put in perspective Gregory’s contribution as the Abbey’s firstadministrator.
In the nineteenth century, Ireland was a country ruled by the wealthy minority.
The economic and political power of this class of Anglo-Irish Protestants in Ireland meant
that they had significant advantages over their predominantly Catholic working-class Irish
tenants. However, a steady decline of the Ascendancy during the last half of the
nineteenth century meant that Gregory’s generation was the last to enjoy that privileged
life. The 1801 Act of Union, which combined the Irish and British Parliaments, remained
in effect through all but ten years o f Gregory’s life - it was dissolved in 1922 - and
guaranteed Anglo-Irish Protestants economic and social advantages in a predominantly
Irish Catholic country. The strength of this legislation diminished with the passage of the
23
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Catholic Emancipation Act of 1829, providing Catholics the right to hold public office.
Little changed for the landowning class during the nineteenth century. The potato blight
of 1845-1850 that devastated the Irish peasants, strengthened Ascendancy families.
Statistics from 1841 show that three-fourths of the employed men in Ireland farmed for a
living, compared to fewer than a quarter of similarly employed British laborers. Fewer
than 14 percent of Irish people lived in towns with populations o f2,000 or more residents,
which means that most of the Irish were poor farmers living in rural areas. The failure of
the potato crop, the primary food source for the peasants and poor formers, resulted in the
deaths o f approximately one million people, and the emigration o f one million others to
America, Australia, and England. In 1841 the population of Ireland was between 8.2 and
8.4 million. Ten years later that number had decreased to 6.5 million.3 Affluent landlords
who survived the famine were able to purchase bankrupt properties, with the result that
about two thousand landlords ended up owning two-thirds of the land surface. However,
the “heavily mortgaged Irish estates” and the “artificially low rents from the tenants,”4
combined with the Ascendancy’s desire to live life at the level of their English
counterparts, contributed to Ascendant families’ continually mounting debts. Over the
course of decades, a shift in land ownership from the Anglo-Irish Ascendancy to the
middle and lower classes occurred.
3K. Theodore Hoppen.Ireland Since 1800: Conflict and Conformity (London and New York: Longman, 1989) 33-58. 4Roger Sawyer, 'We Are But Women Women in Ireland’s History ( London and New York: Routledge, 1993) 23. 24
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Isabella Augusta Persse Gregory lived two separate lives. The first forty years
included the years at her childhood home of Roxborough, Co. Galway. She was the
twelfth of sixteen children and the youngest daughter of an Anglo-Irish and Protestant
landowning family. Her childhood, although a privileged life, did not satisfy her emotional
needs. Her mother, Frances, indulged her nine sons, while she strictly enforced the
importance o f religion, propriety, servitude, and marriage for her seven daughters. In
general, “women of the Ascendancy had strong psychological pressures placed upon them
by the limited room in which the traditions of their class and the prospect of fundamental
change allowed them space to manoeuvre.”5 A daughter was commonly taught to read and
write in English and perhaps a second language, such as French, but further education was
thought unnecessary since her expected goal in life was marriage. Gregory learned
French, the requisite language for well-bred girls. However, she also taught herself
German, Italian, and Irish.6 Members of the Anglo-Irish Ascendancy were gentility and, as
a class, generally thought vocations for men and women to be vulgar. If an upper class
woman had the desire or need to work, “she would have a better chance” of pursuing
employment in England, “unobserved, either by their peers in Irish society or by their
social inferiors.”7 Upper class women were expected to remain quiet on political or social
issues, while men of the same class were duty-bound to discuss such matters in print and
5Sawyer, 46. 6Quote from a typescript essay, “Irish Literature,” dated 24 Jan. 1907: C.L. Innes,Woman and Nation in Irish Literature and Society, 1880-1935 (Athens: U o f Georgia P, 1993) 154. 7Sawyer, 40. 25
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Figure 2.1 A bust of Lady Augusta Gregory by Epstein. (Courtesy o f Mrs. G. A. Duncan)
26
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. public speeches. There were, of course, women who defied these social codes and wrote
explicitly and implicitly on prominent issues, and who publicly supported nationalist
movements. However, they were the exception.
Despite the size of Gregory’s family, she did not develop close relationships with
her parents or her siblings. They thought her plain and unattractive, and unlikely to
receive any offers of marriage.8 Another factor which lessened her chances for marriage
was that after the famine the number of marriages sharply decreased in Ireland, though
primarily among the working and middle classes. This decline had more to do with the
economy than it did with young people’s decision to abstain from the sacrament. Most
landlords allowed their tenants to choose a single (usually male) heir to take over their
property, even though most tenants did not own their land. The heir married a “downed
wife” and pooled together the property of two families. Since there could be only one
successor per family, “non-inheritors found themselves excluded from the marriage
market.”9 Yet, marriage remained one of the few choices for poor, working-class women.
Women of the Ascendancy had even fewer choices because of the prejudice against
working women. Women in Gregory’s class either married or became spinsters, the
former being preferred. On 4 March 1880, Gregory proved her family wrong when she
married Sir William Gregory, an Anglo-Irish landowner and former governor to Ceylon.
Her marriage to Sir Gregory, though not an ideal marriage, gave her the status and
8Mary Lou Kohfeldt Stevenson,”The Cloud of Witnesses,”Lady Gregory, Fifty Years After, eds. Ann Saddlemyer and Colin Smythe (Gerrards Cross, Bucks: Colin Smythe; Totowa, NJ: Barnes& Noble Books, 1987) 57-58. 9Hoppen, 146. 27
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. economic power necessary to move between both private and public spheres.10 Marriage
to the sixty-three-year-old Sir Gregory gave the twenty-eight-year-old Augusta the
opportunity to travel throughout Europe, develop her skills in the social circles of London,
and meet many of the esteemed writers, poets, and public figures of the day. She now had
the freedom and the approval of her husband to pursue her love of learning which her
mother had discouraged. Yet her social and economic position changed little since she
remained firmly a part o f the landowning class, moving from her parents’ home to Sir
Gregory’s house, Coole Park. She rarely faltered in the role expected of her as wife,
mother, and daughter. Despite a temporary affair with the poet Wilfrid Blunt in 1882,
Gregory remained devoted to her husband and family. Gregory’s biographer, Mary Lou
Kohfeldt, describes Gregory as “parent-ridden” and thus “more prepared for the wifely
subordination of nineteenth-century marriages” than women who were indulged by their
parents.11 She grew up thinking that she bad not the beauty to capture the attention of a
husband or the capacity to achieve anything great in life, and so she followed her mother’s
example. When her son, Robert, was bom on 20 May 1881, another person was added to
the list of those whose needs she put before her own. Robert did not stop his parents from
taking extended vacations to London or the Continent, as was the fashion for wealthy
>0Nineteenth-century middle-class ideology relegated women to the private or domestic sphere and away from the public sphere, reserved for men. (See Judith L. Stephens, “Gender Ideology and Dramatic Convention in Progressive Era Plays, 1890-1920,” Theatre Journal 41.1 (Mar. 1989)283.) “Mary Lou Kohfeldt,Lady Gregory: The Woman Behind the Irish Renaissance (New York: Atheneum, 1985) 40.
28
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Victorian era couples who would leave their child at home with a nurse. However,
Gregory spoke often in her diaries o f missing her “baby.”12
Following her husband’s death in 1892, the second half of Gregory’s life was in
stark contrast to the first half. It was almost as if she had been given a second chance at
life. With her husband gone, and her son away at boarding school, Gregory had freedom
to pursue her own interests, to determine of her own accord “how she would live, where
she would live, and what she would live for.”13 Her involvement in Irish literary and
political organizations deepened as it did for so many others between 1890 and 1920.
Ireland’s growing pains during these years, a “crowded hour in Ireland’s history,”14 were
intense and eventually gave rise to a new Irish Free State in 1921. The events of those
years, the 1913 “lock out,” or strike, organized by James Connolly, the 1916 Easter
uprising, the “Troubles” of 1919-1921, and the subsequent Irish Civil War of 1922-1923
are well documented.15 These years were also marked by the “Celtic Revival,” or as Irish
literary historian Ann Saddlemeyer suggests, the “re-naming or re-ordering of a familiar
l2In her diary, Gregory does not refer to her son by his given name until well after his birth.
l3Kohfeldt, 91. I4T. W. Moody and F. X. Martin, eds.,The Course o f Irish History (Cork: Mercier Press, 1978)312. 1 information on these significant events can be found in several sources, including, but not limited to, K. Theodore Hoppen’sIreland Since 1800: Conflict and Conformity (London and New York: Longman, 1989); Mike Cronin’sA History o f Ireland (New York: Palgrave, 2001); Rosemary Cullen Owens’sSmashing Times: A History o f the Irish Women’s Suffrage Movement 1889-1922 (Dublin: Attic Press, 1984); and Karl S. Bottigheimer’s Ireland and the Irish: A Short History (New York: Columbia UP, 1982).
29
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. trait, the ‘folk spirit’”16 by Anglo-Irish intellectuals such as Douglas Hyde, Yeats, and Sir
James Frazier. It was in this milieu that Gregory discovered a new passion during the last
half of her life.
As a traditional widow, Gregory wore black from 1892 until her death, changing
out of mourning clothes only for weddings, for which she wore purple. But her widow’s
weeds did not hamper her activities in literary, social, and political circles. As Kohfeldt
noted, Gregory continued to wear black long after her husband’s passing “when she was
anything but mourning.”17 In 1894, when her husband’s debts threatened the loss of the
Coole estate, she launched a literary career by editing and publishing her husband’s
autobiography.18 She subsequently edited and published her father-in-law’s letters. The
income from these books helped ensure that Coole would remain in the Gregory family
until her son Robert came o f age and took ownership o f the home.19 She met William
Butler Yeats in London for the first time that year, though their friendship, which would
prompt the establishment of the Irish Literary Theatre (ILT) in 1897, did not truly begin
I6Richard Fallis, The Irish Renaissance (Syracuse: Syracuse UP, 1977) 60. 17Kohfeldt, 107.
l8Gregory did publish an essay and a pamphlet prior to this date, “Arabi and His Household” in 1882 and “A Phantom’s Pilgrimage: or Home Ruin” in 1893. However, it is the work she did on her husband’s autobiography that seems to have given her the confidence to think of herself as a writer. I9R.F. Foster articulates well Gregory’s financial hardships: “It was true . . . that Coole was a poor estate, run on the margin, and that Gregory had spent twenty years in retrenchment trying to pay off debts; but this was not the public perception of landlords and colonial governors in the Ireland o f 1909 and 1910"(R. F. Foster,W. B. Yeats: A Life; I: The Apprentice Mage 1865-1914 (Oxford: Oxford UP, 1997)) 412.
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Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. until they met again in August 1896. They proved influential upon one another, Yeats
offering Gregory the inspiration to contribute to the Irish literary movement, and Gregory
providing an Irish base for Yeats and a mentorship that “would in many ways replace his
family.”20 After that second meeting, inspired by the occult-influenced folklore that Yeats
had published, Gregory began collecting folklore from her tenants. According to
Kohfeldt, she published one tale anonymously in an English periodical, but gave the rest of
her notes to Yeats to write up and publish under his name believing that he needed the
money more than she did.21 In his recent biography of Yeats, R. F. Foster clarifies
Gregory and Yeats’s collaboration on the Gort folklore and fairytales. The collected
stories were “initially conceived as a book but eventually took the form of six long essays
by WBY, published between 1897 and 1902.”22 Foster concedes that most of the material
was provided by Gregory and says that she “placed the second essay in theNineteenth
Century, n23 which confuses the authorship. However, the important matter about which
both Foster and Kohfeldt agree is the collaboration between Gregory and Yeats early on in
their friendship. Concurrently, Yeats and Gregory worked on individual projects. By
1898 Gregory had written her first play, Colman and Guaire, a religious verse play about
20R. F. Foster, 170.
2'Kohfeldt, 105. Kohfeldt adds that the stories were “published by editors to whom Augusta introduced” Yeats. “Foster, 170.
^Foster, 170. “Ireland Real and Ideal” was also publishedThe in Nineteenth Century. Foster states that Gregory also published articles “on fairy traditions, folk-tales and language revival” in theSpectator, the Westminster Budget, the Kilkenny Moderator, and the DublinDaily Express (Foster, 169).
31
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. two of Galway’s mythological heroes, Saint Colman and King Guaire. It was published in
1930 under the title,My First Play , but never produced. Although her direct involvement
in Dublin theatre did not begin until the establishment o f the Abbey Theatre in 1904,
Gregory was influential in securing the funds necessary to start the ILT. Her passion for
Yeats’s poetry and plays, and for promoting the idea of a theatre for the Irish people
helped make ILT, and later the Abbey, a reality.
The Abbey Theatre came into being through the creativity, passion, and
participation o f several dramatic and Irish nationalist groups individuals. The society
created and led by Gregory, as well as Yeats, Edward Martyn, and George Moore, was
the Irish Literary Theatre (ILT). The members of ILT set out to produce noncommercial
Irish plays to develop an Irish school of dramatic literature.24 In order to perform in
Dublin, the ILT members had to challenge a city ordinance prohibiting theatrical
performance in public halls, outside of the designated public theatre buildings. Gregory
successfully persuaded W. H. Lecky, an acquaintance in parliament, to make an addendum
to the ordinance allowing public halls to be licenced for performances. As a result, the
ILT gave its first presentations, Yeats’sThe Countess Cathleen and Martyn’sThe
Heather Field , both with English actors, on 8 May 1899 in Dublin’s Antient Concert
Rooms. Over the next two years, ILT produced Alice Milligan’sThe Last Feast o f the
Fianna (19 Feb. 1900), Martyn’s Maeve (19 Feb. 1900), The Bending o f the Bough (20
Feb.1900), and George Moore and Yeats’sDiarmuid and Grania (21 October 1901).
24Hugh Hunt,The Abbey: Ireland’s National Theatre 1904-1978 (New York: Columbia University Press, 1979) 18. The ILT was formally founded at a Council of the National Literary Society meeting on 16 Jan. 1899 (Hunt, 19).
32
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. These were presented at the Gaiety Theatre and performed by English actors. Douglas
Hyde, the president o f the Gaelic League and future president of Ireland, wrote a play in
Irish, Casadh an tSugain (The Twisting of the Rope), which was presented by Gaelic
League members on 21 October 1901 followingDiarmuid and Grania.25 According to
historian Mary Trotter, the ILT directors had no plans to continue producing theatre
beyond their intended three years in 1901.26 However, Yeats, inspired by W.G. Fay’s
Ormond Dramatic Society and Inghinidhe na hEireann’s (Daughters of Erin) June 1901
performances of Alice Milligan’sThe Deliverance o f Red Hugh andThe Harp That Once,
and P. T. MacGinley’sEilis agus Bhean Deirce (Eilish and the Beggarwoman), made a
decision to pursue the idea of an Irish national theatre.27
Inghinidhe na hEireann, led by Maud Gonne, a nationalist leader and friend to
Yeats, had been performingtableaux vivants and short one-act pieces on a regular basis
since early 1901. Like Gregory, Gonne, who came from a wealthy, upper class Anglo-
Irish family, used her privilege to the advantage of the Irish nationalist movement. Her
charm and her beauty won her the praises of many, including Yeats, who fell in love with
^Future Abbey director and playwright, J. M. Synge, was in the audience for these final ILT productions (Robert Welch,The Abbey Theatre 1899-1999: Form and Pressure (Oxford: Oxford UP, 1999) 13).
26Mary Trotter, Ireland’s National Theaters: Political Performance and the Origins o f the Irish Dramatic Movement (Syracuse: Syracuse UP, 2001) 92. Adrian Frazier supports this point inBehind the Scenes: Yeats, Homiman, and the Struggle for the Abbey Theatre (Berkeley: U o f California P, 1990) 45.
27Trotter, 92-93. (Robert Hogan and James Kilroy state that the performances occurred on 26 and 27 August 1901.) Inghinidhe na hEireann commissioned Fay’s troupe to perform the plays.
33
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. the six-foot Gonne. Biographer Elizabeth Coxhead correctly states, however, that
Gonne’s “[pjhysical perfection alone could not have”28 won for her the political stature
she achieved. Her public speaking skills allowed her to capture a crowd’s attention, even
among nationalist men’s organizations, which usually took a strong anti-feminist stance
against women visitors. She became, according to Trotter, an “extraordinary” woman.
Trotter notes, ‘Irish women could not transgress their society’s rigid gender roles by
‘passing’ as men in doing men’s work in the public sphere. Rather, to perform typically
male political tasks in the nationalist movement, such as making political speeches or
assuming leadership roles, they had to transcend both the masculine and feminine spheres
by becoming ‘extraordinary’ women.”29 However, Gonne’s extraordinary status did not
tarnish her image as an ideal female in full support of her countrymen’s fight against
England, nor did it set a precedent for all Irish women.30 Women who were eager to
become involved in the nationalist movement were excluded from all nationalist
organizations except the Gaelic League. Gonne and others, including Maire Nic
Shiubhlaigh and Hannah Sheehy (later Sheehy-Skeffington), founded Inghinidhe na
hEireann in 1900 to provide Irish women with a nationalist organization they could join.
The group taught classes in Irish history, language, and music, and sponsoredcetlis, Celtic
28Elizabeth Coxhead, Daughters o f Erin: Five Women o f the Irish Renaissance (Gerrards Cross: Colin Smythe, 1979) 19.
29Trotter, 78-79. 30Trotter, 79. 34
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. dances, once a month. They additionally created and performed in nationalist dramatic
pieces.
In 1902, Inghinidhe commissioned W. G. Fay’s amateur Ormond Dramatic Society
to stage George “A. E.” Russell’sDeirdre , which Fay, by then an accomplished
professional actor/director who also had connections with Inghinidhe na hEireann, helped
Russell complete. Since the length of the final script could not provide a full evening’s
entertainment, Yeats gave FayCathleen ni Houlihan,31 which he had written with
Gregory. The plays were performed on 2 April 1902 by Irish actors from both Fay’s
troupe and Inghinidhe na hEireann under the title W. G. Fay’s National Dramatic
Company. This momentous event brought W. G. and his brother, Frank Fay, also an
actor, into contact with Yeats, Gregory, and the members of Inghinidhe na hEireann. In
August 1902, members of the Irish National Dramatic Company (INDC) formed a new
society. They invited Russell to be the society’s president. When he declined, they
extended the offer to Yeats. Maud Gonne, Douglas Hyde, and Russell were named vice
presidents, and players, including Frank Walker and Sara Allgood, and playwrights, such
as Lady Gregory and J. M. Synge were elected into the society. Still under the heading of
the INDC, the Fays produced Fred Ryan’sThe Laying o f the Foundations and Seumas
O’Cuisin’sThe Sleep o f the King andThe Racing Lug in October of 1902 for Cumann na
nGaedheal. The following year, on IS February 1903, the Irish National Dramatic
Company (also referred to as the Irish National Dramatic Society) became the Irish
National Theatre Society (INTS) and reconstructed itself “as a co-operative venture rather
3lTrotter, 93.
35
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. than a commercial undertaking.”32 The new society included a re-elected Yeats as
president, and Maud Gonne, Douglas Hyde, and Russell as vice-presidents. W. G. Fay
became the company’s stage manager, and Ryan its secretary. Later that year a short
lived reading committee was created, consisting of Yeats, Russell, playwright Padraic
Colum, and the Fays. The committee needed a seventy-five percent consensus before
approving a play for production.33 The society produced two evenings of performances in
Dublin in 1903. On 14 March, in Camden Street Hall, INTS opened with Yeats’sThe
Hour-Glass and Gregory’sTwenty-Five , her first play to be produced. Yeats also gave a
speech that night on “The Reform of the Theatre.” In October 1903, the society produced
Synge’s In the Shadow o f the Glen and Yeats’sThe King’s Threshold in the Molesworth
Hall. The society allowed for great diversity in political thought amongst the writers and
players, undoubtedly helped by its amateur status. Members were concerned not with
making a profit, but with pursuing and presenting their political and literary principles.
On the 2 May 1903, the society crossed the Irish Sea at the invitation of Stephen
Gwynn, secretary for the Irish Literary Society in London, to perform five pieces at the
Queen’s Gate Hall in London. Major London critics, including William Archer, attended
and praised the players for their efforts. Back in Dublin, however, problems surfaced
among the membership. Fights for control of the society, its policies and its goals, and
ideological struggles over Synge’sThe Shadow o f the Glen (October 1903), resulted in
32Robert Welch, The Abbey Theatre 1899-1999: Form and Pressure (Oxford: Oxford UP, 1999) 22. 33Welch, 22.
36
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. the abrupt departure of Gonne and Hyde, and the actors Maire T. Quinn and Dudley
Digges. Within months of the creation of the reading committee, Yeats overruled the
committee’s decision to reconsider staging J. H. Cousins’sSold. This caused the society’s
dissolution and eventually led to the withdrawal o f Gonne and Hyde in October 1903
when their arguments against producing Synge’sIn the Shadow o f the Glen were
ignored.34 Gonne, Hyde, and other nationalists believed the play to be a shocking and
unrealistic portrayal o f Irish rural life. The play centers on an old man, Dan Burke, who
pretends to be dead in order to test his young wife’s faithfulness. A tramp wanders in, and
Nora, the young wife, lets him into her house. While she is out o f hearing, Dan lets the
tramp in on his plan. Nora comes back with another, younger man, who proposes
marriage to her. Dan reveals he is alive and banishes Nora from the house and any
inheritance. Her young suitor rejects her because she no longer has money, but she
accepts the tramp’s offer to travel with her.
Synge’s play highlighted the conflict brewing within the INTS between the
nationalists and the artists. Gonne and other nationalists believed the INTS should be a
tool of patriotism, while Yeats, Gregory, Synge, and the Fays believed artistry more
important than propaganda. By the time the Abbey Theatre opened on 27 December
1904, the earlier connections between the INTS and the nationalist organizations
Inghinidhe na hEireann and Cumman na GaedheaL, had been severed. This was mostly due
to the society’s acceptance in 1903 o f money from Annie Fredrika Homiman, a wealthy
34Welch, 22. Synge’s play was produced along with Yeats’sThe King's Threshold at the Molesworth Hall on 8 October 1903. 37
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Englishwoman and friend to Yeats, whom she had met through the mystical Golden Dawn
society. She came from a Quaker family that made its money in the tea industry, and,
because she never married, remained in control o f her wealth. Horniman believed in
equality for men and women, but favored the less militant, less forceful suffragist cause, an
influence of her Quaker upbringing. She did, however, challenge acceptable behavior for
women of her class by smoking cigarettes - perceived as an act of rebellion - wearing
bloomers, riding bicycles, and traveling across Europe and North Africa without a
chaperone.3S Horniman also started her own successful theatre company in 1908 in
Manchester, England, which performed in a theatre she had purchased, the Manchester
Gaiety.36
In 1894 Horniman financed the production o f Yeats’s firstThe play, Land o f
Heart’s Desire , at the Avenue Theatre in London,37 and in 1903 she costumed Yeats’s
production ofThe King's Threshold for the INTS, and offered to buy a permanent space
for “his” company to work. Yeats had insinuated in letters to Gregory as early as 1900
that he knew of a rich benefactor who would be willing to finance a theatre. Historian
Adrian Frazier confirms the “rich benefactor” was Horniman and suggests that Horniman
was in love with Yeats. She had served as his secretary during the 1890s and regularly
wrote letters to him. Hugh Hunt notes in history of the Abbey Theatre that Horniman had
35 Adrian Frazier, Behind the Scenes: Yeats, Horniman, and the Struggle for the Abbey Theatre (Berkeley: U ofCA P, 1990) 156. 36Horniman suspended the company in 1917. She hoped to start-up again after the war ended, but she never did. 37Yeats’s play was a curtain-raiser for Shaw’sThe Arms and the Man.
38
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. a “maniacal hatred of Irish politics,”38 and, according to Frazier, made her offer of the little
theatre on Abbey Street to Yeats on condition that he agreed to produce plays that were
apolitical. Yeats, Gregory, and Synge were interested in producing art rather than
political propaganda, but were more sympathetic to the Irish nationalist cause than
Horniman. Frazier noted that in Dublin in 1904 it was “a rule o f thumb that where a
doctrine of no politics was affirmed with fervor, one should look for its politics.”39
After Horniman made her offer, W. G. Fay suggested they renovate the
Mechanic’s Institute on Abbey Street and Marlborough Street, which had been formally
used as a vaudeville hall. Joseph Holloway, who attended almost every Dublin theatrical
performance between 1890 and 1940 and took copious notes about the productions in his
journals, was chosen to design the Abbey Theatre, which had a capacity of 536.
Horniman’s residence in England prevented her from getting the patent for her new Dublin
theatre. Thus, Gregory applied for the patent. Horniman’s involvement with Yeats and
the Abbey continued until 1910. Tensions had been building between the directors and
Horniman for several years and, in December 1909, Horniman agreed to sell the Abbey to
Yeats and Gregory for a down payment of £428 and £1000 quittance. She agreed to pay
her subsidy of £800 for 1910, but changed her mind when the Abbey directors failed to
close the theatre upon the death of King Edward of England. A messy battle ensued,
which was finally ended by an outside mediator who sided with the directors. Horniman’s
decision meant that Gregory and Yeats had to concern themselves more with the state of
38Hunt, 60. 39Frazier, 88-89.
39
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. the Abbey’s finances, but her actions did not do any permanent damage to the theatre. In
November 1910, at the end of the original six-year patent, Gregory renewed the Abbey’s
patent for twenty-one years.
In 1905 Yeats reorganized the society when Horniman offered to guarantee annual
salaries of up to £500 for the players. He subsequently set about insuring control of the
Abbey by creating a directorial triumvirate of himself Gregory, and Synge, who had
become one of the society’s most popular playwrights. Yeats also arranged for Russell,
whose popularity exceeded his own among the players, to draw up a “constitution
whereby the new society would be a society of authors and other nominated individuals.”40
The players in the new society would have no voting rights, and no voice regarding what
plays the society should produce or where the society should tour. Opposition to the
reorganization led to the walkout by several of the players in January of 1906. Later that
year on 22 September at a general meeting of the INTS, Yeats urged a reluctant Russell to
move a resolution to dissolve the existing society and form a private limited company, the
Irish National Theatre Society Limited (INTSL). The vote carried fourteen to one, and on
24 October the new society was registered under the Friendly and Industrial Societies Act.
The direction of the plays during the Abbey’s early years was the responsibility of
W.G. Fay, although Gregory and Yeats observed rehearsals, especially of their own plays,
on a regular basis. In January 1907 Fay’s role changed. Yeats and Horniman wanted
English director Ben Iden Payne hired as the Abbey’s first salaried play director at £500
40Welch, 34.
40
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. annually for a six-month trial period.41 Gregory explained to Synge in a letter that she
“would not for a moment think of accepting this ‘fancy man’,”42 but the need to keep
Yeats from resigning his position at the Abbey and taking his friendship and his plays to
Homiman’s London theatre took precedence over Gregory’s desires. Payne resigned after
his trial period, believing that “an English manager is out of place in an Irish national
theatre,”43 and W.G. Fay continued to direct the Irish peasant plays, but Yeats and
Homiman’s decision to hire Payne caused considerable restructuring in the Abbey’s staff.
Positively, the restructuring allowed for the introduction of many new talented individuals
into the Abbey fold. Yeats had wanted to bring in Payne and other theatre professionals
to increase the level o f professionalism at the Abbey. Horniman, according to Frazier,
wanted to bring in English professionals to make the company more English.44 Their
attempts caused the departure of the Fay brothers in 1908, along with one of the
company’s leading actors, W.G. Fay’s wife, Brigid Dempsey. All resigned after W. G.
Fay unsuccessfully sought to gain control over an acting company that he perceived had
lost respect for him. The actor J. M. Kerrigan took over Frank Fay’s role as vocal coach,
and Sara Allgood, the Abbey’s leading actress at the time, was temporarily appointed to
4lThe trial period was imposed by Synge and Gregory (Welch, 41). 425 January 1907 (Foster, 356).
43Ben Iden Payne, letter to the Abbey directors; qtd. in Frazier, 197. '“Frazier, 191-192. Frazier also states that Horniman wanted to pay the English professionals more than the Irish actors and directors, which he interpreted as favoritism.
41
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. the position o f stage manager.45 In early April 1909, the directors appointed the theatre’s
first salaried managing director, playwright F. Norreys Connell.46 He left only three
months later on 2 July 1909 believing he annoyed the actors. A misunderstanding with
Horniman also motivated his departure. Seven months later in February 1910, Yeats
invited Lennox Robinson, a young Cork playwright, to Dublin and appointed him manager
and director o f plays. Robinson was only twenty-two and inexperienced, so Yeats sent
him to England for six weeks to study management with Dion Boucicault, son of the
famous playwright, and Bernard Shaw. His first production for the Abbey, Colum’s
Thomas Muskerry. premiered on 5 May.
The daily business of production at the Abbey was managed by several people in
1906 when the theatre became professional, including a secretary, stage manager,
prompter, and house manager. However, decisions made by Yeats, Gregory, and
Horniman, until 1910, always superseded those made by the Abbey’s staff. Connell
contended that he had only been “theoretically managing the Abbey company with Lady
Gregory on the one hand and Miss Horniman on the other doing their best to bedevil me,
in order to vent their spite on one another. . . .”47 Gregory and Yeats did, according to
historian Robert Hogan, take over much of the theatre’s business following the departure
4SHer appointment lasted three months. Foster states that Allgood’s appointment had “mixed results,” (378) and that her stage managing was “erratic” (397). 46 His play The Piper was performed at the Abbey in February 1908. 47NLI, MS 21,747, acc.3478 (in Welch, 50).
42
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. of the Fays and, subsequently the death of Synge.48 Horniman distanced herself from the
Abbey after the founding of the Manchester Gaiety in 1908, but still wrote frequently to
Yeats, demanding, among other things, that the players not be allowed to perform or
appear in anything involving “politics,” nor could they appear in anything without the
permission of the directors. One incident involving Sara Allgood especially infuriated
Horniman. In 1909 Allgood took part in a poetry reading for a ladies’ club meeting at the
home of a Mrs. Lyttleton. Supposedly the women at the meeting discussed women’s
suffrage. Horniman interpreted this as a political action and demanded that Connell,
Allgood, and the Abbey directors write her formal apologies. Homiman’s order resulted
in Connell’s resignation.49 Connell did direct most o f the Abbey’s plays during his time as
manager, but the directors and Horniman had the right and power to make any and all
important decisions that might impact the theatre’s public image. What is curious about
Connell’s memory of his Abbey experience is that he makes no mention o f Yeats,
suggesting that Gregory and Homiman’s relationship was the problem. That Gregory and
Horniman disliked one another is well known and documented. Foster claims that by
September 1905 Gregory had grown to loathe Horniman and her constant interference
into Abbey matters and Yeats’s life.50 Foster also suggests, based on “Gregory’s capacity
48Robert Hogan, The Abbey Theatre: The Years o fSynge 1905-1909 (Dublin: Dolmen P, 1978)193. 49Frazier, 50 and 226.
50Foster, 339.
43
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. for affairs with younger men”51 and the familiar tone in her letters to “Willie,” that
Gregory may have been in love with Yeats. Gregory had two affairs during her life, with
Wilfrid Scawen Blunt in the mid-1880s and with John Quinn around 1911, both of whom
were younger than Gregory. Yet there is no evidence to prove that Gregory’s relationship
with Yeats developed into more than friendship. Gregory and Horniman each had a
vested interest in Yeats. Horniman wanted to produce his plays in a non-political art
theatre, preferably in England, and Gregory wanted to create a theatre and dramatic
tradition in Ireland for Ireland. These conflicting goals for Yeats and the Abbey may
explain why Connell felt “bediviled” by the two women.
The executive structure within the Abbey Theatre changed little until well after
Lady Gregory’s death in May 1932. Following the death of Synge in 1909, the Abbey
board of directors, then known as the directorate, had two members, Gregory and Yeats,
who controlled all matters until April 1924 when Lennox Robinson became a share-holder
and member. No other members were added to the board until the Irish government
awarded a state subsidy to the Abbey in 1925, requiring the addition of a government
representative to the board. The management roles also remained relatively unchanged up
to Gregory’s death, the exception being the addition of A.(Andrew) Patrick Wilson as
general manager and producer in 1915, and the reappointment of a secretary in 1932 to
help with business and financial matters. The addition of these new positions did not
create new responsibilities within the company, but reorganized the duties that had been
5‘Foster, 171-2.
44
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. performed by Gregory, Robinson and a few others. The new positions were the natural
result of a theatre company growing from an amateur organization into a professional one.
Lady Gregory officially joined the Abbey board in 1905, although she had been
writing plays, finding costumes and financial backers, and doing what she could to get
audiences into the Theatre since 1897, with the creation of the ILT. She remained on the
Abbey’s board until her death in 1932, staying as active as possible in the running of the
theatre except when illness prevented her from doing so. She had become immersed in the
business of the theatre after the Fays’s departure and when Horniman revoked her subsidy
in 1910. Before these changes, Gregory stayed at a distance from the actual practical
details of producing plays, apart from her own, devoting her time instead to her
playwriting. Brigit Fay (nee Dempsey) notes in a 1952 letter to her nephew Gerard Fay
that Lady Gregory “gave a considerable amount of her time to the administrative side of
the Abbey Theatre” after the Fays left in 1908.52 However, her increased involvement in
the theatre did not occur immediately. In a February 1908 letter to John Quinn, Gregory
speaks of Yeats as the one carrying on the daily administrative work for the theatre. She
believed that ‘“His creative work is worth a good deal more to us all than the settling of a
dispute between Miss Allgood [and] Miss O’Donoghue or the extinguishing of the stage
carpenter’s pipe, but he really enjoys this administrative work for a while.”53 She also
speaks of her plans to step in and assume Yeats’s responsibilities when the time comes: “I
52NLI, MS 10,954 (3)
S3Foster, 380.
45
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Figure 2.2 Profile of Lady Gregory. (Courtesy of Colin Smythe)
46
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. am keeping outside, to be able to come in at the next split.”54 While Gregory may not
have planned at the beginning of her involvement with the Irish artistic and nationalist
movements to become a director of plays, as well as an artistic and business manager of a
theatre, she absorbed the many of the Fays’ duties of upon their departure.
Although Gregory never held the titles of stage manager, managing director, or
producer, she attended rehearsals regularly, offering insight and advice to the actors and
the director, and sometimes took on the role of director. In a short, posthumous essay
about Yeats entitled “As Man of the Theatre,” Robinson recalled that Yeats and Gregory
supervised “the production of every play produced in those early days,”55 especially the
production o f their own plays. He is correct in noting that Yeats and Gregory
“supervised” rehearsals. W. G. Fay assigned the blocking, while Yeats concentrated on
how the words were spoken, and Gregory served as a second set o f eyes in the room, as
an assistant director would today. Theatre devotee Joseph Holloway recalls, in his
journal, that in the early days of the Irish National Theatre Society, Gregory “was the very
opposite to W. B. Y. in sitting quietly and giving directions in quiet, almost apologetic
tones.”56 When the Fays were no longer at the Abbey to stage the plays and conduct
character work with the actors, Gregory and Yeats became more than supervisors.
Gregory’s journals indicate that she directed many of the productions at the Abbey
^Foster, 380.
55Lennox Robinson, “As Man of the Theatre,”The Arrow, 20. 56Joseph Holloway, The Abbey Theatre, ed. Robert Hogan and Michael J. O’Neill (Carbondale: Southern IL UP, 1967) 45.
47
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. between 1916 and 1929, and James Pethica, editor Ladyof Gregory’s Diaries 1892-1902 ,
asserts that from “late 1909 onwards, Lady Gregory indeed took the lion's share of
directorial responsibility, and Yeats began to distance himself from the day-to-day running
of the Abbey.”57 In an entry dated 27 March 1919, Gregory writes of the events of the
previous week which included rehearsals for Shaw’sJohn Bull’s Other Island:
Back to lunch with the chicks and then to theatre again, and at last, after 3,
Brefihi O’Rourke arrived and began his rehearsal. He had acted the part
eight years ago and didn’t seem to know the words at all. Millington
helped me very much by taking the children to the Zoo. They weren’t back
till 6, and then I took them home and when I put them to bed I had some
tea and went off again to the dress rehearsal. We ran through the scenes
with the tower in the background and Farrell sat wordless and motionless,
having forgotten his part (I had to get that scene on again), and Miss
Magee seemed to have forgotten hers, and all the performance was slow,
and Broadbent wanted me to cut his last scene with Nora . . . but I
wouldn’t - she is charming in it — and I told her not let him o ff.. . The
rehearsal was on the whole promising, they were only shaky in words. And
Robinson was to have come but didn’t till about 11 o ’clock, but I felt
justified in leaving without waiting for the first performance though I
should have to see it after all my work. Home close to midnight, dead
S7James Pethica, e-mail to author, 29 Nov. 2001. Pethica is currently working on an edition of Gregory’s letters c. 1909-1916. 48
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. tired, could hardly crawl into bed... It was interesting work in Dublin
though a strain, and I was glad to find I could still do good work; and the
first performance went well and has good notices.58
Other evidence, including Kohfeldt’s biography of Gregory, suggests that
rehearsing the actors, rather than supervising the work of the manager, was not beyond
her capabilities nor beneath her status. Lennox Robinson lists Gregory as the producer for
only two productions,The Full Moon (10 November 1910) andThe Deliverer (12
January 1911), in hisIreland’s Abbey Theatre: A History 1899-1951. However,
Robinson’s detailed list of Abbey productions is problematic for two reasons. First, he
only accounts for the first productions o f plays at the theatre. Secondly, he provides
information about the production from the original programs, in which the producer did
not receive credit until May 1910. Gregory had a hand in the production o f her plays at
the Abbey, and took charge of many o f the Abbey productions following the departure of
the Fays and the death of Synge. Thus, she actually produced at least five first
productions at the Abbey between January 1909 and December 1910,The Miser (21
January 1909),The Image (11 November 1909), her translation of Carlo Goldoni’s
Mirandolina (24 February 1910), The Travelling Man (3 March 1910), andCoats (12
January 1910). There is also enough evidence to identify Gregory as the director of
Shaw’s The Shewing-Up o f Blanco-Posnet (25 August 1909). In January 1909 she
rehearsed the production of her translationThe of Miser, just one month before being
58Augusta Gregory,Lady Gregory's Journals: Vol. ed.I, Daniel J. Murphy (New York: Oxford UP, 1978) 61. 49
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. struck with a severe illness, possibly a brain hemorrhage. The Irish Times's review of the
production commented on the satisfactory translation of the Moliere classic, and deemed
the play a success based on audience reception. The actors were said to be “well placed”
and credible in their roles, and the piece, which could have easily lapsed into exaggeration,
received the “careful treatment” it required.59
In August 1909 Gregory, aided by Sara Allgood,60 “took over rehearsals”61 of
Shaw’s The Shewing-Up o f Blanco Posnet, and fought Dublin Castle’s attempts to censor
the play as it had been in England. Kohfeldt states that Gregory found “an extraordinary
interest and excitement in the work”62 by her friend Bernard Shaw. The play features a
Colorado man who is arrested for stealing a horse and then acquitted because of a good
deed he performs. Foster, Yeats’s biographer, believes that Gregory actually believed the
play to be “a little sentimental [and] not very good,” but that she knew the Irish National
Theatre could not pass up the political opportunity to produce a play banned in London.63
The one-act play, subtitled “Sermon in Crude Melodrama,” attracted full houses as a result
of the controversy surrounding the Abbey’s decision to produce it. Overall, audiences
59Irish Times 22 January 1909: 9. “Tramble T. Turner, “George Bernard Shaw (1856-1950),”Irish Playwrights, 1880- 1995, eds. Bernice Schrank and William W. Demastes (Westport, CT: Greenwood P, 1997) 329. 6'Kohfeldt, 212.
62Kohfeldt, 212. See Lucy McDiarmid’s article, “Augusta Gregory, Bernard Shaw, and the Shewing-Up of Dublin Castle,” for a complete account of these events.{PMLA 109.1 [1994]) “Foster, 409. 50
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. responded enthusiastically. However, theIrish Times believed that the “enthusiasm of the
audience . . . was probably mainly due to a certain artificial excitement attending the
production.”64 The reviewer for theIrish Times also described the play itself as “second-
rate stuff’ that fails to expose the deeper philosophical and religious meaning behind the
text, and noted that the Abbey loses something when it produces plays outside of Irish
plays.65 Sara Allgood was said to be “adequate” but “acutely uncomfortable” in her role
which was “quite outside her mental sympathies.” The same reviewer also criticizes the
manager for making Allgood “drop her voice” in a key scene.66 The LondonTimes's
reviewer had a different perspective, noting that though the Abbey company usually gave
audiences “dim stories of saints and heroes” they should be getting “as near as they do to
these male and female ruffians of the wilds.”67 In contrast toIrish the Times, the London
critic thought Allgood played her part with “power and purpose.”
The reviews of other Gregory productions provide little insight into her skills as a
director due to the their focus on the texts. Commenting on the Abbey production of
Gregory’s The Full Moon, the Irish Times said that the play “lacks incident,” is “too
mystic and its motive too elusive for the ordinary intellect,” and as a result “can hardly be
M“Abbey Theatre,” Irish Times 26 Aug. 1909: 9. 6S“Abbey Theatre,” Irish Times 26 Aug. 1909: 9.
^ ‘Abbey Theatre,” Irish Times 26 Aug. 1909: 9. 67“Bemard Shaw’s New Play,” The Times [London] 26 Aug. 1909. (Appears inThe Irish Times 26 Aug. 1909: 9.) 51
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Figure 2.3 Lady Gregory on the go. (Courtesy of Colin Smythe)
52
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. regarded as a valuable addition of the Abbey repertoire.”68 However, the play’s characters
were familiar to Abbey audiences, since they had appeared in Gregory’s other comedy
about Connaught peasants,Hyacinth Halvey, and they were “capably personated”69 by the
actors.
During the Abbey’s American tours in 1911, 1912, and 1913, according to
American newspapers, Gregory’s responsibilities included directing company rehearsals.
Robinson accompanied the company as its official manager, but Gregory, as the
representative of the board, had final authority. She promoted the tour and the Abbey
Theatre by granting interviews with the press, and giving lectures. According to Gregory,
she had not planned to travel with the players on their first United States tour in 1911, but
altered her agenda so that Yeats would be freed of the responsibility. Kohfeldt believes
the reason for this change of plan was because “Willie insisted he needed Augusta to
coach” a new actress in “the required dialect” of Pegeen Mike in Synge’sPlayboy o f the
Western World.10 Foster offers a different reason, viewing the 1911 United States tour as
the point of Yeats’s “gradual disengagement” from the theatre. Yeats, who “was
determined not to commit himself to touring with the Abbey,” planned only on “traveling
out for the advance publicity, spending a month at most, and leaving the players to
complete the tour until the following spring.”71 As a result the quick departure o f Yeats
68“The Full Moon,”Irish Times 11 Nov. 1910: 8. 69“The Full Moon,”Irish Times 11 Nov. 1910: 8. 70Kohfeldt,Lady Gregory, 223. 71Foster, 444. 53
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. back to Dublin, Gregory was described in several United States newspapers of the time as
the “director of the Abbey theater.”72 These interviews provide some idea of what
Gregory’s tour schedule was like. In September 1911, when she initially took over the
company’s first tour, she would “take charge of the rehearsals,” and be expected “to work
with the actors every morning.”73 A subsequent article acknowledges that Robinson, with
Lady Gregory, supervised “all the rehearsals of the Irish Players,” and notes that the
company toured with a forty-two-play repertory, any of which it could produce on
demand.74
In her journals, Gregory writes that she directed or rehearsed productions,
gathered costumes, and saw to Abbey business a great deal in her later years with the
Abbey. In several cases she traveled to Dublin from Coole in order to observe the
rehearsals o f her plays. This is true forThe Dragon (21 April 1919). Her entry for 19
April demonstrates her distant yet not entirely divorced involvement during one of the
final dress rehearsals:
Dragon rehearsal went well on the whole, though words are rather shaky
and the Queen bad, Mrs. MacS[wiggan], being English, has no respect for
words and hits with extraordinary perversity on the wrong one to
accentuate in each sentence. Some o f the others weak, but Miss Magee
^“Lady Gregory, Dublin, Theater Supervisor, Here to Direct Play”Boston Christian Science Monitor 29 Sept. 1911.
^“Of Boston and Bostonians I Expect Good Things,”Boston Christian Science Monitor 29 Sept. 1911.
74Lowell Sun 28 Oct. 1911. 54
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. charming and the Kind splendid, makes up for all. And Seaghan [Barlow]
has made a fine scene and Dragon, and there is so much good-will it
reminded me of old times there. Back from dress rehearsal at 11, pretty
tired.75
She also spent her visit to Dublin for theDragon rehearsals negotiating Robinson’s new
contract with the theatre. He insisted on a two-three year contract but she talked him into
a one-year contract. Gregory knew of Robinson’s predilection for alcohol and thought it
in the best interest of the theatre to give him a short-term contract. Subsequent entries in
her journals note that Gregory helped rehearse the revivals o f her playsBogie Men
(November 1919) andDarner's Gold (May 1920), though she does not give more specific
details. For example, her entry for 18 May 1920 states, “Rehearsing Damer’s Gold [.]
Kerrigan putting great life into it.”76 The next day’s entry reads, “Rehearsal, and to
National Gallery. . . .’,77 Gregory would have attended the rehearsals Davefor (9 May
1927) but she “couldn’t get away from home.” As a result, her impression of the
production was not positive: “ . .. Dolan was too much of an ordinary peasant and the
staging was dreadful. Instead of a rather superior room of a hundred years ago, it was a
poverty stricken kitchen with a quite new and vulgar rosewood chair the only sign of, I
can’t say comfort, but expenditure.... The clothes also bad, great carelessness in the
7SLady Gregory, Lady Gregory's Journals: Volume /, 64. 76Lady Gregory, Lady Gregory's Journals: Volume 161.I,
^Lady Gregory, Lady Gregory's Journals: Volume 161.I, 55
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Figure 2.4 Lady Gregory as Cathleen ni Houlihan with Arthur Shields as Michael (19 March 1919). (Courtesy of Colin Smythe)
56
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. production - my own fault for not coming up - or misfortune . . . -”78 Gregory suggested
casting choices for the productions of her own plays, as she didDave for in 1927, and
gathered costumes when necessary. The latter she did for a last minute substitution of
Arms and the Man (Nov. 1922) for John Bull's Other Is la n dOne o f the highlights in
Gregory's Abbey career came in March 1919 when she filled in for Maire Nic Shiubhlaigh
as Cathleen in the Abbey revival o fCathleen Ni Houlihan.90 The Irish Times called her
performance “skillful and artistic,”81 and Gregory felt great pride in being able to add the
title of actress to her resume.
Gabriel Fallon, an actor during the 1920s and later a board member, recalled in his
unpublished history of the Abbey how Gregory managed rehearsals during 1921 when the
English Black-and-Tan militia terrorized Ireland. He described her “primly sitting - a
better looking version of Queen Victoria - in the middle seat of the front row of the stalls.
The rehearsal over she would gather us around her in the Green Room and distribute her
praise and blame. She wanted a little more of this or a little less o f that,”82 guiding the
actors to achieve the best possible performance, as would any director. Fallon also
78Lady Gregory, Lady Gregory s Journals: Volume ed.II, Daniel J. Murphy (New York: Oxford UP, 1978) 187.
TOLady Gregory, Lady Gregory’s Journals: Volume 417. I, 80She rehearsedJohn Bull’s Other Island from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. and then performed in the evenings. 9lIrish Times 18 March 1919: 7.
^Gabriel Fallon, excerpt from unpublished history of the Abbey Theatre,Lady Gregory, Fifty Years After , eds. Ann Saddlemyer and Colin Smythe (Gerrards Cross, Bucks: Colin Smythe; Totowa, NJ: Barnes & Noble Books, 1987) 30-31.
57
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. recalled when Gregory brought Yeats to observe a rehearsal, and introduced the poet to
the players. He suggested that Yeats had by 1921 distanced himself almost completely
from the Abbey of which he was still a board member, while Gregory devoted her time to
ensuring productions would continue even during political unrest in Dublin.
Recovering details of how Gregory ran rehearsals or what her daily duties were at
the Abbey is difficult, since her role was not clearly defined. She did what needed to be
done, taking over occasional rehearsals, or an entire rehearsal process if a director was
needed, and managing and promoting the United States tours. However, her title did not
change. Her journals are filled with brief, casual references o f being at the Abbey for
rehearsal, or attending to “various Theatre matters.”83 Her brief remarks are frustrating
for the scholar seeking to piece together a daily schedule. Gregory’s modesty also
obscures her accomplishments. For example, the additionCathleen of ni Houlihan in the
latest publication of the Penguin edition of her plays is one of the first to attribute the play
more to Gregory than to Yeats, despite Gregory’s public denial of authorship. She
quieted the protests o f her family who wanted her to receive credit for the play by saying
that “she could not take from Willie what was after all his only popular success.”84 In
another instance, Gregory’s daughter-in-law Margaret spoke of the last dress rehearsal for
Gregory’s production ofBlanco Posnet at which Yeats “‘asked [Gregory]... to let him
take the rehearsal, saying he wished the reporters to think he had stage-managed it,” and
“ Gregory, 545. “ Kohfeldt, Lady Gregory, 151.
58
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Gregory was “so used to giving way to him that she agreed.”’85 Ironically, Yeats
subsequently admitted privately that Gregory’s “authority, integrity and style had been
demonstrated at their best”86 during and after the productionPosnet. of A similar incident
of self-effacement occurred at the start of the first United States tour when a reporter
pointed out Gregory’s “positive and remarkable gift for theatrical production,” and she
“quickly changed the subject” as Yeats was “standing near by.”87 The evidence suggests
that Gregory was directly involved in the Abbey as a director and manager of plays from
the year 1909 until shortly before her death. Maire Nic Shiubhlaigh’s assessment of
Gregory in The Splendid Years supports this idea: “When, in 1910, she [Gregory]
assumed part control of the Abbey, the theatre became for her a life interest - as she wrote
herself one of her ‘enthusiasms.’ She was the Abbey’s self-appointed champion, and
doubtless but for her perseverance, the theatre might have closed its doors during the lean
years through which it passed after its establishment as an independent concern. .. .”88
However, the public perception was otherwise because of Gregory’s respect for Yeats,
whose work and career she always put before her own.
Of the many friendships she developed with the twentieth-century’s artistic
intelligentsia, Gregory’s relationship with Sean O’Casey is one that did not require her to
85KohfeIdt, Lady Gregory, 212.
“ Foster, 411. Foster adds that Gregory “stayed on in Dublin, supervising theatrical affairs” after Posnet while Yeats “went to Coole” (411). 87“Of Boston and Bostonians I Expect Good Things,”Boston Christian Science Monitor 29 Sept. 1911. 88Maire Nic Shiubhlaigh,The Splendid Years (Dublin: James Duffy & Co., Ltd., 1955) 30.
59
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. eclipse her contributions as a writer and theatre administrator. One gains the impression
from their letters written between 1924 and 1931 that they held a mutual appreciation for
one another that transcended class and gender boundaries. For example, in a 28 March
1928 letter, O’Casey expresses his admiration for Gregory’s strength and determination to
build a career for herself:
“Shaw once said that you were the most distinguished of living
Irishwomen. And now I have thought of our present-day country women.
.. [a]nd you are with us still, still in front of our women, though no chair
has been placed for you in the Senate or the Dail... . My dear Lady
Gregory you can always walk on with your head up. And remember you
had to fight against your birth into position & comfort as others had to
fight against their birth into hardship & poverty, & it is as difficult to come
out of one as it is to come out of the other.. .’,89
Although they came from disparate sections of Irish society - Gregory from Galway
aristocracy and O’Casey from the Dublin working classes - their shared desire and need
to rise above their stations gave them a common bond. According to Gabriel Fallon, also
a longtime friend to O’Casey, Lady Gregory was always more at home with workers than
she was with members of her own class, and she cared little for the middle class and its
pretensions.90 Not surprisingly, Gregory became a firm advocate for O’Casey following
89David Krause, ed.The Letters o fSeem O ’Casey, 1910-41 (New York: Macmillan Publishing Co., Inc., 1975) 232-233. ^Gabriel Fallon, Lady Gregory: Fifty Years After , 32.
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. the Abbey’s production of his first playThe Shadow o fa Gunman in 1923, and
encouraged him to develop his writing skills. She sent him several books, including the
books that had belonged to her son, not only to share her love o f literature with him but to
feed his imagination. Unfortunately, O’Casey all but broke off his friendship with Gregory
when she and the other Abbey directors rejected his fourth play,The Silver Tassie , in
April 1928. After that event O’Casey wrote only a few letters to Gregory, although
Gregory kept up her correspondence hoping for a reconciliation with her friend.
Historian Roger Sawyer writes, “Lady Gregory’s place in the Ascendancy, and her
early commitment to the Union . . . were less important than her contribution to the actual
substance o f the drama, especially through her influence on other playwrights,”91 such as
O’Casey. Sawyer is correct in suggesting that Gregory’s strength in playwriting had a
profound impact upon Irish theatre as she became one of the Abbey’s most popular
writers. However, he undervalues the influence her social and economic status had upon
her ability to be a leader in the Irish dramatic movement. Without her position within
Ireland’s upper class, Gregory would not have had the finances to help fund a theatre
society and found a theatre, and she may never have met Yeats. Prior to the death of her
husband, Gregory had been an ardent unionist and wrote essays on why Ireland should
reject the idea of Home Rule. Although she later changed her opinion, becoming a fervent
nationalist, she maintained her relationship with the unionists and members of the
Ascendancy. Without her connections, the ILT might never have materialized, nor any
other amateur dramatic society connected with the nationalist cause. In 1899, only two
9'Sawyer, 68. 61
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Figure 2.5 Lady Gregory on the lawn of Coole. (Courtesy of Colin Smythe)
62
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Dublin theatres held patents from the English-run Dublin government, the Royal and the
Gaiety, both o f which were expensive to book and usually housed English touring
companies during the regular theatrical season. The law was changed after Gregory used
her influence to break the monopoly.92 She used her position within the Irish aristocracy
and nationalist organizations to the advantage o f the Abbey.
Especially interesting is how she committed herself to a vocation whilemaintaining
the status o f an aristocratic woman. Like Gonne, Gregory existed as an extraordinary
woman who transcended the traditional feminine sphere without posing “a threat to male
authority in the public realm.”93 The height of Victorian thinking, which assumed a
woman’s “‘normal’ position was ‘the charge of the household. . . as wife and mother,”94
had begun to change by 1904, especially in an Ireland seeking to distance itself from
England.95 However, the changing perception of what was considered “normal” work for
Irish women had little effect on those of the Ascendancy class. Wealthy women had never
needed to work outside the home, and since the duties of child-rearing and house-keeping
could be fulfilled by domestic servants, they had little to do in the home. Charity work
had always been an acceptable form o f employment to which an upper-class woman could
devote herself without fear of being accused of transgressing her “normal” place.
92Sawyer, 68.
93Trotter, 79. ^Claudia D. Johnson,American Actress: Perspective on the Nineteenth Century, (Chicago: Nelson-Hall, 1984) 25. 9sThis perspective would revert once again to the Victorian ideal of womanhood after Ireland became a Free State and enforced Catholic doctrine. 63
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Gregory, who clearly did become a public figure in the literary and theatrical worlds,
encouraged the public to perceive her work for the Abbey as charitable rather than as
something she did for self-improvement and prestige. She demonstrates this point in a
letter to Yeats shortly before her death in which she states that she feels happy and
accepting of death because she believes she has “been of use to the country.”96 United
States newspapers during the first Abbey tour noted that Gregory devoted herself to the
Abbey, giving “practically all her time to writing plays for the company and superintending
their rehearsals,”97 but disclaiming financial interest. The public perception was that
Gregory’s work for the Abbey was a selfless contribution to her country.
Gregory was not the only woman of the Ascendancy to forge a public career.
Maud Gonne and Constance Gore-Booth Markievicz, each a member of upper class Irish
families, engaged prominently in the struggle for Irish independence by joining and
creating various nationalist organizations and speaking publicly in favor of separation from
England. Markievicz, in particular, despised the claustrophobic Ascendancy life from
which she came. She acknowledged her family’s embarrassment at her rebel activities, but
did not alter her course.98 In 1909 she founded a nationalist alternative to the Boy Scouts,
Fianna Eireann, in order to train young boys in weapons use and military tactics, was
elected to the Sinn Fein Executive Council, and became an officer in the Irish Citizen
Army. Both Gonne and Makievicz used their wealth and status to aid the Independence
%Quoted in: Kohfeldt,Lady Gregory, 301-302.
97Cincinnati Examiner 26Nov. 1911. 98Sawyer, 41-42. 64
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. cause as did Gregory to build and promote a theatre for Ireland. If Gregory found the
Ascendancy lifestyle restrictive, she did nothing to reject it. Whereas Markievicz’s and
Gonne’s marriages disintegrated, and their commitment to nationalism overshadowed
motherhood, Gregory firmly placed family before career.
Gregory was the only Irishwoman during the first decades of the twentieth century
to help found a professional theatre, but other women worked in various ways to help
establish a native drama. Before the twentieth century, professional Dublin theatres
housed mostly performances of plays imported from England with English actors. Irish
performers appeared in amateur theatricals and in music halls, but Irish actors who wanted
a successful stage career had to travel to England. The end of the nineteenth century,
however, saw the introduction of a native drama to Dublin audiences through the activities
of several women including Gregory, Gonne, Sara and Molly Allgood (Maire O’Neill),
Alice Milligan, and Mary Walker (Maire Nic Shiubhlaigh). Gonne, who appeared as the
Old Woman in the original 1902 productionCathleen o f ni Houlihan, also produced
tableaux and vignettes with the organization she founded, Inghinidhe na hEireann. The
most notable of these was a presentation of tableaux of famous women throughout
history, such as Joan of Arc. The Allgood sisters and Nic Shiubhlaigh played in the
INTS’s and the Abbey’s early productions, without whom the Abbey would not have had
such a successful start. It was the mix of the plays, by Synge, Gregory, Yeats, and others,
and the acting that brought in audiences to the Abbey. No other women of the
Ascendancy, middle class, or working class, held such a prominent position in a
65
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. professional theatre as Lady Gregory prior to 1928." Across the Irish Sea, where a
national theatre comparable to the Abbey did not exist until after World War II, major
venues such as the National Theatre and the Royal Court theatre were founded by men.
Homiman, like Gregory, is singular for founding her own theatre, which lasted in
Manchester from 1908-1917. Women were, of course,instrumental in m anagingtheatres
throughout the United States and England, as historians Tracy C. Davis, Faye E. Dudden,
and others have documented.100 Several women in England, Ireland, and the United States
also ran theatre societies, such as Gonne’s Inghinidhe, and led acting troupes, as did Edith
Craig for her Pioneer Players. However, the professional theatre world in those countries
remained a man’s domain throughout the early twentieth century.
As one of the Abbey Theatre’s founders and its first administrator, Gregory made
history by setting a precedent for women in Irish theatre. Fifty years would pass before
another woman sat on the Abbey board of directors or before another woman had even
some of the power Gregory had within the Abbey’s artistic management. Gregory used
her economic and social advantage, and her political connections, to help create an Irish
theatre for Irish people. In doing so, she forged a path acceptable to her own class as well
as to the working class and nationalist cause. By staying in the background she allowed
the public to view Yeats as the mastermind behind the Abbey. Yet, without Gregory’s
"The Gate Theatre named Madame Daisy Bannard Cogley to its board in 1928, the theatre’s inaugural year. '"Historians have examined the lives and careers of women such as Laura Keene and Susan Glaspell. The former ran a highly successful theatre, named for her, in New York City from (1855-1863), and Glaspell co-founded the Provincetown Playhouse with her husband in 1915.
66
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. constant attention to the theatre’s business, the Abbey might well not have weathered the
financial woes and political unrest of the first two decades. It is to her, more so than to
Yeats or any other Abbey founder, that credit is due for the Abbey’s survival during the
early years.
67
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. CHAPTER 3
“DOTH THE LADY PROTEST TOO MUCH?” RIA MOONEY: THE ABBEY’S FIRST WOMAN PRODUCER
“I never want to see a stage again,”1 former Abbey Theatre actress and director
Ria Mooney (1903-1973) wrote in a letter to newly appointed Abbey board member,
Micheal O hAodha. The letter, written 13 September 1966, is dated three years after
Mooney’s departure from the Abbey and clearly identifies her feelings of resentment
toward the Abbey and the profession of theatre. Mooney had spent almost her entire
career working on or behind the scenes of the Abbey Theatre. For fifteen of those years,
from 1948-1963, she held the position of primary producer, or stage director, of plays in
English. She was the first woman to do so. In her autobiography, Mooney blames Ernest
Blythe and the Abbey board of directors for what she considered “the nightmare that was
that period”2 of her final years as Abbey producer. Factors contributing to her
dissatisfaction at the Abbey were a small budget, undisciplined and disrespectful actors,
and little or no say in the choice of plays for the season. The Abbey employed Mooney in
this important post during a time when the south o f Ireland was “defined by an increasing
'13 Sept. 1966. (NLI)
2 Ria Mooney, “Players and the Painted Stage,” ed. Val Mulkems,George Spelvin’s Theatre Book 1.3 (Summer 1978): 116.
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Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. conservatism and the restriction of women’s rights.”3 Irish legislation did much to
undermine women’s equality as citizens by supporting the belief that a woman’s place was
in the home. Women’s access to certain professions was severely limited as a result.
Mooney’s admittance into a high ranking position at the Abbey Theatre suggests that
these restrictions placed on Irish women did not affect her career. However, as this
chapter will demonstrate, the Irish culture’s deep-rooted gender bias was responsible for
her not being taken seriously as producer.
Mooney’s theatrical career spanned four decades, from 1924 to 1963, a time when
the country experienced some of its greatest political and economic changes. Following
the end of the Irish Civil War (April 1921- April 1923), the first elected Free State
government, made up of pro-treaty Cumann na nGaedheal (Band of the Gaels) members,
took office in the Dail (Irish Parliament) under the leadership of W. T. Cosgrave. The
anti-treaty members who were elected to the Dail refused to take their seats in protest,
providing the Cumann na nGaedheal goverment with little opposition during the formation
of the new Free State. The Cosgrave government established the Irish police force (Garda
Siochana), and implemented the Treaty4 with Britain. Yet, it did little to challenge the
boundaries of the Treaty, did not force the implementation of the Irish language in the
schools, and was blamed for stagnation in the economy. The greatest changes in the new
3 Alan Hayes and Dia Urquhart, Introduction,The Irish Women’s History Reader, eds. Alan Hayes and Dia Urquhart (London and New York: Routledge, 2001) 3. 4 The Anglo-Irish Treaty signed on 6 December 1921 which granted Ireland Free State status.
69
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Free State occurred after the Cumann na nGaedheal party lost its majority in the Dail in
1932 and de Valera and his new party, Fianna FaiL, took office. Until 1948, Fianna Fail
worked for “national self-sufficiency,” and attempted “to restore Irish traditions, including
the language, to common usage.”5 This policy eliminated the oath to the British crown,
and initiated an economic battle with Britain from 1932 to 1938, partly by establishing
high Irish tariffs and heavy duties on Irish agricultural products exported to Britain.
Fianna Fail’s insular policies were also responsible for Ireland’s neutrality during World
War II. Also, during this period Ireland remained a predominantly rural society, while the
rest of the industrialized world embraced modernization. As a result of the economic
stagnation and insularity of Ireland under de Valera, emigration among the young Irish
remained high until the mid-1960s. In the meantime, several political parties both new,
such as Fine Gael and the radical Clann na Poblachta, and old, such as Fianna Fail, ushered
in the passage of the Republic of Ireland Act on 21 December 1948.
The greatest change for women instituted by the Free State or early Irish Republic
governments was the ratification of the new constitution on 1 July 1937, with de Valera as
the primary author. The articles o f the Constitution pertaining specifically to women
prescribe the role the State expected of Irish women as the moral pillar of the sacred
family unit in the new Irish society. The State recognized the “Family as the natural
primary and fundamental unit group of Society,”6 and thus guaranteed its protection. The
5 Mike Cronin, A History o f Ireland (Houndsmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire: Palgrave, 2001)213. 6 Bunreacht na hEireann (Constitution o f Ireland), (Dublin: Stationery Office, 1980) 136. (In Jenny Beale,Women in Ireland: Voices o f Change (Houndsmills, Basingstoke,
70
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. State also recognized that “by her life within the home, woman gives to the State a
support without which the common good cannot be achieved,”7 and ensured that “mothers
shall not be obliged by economic necessity to engage in labour to the neglect o f their
duties in the home.”8 Despite protests by a few women’s groups, such as the National
University Women Graduates’ Association, o f which the feminist campaigner Hannah
Sheeby Skeffington was a member, and the Joint Committee of Women’s Societies and
Social Workers, de Valera retained these articles, demonstrating that his vision of the Irish
woman “was that o f a full-time wife and mother in an indissoluble marriage, having a
‘preference for home duties’ and ‘natural duties’ as a mother.”9 These two women’s
groups influenced the government to make some alterations in the initial draft of the
Constitution. For instance, article 45.4.2 originally stated that the state would not allow
the “inadequate strength of women” to be exploited, and that Irish citizens “should not
have to enter ‘avocations unsuited to their sex, age or strength,”’10 but the government
Hampshire: Macmillan, 1986) 6) 7 Bunreacht na hEireann (Constitution o f Ireland), (Dublin: Stationery Office, 1980) 136. (In Beale, 7).
8 Bunreacht na hEireann (Constitution o f Ireland), (Dublin: Stationery Office, 1980) 136- 8 (In Beale, 7).
9 Yvonne Scannell, “The Constitution and the Role of Women,”The Irish Women’s History Reader, eds. Alan Hayes and Dia Urquhart (London and New York: Routledge, 2001)72.
10 Bunreacht na hEireann 1937, 152 (qtd. in Richard Kirkland, “Gender, citizenship and the state in Ireland, 1922-1990,”Ireland in Proximity: History, Gender, Space, eds. Scott Brewster, et al. (London and New York: Routledge, 1999) 99.)
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Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. was pressured into removing the phrase “inadequate strength of women” on the grounds
that it would create further restrictions on women’s employment.
Laws introduced by the Free State government prior to 1937 had already
established limits for women working outside the home. In 1924 and 1927, for example,
the Cosgrave government enacted legislation that made jury service mandatory for male
but not female taxpayers, thus restricting women’s rights to jury service. Women would
not be called to serve but would have to initiate their service." Other restrictive laws
included a 1925 act curtailing a woman’s right to take the Civil Service exam and 1932
legislation which made retirement compulsory for women teachers upon marriage. This
marriage bar was later extended to the Civil Service in 1956 under the Civil Service
Regulation Act. However, the 1935 Conditions of Employment Act had already
effectively allowed the government to ban the employment of women, or “fix the
proportion of female workers”12 in certain industries such as the Civil Service. Male
industrial employers and workers were in favor o f this bill out o f fear that women workers
“ would pose a serious threat”13 to male workers. With advances in mechanization,
physical strength became less necessary, thus opening these jobs to women. The 1929
legislation, The Censorship of Publications Act, heavily influenced by Catholic teaching,
11 Mary Robinson, “Women and the New Irish State,”Women in Irish Society: The Historical Dimension (Westport, CT: Greenwood P, 1979) 63. Only three women served on juries between 1927-1973. 12 Beale, 8.
13 Mary Clancy, “Aspects o f Women’s Contribution to the Oireachtas Debate in the Irish Free State, 1922-37,” The Irish Women’s History Reader, eds. Alan Hayes and Dia Urquhart (London and New York: Routledge, 2001) 67.
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Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. made the advocation for the use of contraceptives illegal. A subsequent Criminal Law
Amendment Act in 1935 made the sale or importation o f contraceptives illegal and, as a
result, married or unmarried women had no control over their ability to prevent
conception. The consequence of all this legislation was an environment of increased legal
limitations for Irish women. The promise made by the incipient Free State government o f
equality for all Irish citizens, regardless of sex, in the 1922 Free State Constitution was
mostly ignored during the middle of the century.
According to historian Jenny Beale, “the position of women in Irish society
remained relatively static” until the late 1950s because “Ireland was still a predominantly
rural country, industrialisation was slow and there was little public challenge to the
ideology that had formed the basis of the 1937 Constitution.”14 Not until the late 1960s
and early 1970s, when the Irish economy improved, did Irish women benefit from any
significant social change. Thus, the legislation passed during the 1920s and 1930s
remained in place while Mooney was the Abbey’s producer. Trade unions, such as the
Irish Women Workers Union, which fought to ensure equal pay and opportunities for
women, won better working conditions for Dublin laundry workers, factory workers, and
others. However, the number of women involved in trade unions remained low
throughout the mid-century, and this tended to hamper the effectiveness of these unions.
In general, women were paid for less than their male counterparts, sometimes earning one-
half or two-thirds o f what men earned. As a result, union fees were unaffordable for many
women. The static situation for women workers in Ireland was also influenced by their
14 Beale, 9.
73
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. own views that work was only a temporary activity before marriage. In reality, the
marriage rate was low due to economic reasons that kept many men and women
unemployed and forced others to leave the country. Immigration of Irish women to
England and the United States remained high during the mid-century, often as a result of
the bleak marriage prospects.15 The 1937 Constitution's idealization of the woman as
wife and mother limited married women’s rights, as did the marriage bar. Moreover,
societal perceptions, and in some cases legislation, violated the rights of single women.
For instance, Civil Service single women employees could not count on promotion since
“women from their entry until they reach the ages of 45 or 50 are looked on as if they
were loitering with intent to commit a felony - the felony in this case being marriage.”16
The bias against female employees by male supervisors and co-workers in conjunction
with the economic depression in Ireland during the 1950s contributed to the static
situation for women.
Mooney’s story, as relayed in her autobiography, is hardly suggestive of a static
life, which makes her a unique woman within the context of early- to mid-twentieth-
century Ireland. Although she spent most of her life living and working in Dublin, she
traveled to America, England, and France several times, and she worked as actress and
director in several different theatres. She fell in love with the poet F. R. Higgins, but
15 J. J. Lee, “Women and the Church since the Famine,”Women in Irish Society: The Historical Dimension, eds. Margaret Mac Curtain and Donncha O Corrain (Westport, CT: Greenwood P, 1979) 38-39. 16 Mary E. Daly, “Women, Work and Trade Unionism,”Women in Irish Society: The Historical Dimension, eds. Margaret Mac Curtain and Donncha O Corr&in (Westport, CT: Greenwood P, 1979) 76. 74
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. never married. She made her own choices and was in charge o f her career. She writes
that she “was born on May Eve,” April 30, 1903, when, according to Irish folklore, fairies
steal the souls of new brides and babies.17 Micheal MacLiammoir, the actor and director,
described her as a small woman “with hair as black as the hair of an Indian or a Japanese
doll.”18 Her family was middle class and lived above their shop in Lower Baggot Street, in
apparently comfortable conditions, in comparison to one-third of Dublin’s population
which lived in the impoverished slums of the city at the tum-of-the-century. In 1917,
when she was fourteen years old, her mother died. Her father’s grief caused him to
withdraw into himself and give up the paternal role of disciplinarian, which enabled her to
do as she pleased. Although not bitter, Mooney admits that during her teen years she
wondered whether her father “had ceased to care” about her and her siblings.19
At the age of eight, Mooney, who became a member o f Madame Rock’s dance
class in Dublin at age six, had her first unsuccessful audition at the Abbey Theatre for the
role of a fairy in Yeats’ The Land o f Heart's Desire. Years later she obtained a position
with the Abbey company, after first joining the Rathmines and Rathgar Musical Society in
1920 where she played soubrette roles in shows such Patienceas by Gilbert and Sullivan.
There she met Frank Fay who invited her to become his student, an offer she declined.
17 In 1895 in rural Tipperary, not for from Dublin, a twenty-six year-old woman was burned to death by her family who believed that a fairy had stolen the woman’s soul and taken up residence in her body. See Angela Bourke,The Burning o f Bridget Cleary: A True Story (London: Pimlico, 1999). 18 Micheal MacLiammoir, Introduction, “Players and the Painted Stage,” by Ria Mooney, ed. Val Mulkems,George Spelvin’s Theatre Book 1.3 (Summer 1978): 4.
19 Mooney, “Players and the Painted Stage,” 1.2: 27.
75
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Mooney notes in her autobiography that she had no intention of becoming a professional
actress and that Fay’s interest in her, and the roles - some even paying jobs - were
“thrust” upon her.20 After dabbling in film work with a small-budget picture,Wicklow
Gold, and participating in the Dublin Metropolitan School o f Art, she joined an amateur
drama group. Despite its amateur status, the group provided opportunities for Mooney as
well as the then unknown actor Barry Fitzgerald to be seen by Dublin professionals.
Several of the group’s productions were co-produced by the Dublin Drama League,
headed by Lennox Robinson. His connection with the group proved fortuitous for
Mooney. After acting opposite Mooney in the Drama League’s production of Luigi
Pirandello’sHenry IV, Robinson sent a letter of offer to Mooney, through the actress
Shelah Richards, to join the Abbey Company.
Mooney signed on as a member of the Abbey Company in 1923 at age twenty.21
Her first role with the company came the following year in George Shiels’ The Retrievers,
which opened on 12 May 1924. She notes in her memoirs that she did not enjoy working
at the Abbey that first year. She found the experience to be dull,22 and she did not
appreciate the lack of control she had over casting decisions. The day after she returned
to the Abbey from her summer holiday, she noted, “I found I had been cast in a play for
the following week. I hadn’t been asked . . . I suppose that nobody who has the slightest
talent for acting can imagine a girl of twenty-one not being thrilled at being associated
20 Mooney, “Players and the Painted Stage,” 1.2: 29. 21 Theatre programme. The Rugged Path (1 Oct. 1940). 22 Mooney, “Players and the Painted Stage,” 1.2: 36. 76
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. with the Abbey Theatre, but truly, in the beginning, I wasn’t.”23 However, throughout the
1924-1925 season, while Lennox Robinson was on leave, the director, Michael Dolan,
cast Mooney in a different role every week: “one week a young, simple, country girl, and
the next a sophisticated woman - perhaps in a Shaw play; women o f varying mental
equipment as well as accent, appearance and age.”24 In her memoirs, she speaks
enthusiastically of Dolan and all he taught her that year, and notes how she returned to
playing small parts upon Robinson’s return. Despite her fluctuating interest in the Abbey,
she remained with the company as actress and eventually as producer for twenty-nine
years, only working elsewhere in 1926-1934, when she acted and directed in England and
the United States, and in 1944-1948, when she ran the Dublin Gaiety Theatre’s school of
acting.
Mooney’s most famous role was as the prostitute, Rosie Redmond,The in Plough
and the Stars, the third play of Sean O’Casey’s Dublin trilogy. The play revolves around
the lives of Dublin tenement residents during the 1916 Easter rising, and it attempts to
present a realistic portrait of the volunteers who rebelled against the British rulers. The
play also focuses on the plight of the tenement women affected by the rebellion, prompting
several critics in 1926 to call the play a “woman’s play.” O’Casey himself, after seeing
Mooney play a nun in Sierra’sThe Kingdom o f God, informed her that he’d “told
Robinson to cast you as the prostitute in me new play.”25 The 1924 Abbey Theatre
23 Mooney, “Players and the Painted Stage,” 1.2: 36-41. 24 Mooney, “Players and the Painted Stage,”1.2: 42. 25 Mooney, “Players and the Painted Stage,” 1.2:42.
77
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Figure 3.1 Ria Mooney as Rosie Redmond with Sean O’Casey during a rehearsal of The Plough and the Stars. (Feb. 1926) (Courtesy of Mrs. G. A. Duncan)
78
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. production of O’Casey’sJuno and the Paycock met with success, butPlough, too
controversial for some people, instigated riots and threats of violence that had not been
seen at the Abbey since its production Playboyof o f the Western World in 1907. Two
concerns fueled these attacks. Nationalists who came to see the production objected to
what they viewed as insults to the memory of the heroes of 1916. For example, they
protested the placement of the Irish tri-color flag in the pub setting, and they disapproved
of the Citizen Army26 characters drinking stout. Lady Gregory, though a supporter of
O’Casey and the play, also found fault withPlough. However, her objection concerned
the inclusion of a prostitute in the play, citing that Rosie’s appearance in only one Act of
the play makes her superfluous. Others viewed the character as scandalously immoral, and
Joseph Holloway supposedly said, there “are no street walkers in Dublin,”27 implying that
the presentation of Rosie in the play provides a false representation of Dublin. According
to Mooney, some members o f the Abbey company tried unsuccessfully to frighten her out
of playing the part because they felt they would be “besmirched by the feet of one among
them playing such a role.”28
Despite these concerns, the opening night performancePlough of on 8 February
1926 played without interruption from the stalls. Critics gave Mooney glowing reviews,
26 The army of volunteers that took over the General Post Office during Easter week 1916.
27 Lady Augusta Gregory,Lady Gregory’s Journals: Vol. /, ed. Daniel J. Murphy (New York: Oxford UP, 1978) 99-100. 28 Mooney, “Players and the Painted Stage,” 1.2: 43. 79
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. noting her “vitality” and her ability to make Rosie “an integral portion of the play.”29 It
was not until a later production when the audience’s protests overwhelmed the
production. Mooney recalled audience members throwing coins and coal at her, a piece o f
which gashed her ankle,30 and some climbed on stage to attack the actors.31The Irish
Times corroborates this, adding that “[s]hocking epithets were hurled at Miss Ria Mooney
while she played . . . in pantomime,” though noting that “the wrath of the interrupters was
for the most part directed against the political significance of the play, its brutal exposition
o f what took place in the homes o f the rank and file o f the Citizen Army, while the leaders
were making speeches about freedom in the abstract.”32 However, Mooney recalled the
“wrath of the interrupters” differently, stating that the fuss in the audience and in the
newspapers was about her character. She also recounted an attempt made by some party
to kidnap herself, Shelah Richards, who played Nora Clitheroe, and Barry Fitzgerald, who
portrayed Fluther Good. Some spectators even told Mooney that by playing Rosie she
had disgraced her sex, her religion, and her country.33 A 1955Sunday Independent
article, recalling the commotion over the 1926 production Plough,of called Mooney “an
29 The Irish Times 9 Feb. 1926: 7.
30 T. P. Kilfeather, “Ria Mooney Recalls Riot in Abbey,” Sunday Independent 4 Dec. 1955: 8. 31 Mooney, “Players and the Painted Stage,” 45-46. 32 The Irish Times 12 Feb. 1926: 7-8. 33 T. P. Kilfeather, 8. 80
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. actress with steel in her spirit” who “withstood the taunts and the frightening violence”34
of the audience. The intensity of these events and the courage with which she faced them,
made her feel like she had “ceased to be an amateur and became a professional actress in
the truest sense of the word.”35
In the fell of 1926, Mooney left the Abbey for London to seek a more lucrative
acting career. Robinson and Yeats attempted to keep Mooney at the Abbey, but their
efforts were unsuccessful since they could not offer her more money.36 With the aid of
O’Casey and actor Sara Allgood, both living in England at the time, Mooney found
employment with The Irish Players. The company founded by ex-Abbey actors, included
Arthur Sinclair and Eithne Magee, who had left the Abbey in 1916 in protest against the
manager, St John Ervine. The company toured the British theatre circuit and London, and
Mooney joined in time for the company’s 1926 tour. The original six-week tour with the
Irish Players grew into a ten-week tour, and then the company signed on with the
American producer George Tyler to play in New York. In October 1927, Mooney sailed
to New York City for the first of many trips.
Life in America seems to have appealed to Mooney, who found life outside Dublin
and the Abbey invigorating. While on tour with the Irish Players she made the decision to
seek employment in New York. She wrote to Eva Le Gallienne, artistic director o f the
34 T. P. Kilfeather, 8.
35 Mooney, “Players and the Painted Stage,” 1.2: 45-46.
36 Robinson told Mooney that he and Yeats were prepared to offer her a contract. Mooney, however, never believed that Robinson actually discussed the matter with Yeats. (Mooney, “Players and the Painted Stage,” 1.2: 56)
81
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Civic Repertory Theatre, and secured a job at Le Gallienne’s theatre. After a short visit in
1928 back to Dublin and the Abbey,37 she began her work at the Civic, performing with
such stars as Alla Nazimova, the Russian-born silent film star Mooney idolized, and
Burgess Meredith.38 Mooney first appeared at the Civic as Lucile Jourdain in Moliere’sLe
Bourgeois Gentilhomme (1 October 1928). Subsequent roles included Jacqueline in Jean
Jacques Bernard’sL ’Invitation au Voyage (4 October 1928), and Elizavita, the sister of
Alla Nazimova’s character, in Leonid Andreyev’sKaterina (25 February 1929). Apart
from spending the summer o f 1929 in Dublin, and the summer o f 1930 in Arden,
Pennsylvania, Mooney remained with the Civic, until the economic conditions of the
Depression in America forced the closure of the theatre in 1932. Actress and director
Cheryl Crawford invited her subsequently to join the Theatre Guild, but Mooney had
already accepted an offer from the Abbey Theatre, which was touring in America. She
met company members in Atlanta, Georgia, and eventually traveled back to Dublin with
them. Mooney performed in America again the following year while on tour with the
Abbey.
Sometime in 1933 or early 1934, Mooney, who had become bored with the
Abbey’s static production program of Irish plays, accepted an offer to join the Gate
Theatre, then headed by Hilton Edwards and MacLiammoir. While there, she played such
roles as Catherine in her own adaptation (with Donald Stauffer)Wuthering of Heights,
37 She played a few parts with the Abbey during her visit in 1928, including a reprisal o f Rosie Redmond inPlough and the Stars.
38 Burgess Meredith was a student of Mooney’s at the Civic Repertory Theatre.
82
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. and Gwendolen Thein Importance o fBeing Earnest. Christopher Fitz-Simon, author of
The Boys: A Double Biography, notes that Mooney “barely got away with”39 the role o f
Gwendolen due to her conspicuous Dublin accent, but that her performancesWuthering in
Heights andLady Precious Stream were superb. In 1934 Mooney left the Gate Theatre
and returned to the Abbey. She accepted the invitation of then Managing Director, F. R.
Higgins,40 to rejoin the Abbey, since Edwards and MacLiammoir had gone to London. At
that time, the main Abbey company was on tour, thus she became a member of the second
company. She received “top salary, which, though not very large . .. was the best I could
receive in Ireland.”41 This time her contract expanded, at her request, to include
recommencing the Abbey School o f Acting42:
By the time I went back to the Abbey in 1934, I’d had a great deal of
experience, and had developed a really sincere desire to convey to others
the accumulated knowledge I had acquired. As this was all built upon a
foundation gained at the Abbey, I felt that our National Theatre was the
right place to start teaching . . . I approached Yeats in the Abbey office
39 Christopher Fitz-Simon, The Boys: A Double Biography (London: Nick Hem, 1994) 85. 40 Mooney had a “long running affair” with F.R. Higgins (Jim McGlone, e-mail to author, 7 June 2001). 41 Mooney, “Players and the Painted Stage,”1.2: 107. 42Nugent Monck ran the first Abbey School of Acting between 1911-1912. The school folded after he left and did not start up again until Mooney asked to conduct it in 1934. 83
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. after a Directors’ meeting. . . Our poet Director registered surprise and
then pleasure when I asked his permission.43
Initially she planned for the women in the class to wear a simple uniform. Curiously, she
does not mention the need for her male students to wear uniforms. Her intention was to
save the less-fortunate women the embarrassment of standing in front of the women who
could afford “expensive and tasteful garments,”44 which suggests that Mooney did not
think her male students would suffer from the same humiliation. The uniforms were never
made, but the School of Acting was a success, and gave birth to the Abbey Experimental
Theatre in April 1937, of which Mooney became director. This responsibility was in
addition to her work as a regular member of the Abbey acting company.
Mooney states that she had her first directing experience with the amateur group
“Dramics”45 around 1925. The play,The Little Stone House by Calderon, starred a young
Denis Johnston, the future Abbey playwright, and was performed in the Johnston family
drawing-room.46 In 1926, the year Mooney traveled to London, she was offered the
position o f co-director, along with Madame Bannard Cogley and Gearoid O’Loughlin, of
a new Dublin theatre being planned by Bulmer Hobson. Mooney turned down the
43 Mooney, “Players and the Painted Stage,” 1.2: 109. 44 Mooney, “Players and the Painted Stage,”1.2: 109. 45 Mooney says this group was “an off-shoot of the Senior Drama League” (Mooney, “Players and the Painted Stage,” 1.2: 42).
46 Mooney, “Players and the Painted Stage,” 1.2: 42. 84
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. position because she had already joined the Irish Players.47 Not until she joined the Civic
Repertory Theatre in New York did Mooney become a professional director. According
to Burgess Meredith, who joined the Civic as an apprentice actor, along with John
Garfield, Howard da Silva, and Robert Lewis. Mooney served as coach and director for
the apprentices and their small presentations.48 In 1930, Le Gallienne, after viewing
Mooney’s production of the apprentice actorsPlayboy in o fthe Western World, asked the
Irish actress to be her assistant director, based upon their similar vision and directing
styles.49 Mooney’s first job as assistant director for the Civic was the 1930 production of
Romeo and Juliet, for which she directed the crowd scenes and the actors with smaller
roles.50 Her inspiration for staging the crowd scenes came from study of crowds depicted
in classic Italian paintings. Her method of directing the actors can be described as organic:
“First I let them move freely wherever and with whomever they wished, provided that
when the cue came, they would find themselves with ease, and within character, in the
spot I had assigned to them.”51 Although Mooney says little directly about what she
47 Mooney, “Players and the Painted Stage,” 1.2: 79. Hobson subsequently asked Edwards and MacLiammoir to take on the position, which suggests that the “Dublin theatre” to which Mooney refers is the Gate Theatre, the same theatre Edwards and MacLiammoir were to make famous with productions of non-Irish, European plays. 48 Burgess Meredith,So Far, So Good: A Memoir (Boston: Little, Brown and Co., 1994) 33. 49 Mooney, “Players and the Painted Stage,” 1.2: 91-92. S0Mooney, “Players and the Painted Stage,” 1.2:92. Burgess Meredith portrayed the Nurse in this production.
51 Mooney, “Players and the Painted Stage,” 1.2: 92.
85
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. learned at the Civic, other than absorbing “a great deal about theatre work”52 and
developing an insecurity about her acting ability, Le Gallienne and her company did give
Mooney a new perspective on producing theatre. For instance, the Civic’s production of
Chekhov’s The Cherry Orchard, starring Nazimova, who had been an understudy in the
original Moscow Art Theatre production, taught Mooney about the importance of
bringing new life to revivals, rather than trying to recreate the original production. Later
in her life she found Peter Brook’s ability to revitalize classic texts, “withoutsentimentality
or prejudice,”53 to be a quality of directing that she admired.
By the time the Abbey Experimental Theatre (AET) came into being in 1937,
Mooney had learned a great deal about directing plays, without acquiring much actual
experience as a director. The years 1937-1944 offered Mooney invaluable opportunities
to direct and to supervise the productions of her students and members of the AET.
Although she is only credited with co-directing one production, Jack Yeats’sHarlequin’s
Positions (5 June 1939), Phyllis Ryan, a one-time AET member, and Mooney herself
attest to Mooney’s involvement in each AET production as an advisor. Her work with the
experimental company led to directing opportunities on the Abbey’s main stage. In 1942
she directed Padraic Colum’sThe Fiddler’s House; in 1943 Roibeard O’Farachain’s
Assembly at Druin Ceat; and in 1944 George Shiel’sThe New Regime. In the same year,
Mooney once again chose to leave the Abbey, this time for reasons concerning the state of
the theatre sans Yeats, who had died in 1939. Following the death o f poet F.R. (Fred)
52 Mooney, “Players and the Painted Stage,” 1.2: 78. 53 Mooney, “Players and the Painted Stage,” 1.2: 72-73.
86
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Higgins in 1941, who bad taken over as managing director after Yeats's death, Ernest
Blythe became managing director. Mooney, and several of the actors, believed that under
Blythe “the Abbey would cease to be the Theatre that Yeats had visualised.”54 Believing
“this was the end,”55 she transferred to Dublin’s Gaiety Theatre and founded the Gaiety
School of Acting, while also taking on the nonpaying position of director for the fledgling
Dublin-Verse Speaking Society, later the Dublin Lyric Theatre.
Louis Elliman, the managing director of the Gaiety Theatre from 1936-1965, hired
Mooney in 1944 to direct and manage a school of acting at the Gaiety, and also to keep
the theatre open while the regular English touring circuit remained interrupted. World
War II interrupted the regular visits o f companies from England to the Gaiety, thus
opening up opportunities for Mooney to direct “filler” productions using both students
and professionals in the parts. However, her primary responsibility was the school.
Interest in the Gaiety School of Acting that first year was tremendous. Mooney says she
“held auditions for about five hundred students,”56 and later had to stage two large cast
one-act plays in order to place every student. At the Abbey, Mooney concentrated on
teaching her students how to speak verse “with intelligence and conviction.. . and with
no more than the minimum movement necessary.”57 Her tutorial focus at the Gaiety
54 Mooney, “Players and the Painted Stage,” 1.2: 67.
55 Mooney, “Players and the Painted Stage,” 1.2: 68. 56 Ria Mooney, “Players and Painted Stage,” ed. Val Mulkerns,George Spelvirt s Theatre Book 1.3 (Fall 1978): 69.
57 Ria Mooney, “Players and Painted Stage,” 1.2: 111. 87
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. included movement and character work; she seems to have concentrated less on voice.
She allowed her students to experiment, giving them the chance “to feel their way into
parts, into every type of part, whether it suited them or not,” and she “gave them poor
movements, so that they would not rely upon them, or on their positions, to make their
performance appear better than it was.”58 Her methods at both the Abbey school and the
Gaiety school are closely related to the Abbey style of acting, originally taught by W. G.
Fay, who showed actors how to move on stage only when speaking, and then to use small,
simple gestures. Minimizing movement and “stage business,” he believed, focused the
attention of the audience on the language o f the text. Mooney passed this on to her own
students.59
Mooney’s directorial work for the Gaiety included a variety of plays from Ireland,
Europe, and America, including S. Ansky’sThe Dybbuk, O’Casey’s The Silver Tassie , and
Maxwell Anderson’sWinterset, which starred Anew McMaster, Micheal MacLiammoir,
and filmstars Burgess Meredith and Paulette Goddard. AndreNoah, Obey’s John
Steinbeck’s The Moon is Down, and O’Casey’sRed Roses For Me rounded out her
productions at the Gaiety. Mooney had previously directed a successful revivalRed of
Roses, which ran for seventeen weeks, in May 1946 at the Embassy Theatre at Swiss
Cottage, London. Elliman subsequently asked her to put the play on at the Gaiety. For
the part of Brennan o’ the Moor, Mooney chose Noel Purcell, who had made his name
58 Ria Mooney, “Players and Painted Stage,” 1.3: 69. 59 Mooney’s Gaiety students included Anna Manahan, who won a Tony award for her work in Beauty Queen o f Leenane, and Jack McGowran, who became the foremost actor o f Samuel Beckett’s plays. 88
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. playing a dame, or old woman, in vaudeville pantomimes. Despite rumors that Purcell had
a habit of making straight plays comic, Mooney's instinct was right and Purcell and the
production were well liked by Dublin audiences. Mooney’s ability to work with designers
and communicate her needs and desires for a production also matured during her years
with the Gaiety. Recognizing the worth of a lighting designer, she insisted that the name
of the Gaiety’s lighting designer, Harry Morrison, be placed on the program. Heretofore
this had not been a standard practice. In addition to learning how to work with designers,
Mooney notes in her memoirs that she developed a belief in her own judgment as a
director while at the Gaiety. When the end of World War II enabled the London touring
companies to return to Dublin and the Gaiety, Mooney’s position as resident director
became unnecessary. Feeling tired and overworked, she gladly moved on to another
endeavor.
Mooney had three offers after she left the Gaiety in 1947. The first came from the
Embassy Theatre in London, where she had directed O’Casey’sRed Roses For Me, to set
up a school of acting. The second came from Burgess Meredith to found a school of
acting in Hollywood at a new art theatre he planned to start there. The third offer, and the
one she decided to take, came from Ernest Blythe and the Abbey. Blythe’s insistence that
all Abbey actors and directors be bilingual - able to speak Irish and English - was
apparently waived for Mooney when she re-joined the Abbey in January of 1948 as
Director or Producer o f Plays in English, a matter that gave her a false sense o f security.
She believed in her “ignorance and arrogance” that she “might be able to contribute
something from a now vast experience, to our National Theatre....” She explains in her
89
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. memoirs, “I foolishly believed that I might be able to achieve something, and that though
Irish might be important, knowledge of the theatre was even more important. . . I
therefore accepted the Abbey offer with enthusiasm.”60
Over the years, the Abbey held many memories for Mooney that, along with the
pride she felt in being able to work for Ireland, brought Mooney back to the National
Theatre. She had plans to change some of the Abbey’s production practices. For
instance, she wanted to bring more “colour and excitement” to the Dublin audiences as she
had done at theatres outside the Abbey, and she wanted more detailed designs for the
theatre’s realistic plays. A few productions at the Abbey in the 1940s, including
Mooney’s direction o f Padraic Colum’sThe Fiddler’s House (1942), incorporated the
kind of adornment she wanted. At Mooney’s direction, the set designer Michael Clarke
used colors to brighten the form-house setting, such as rose colored furniture, violet
curtains, a yellow tablecloth, and costumes of blues, purples, greens, and reds.61 Teaching
the players how to speak the verse plays of Yeats became a mission for Mooney, despite
that board’s opinion that the lack o f audience interest in verse plays meant only the
Peacock Theatre could serve as a venue for their presentation. Her final goal, according
to her memoirs, was to see herself recognized as the “Director of Play” rather than
“Producer” in the theatre programs.62 But she never achieved this goal for, in Ireland, the
title “producer” was used in place of the title “director” until the 1970s. At the Abbey
“ Ria Mooney, “Players and the Painted Stage,” 1.3: 85. 61 Mooney, “Players and the Painted Stage,” 1.3: 70. 62 Mooney, “Players and the Painted Stage,” 1.3: 86-95. 90
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Mooney’s title not only denoted the difference between the board of directors and play
directors but also the amount of authority invested in each position. Mooney’s reason for
wanting to alter the Abbey’s programs is unclear, although one may assume that she saw
the title change as a significant way for the Abbey to recognize her authority for the time
and energy she invested in each production.
Years before Mooney took up her appointment at the Abbey, she began to
synthesize her idea of what a director does. She came to believe in the power of the text,
declaring in her memoirs that nothing “should distract attention from the play as conceived
by the writer.”63 Blending all of the elements of production to suit the requirements of the
text seemed to her the most difficult part of the director’s job. In a 1940 interview with
Radio Eireann she explained her perception of the role of the director in detail:
When a Director takes his first rehearsal, fifty per cent of his work should
be over. His conception of the play must be an almost finished picture in
his mind, and he should have brought his ideas into harmony with the
author’s. He must visualise[j /c ] the whole production, with its sets,
players and furnishings. If he hasn’t a visual sense, then to plan his
movements he must go to the trouble of having models of sets made, and
even figurines representing the players. Eventually he should be able to do
without such aids. He must bear in mind throughout that ‘the play’s the
thing’ and not use it as a vehicle for showing off how much he has seen or
read unless he considers this suitable to the interpretation of the play under
63 Mooney, “Players and the Painted Stage,” 1.2: 111. 91
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. consideration. The Director should be the co-ordinating person between
author, actors, scenic designer, costumier and stage staff. To do this he
must have authority. It is his work that must go before the public, and
whether it be good or bad it is to him that praise or blame will be given.
The Producer or Producers will have to take responsibility because they
have engaged him and paid him. If the director whose reputation depends
on the work he presents to the public is left without the authority his
position demands then he should try not to remain for long in this
unsatisfactory situation .64
The director, she believed, must maintain control over and accept responsibility for the
production of a play. She learned these simple yet important rules through her work with
many mentors, including Eva Le Gallienne and the Abbey’s Michael Dolan. She also
learned these rules from her connection to and respect for Yeats and Ireland’s great poets.
Le Gallienne, for example, “handed over complete authority” to Mooney during rehearsals
for the Civic’s production ofRomeo and Juliet, realizing, as Mooney recalls in her
memoir, that “even an assistant director must have authority.”65 Undoubtedly, Mooney
expected to have command over the Abbey’s productions as the theatre’s primary
producer. She learned, however, that her expectations were not to be met.
Mooney’s role as producer required her to oversee and direct twelve to seventeen
English-language productions during each ten-month season. Daily rehearsals lasted two
64 Mooney, “Players and the Painted Stage,” 1.3: 86.
65 Mooney, “Players and the Painted Stage,” 1.2: 92. 92
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Figure 3.2 Ria Mooney at rehearsal. (Courtesy of Mrs. G. A. Duncan)
93
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. hours over a three-week period and included two dress rehearsals. According to former
Abbey actor and artistic director Vincent Dowling, the management reduced this schedule
to only twelve days o f rehearsal per play when the company moved to the Queens Theatre
in 1951.66 Before 1948, the company had managed with only one dress rehearsal, a
practice Mooney insisted on altering to two.67 Mooney also gathered most of the
costumes and props for each production, since there were no designers at that time to do
so. Dowling, who joined the company in 1953, recalls that Mooney “told you the kind o f
thing you would wear; you went through the stock and picked out what went with her
view, and with your own sense of the part.”68 Mooney did not have control over play
selection or the employment o f actors. The board chose the plays, while them anaging
director “approved the casts, engaged and discarded the players, attended rehearsals when
he chose to do so, interviewed the playwrights, and made cuts or insisted upon alterations
in the scripts for what were claimed to be artistic reasons.”69 To help with her heavy
responsibilities, Mooney pleaded with the board to assign her an assistant. She states in
her autobiography that the Abbey’s principal director usually had an assistant: “Arthur
Shields (Boss, as we used to call him) was assistant to Lennox Robinson. He was also
66 Vincent Dowling, Astride the Moon: A Theatrical Life (Dublin: Wolfhound Press, 2000) 162.
67 Mooney, “Players and the Painted Stage,” 1.3: 87. 68 Vincent Dowling, 157.
69 Hugh Hunt,The Abbey: Ireland’s National Theatre 1904-1978 (New York: Columbia University Press, 1979) 185-186.
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Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. one of the senior players. Likewise Paddy Carolan was actor and manager.”70 When
Mooney took up her duties she was not immediately assigned an assistant. Finally, with
the board's consent, the young actor Sean Mooney agreed “to take on stage management
and to give up his aim of becoming an actor” to take on “the title of stage director.”71
Sean also served as a prompter and general stage manager during rehearsals and
performances.
Mooney directed fourteen to fifteen productions each year between 1948 and
1963, totaling more than 200 productions in her fifteen years as Abbey producer. During
her first year and a half alone, February 1948 to December 1949, she directed twenty-
three different productions, including the premieres of George Shiels'sThe Caretakers (16
February 1948) and M. J. Molloy’sThe King o f Friday’s Men (18 October 1948). The
Caretakers , her first production as Abbey producer, met with a positive critique fromThe
Irish Times. The review called the play, which is about a community’s scheme to steal an
inheritance away from an illiterate old woman, “as amusing a new comedy as the Abbey
has staged for some time,” and said that “Mooney is to be congratulated on her
production, and on her apparent effort to revive the old Abbey practice of producing plays
in the dialect in which they are written.”72 Dublin theatre critics tended to downplay the
quality of plays and productions at the Abbey under Blythe, admonishing the national
70 Mooney, “Players and the Painted Stage,” 1.3: 87. Mooney undoubtedly refers to Robinson’s second term as Abbey manager, Feb. 1919 - 1935.
71 Mooney, “Players and the Painted Stage,” 1.3: 87. 72‘“The Caretakers’ At the Abbey,” The Irish Times 17 Feb. 1948: 2.
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Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. theatre for relaxing the artistic standards pioneered by Yeats and Gregory. This criticism
is evident inThe Irish Times's review of The King o f Friday’s Men, a play about thedroit
de seigneur exercised in the west of Ireland into the nineteenth century. The writer
applauded Molloy for his Synge-like lyrical dialogue, and said that the Abbey could
redeem its “imperilled reputation” by producing more playsFriday's like Men. However,
he also complained about the production’s over-emphasis on the “broader comic aspects”
of the characters,73 a criticism that became common of the Abbey plays during the late
1940s and 1950s.
The Irish press’s critiques of Mooney’s directorial work varied in their
consideration for her skills. For example, in the reviews ofThe King o f Friday s Men and
St John Ervine’sBoyd’s Shop in 1951 she receives only a mention as the producer o f the
play. Another critic, Gabriel Fallon ofThe Standard , devoted more time to Mooney. He
called the latter production “as good as - and in some respects better than - the
memorable presentations that have preceeded [s/c] it. Ria Mooney has seen to it that the
comedy has lost none of its essential speed in exile .. .”74 In 1954, Mooney was praised
by the Irish Press critic for her direction of the premiere of John McCann’sTwenty Years
A-Wooing (29 March 1954), a play with a light-hearted examination of the evils of
gambling. The Press believed it to “be one of her very best, both in its pace and
imagination.”75 Earlier that year The Irish Times credited Mooney and the players for
73 “Play on Feudal System o f 18* Century West,”The Irish Times 19 Oct. 1948: 3. 74 Gabriel Fallon, “Inventing an Audience,”The Standard [Dublin] 24 Aug. 1951. 75 “Abbey Play Deals with Dublin Life,” Irish Press 30 Mar. 1954.
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Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. doing what they could forJohn Courtney (22 February 1954), John Malone’s “devoutly
derivative period piece” about a family’s generational conflict between an aging father and
the children who finally desert him. The reviewer added: “When, oh, when, will the
Abbey directors allow us to see a play about some of the real problems of Irish life to
day?’76 By contrast, the Evening Herald calledJohn Courtney “an honest tragedy that
while it sounds no new note in drama, is firmly shaped,” and described Mooney’s directing
as “forceful and swift.”77 A similar difference of opinion was evident for Joseph Tomelty’s
Is the Priest at Home? (8 November 1954). The Irish Press said Mooney provided “a
strikingly intelligent approach to a difficult subject”78 concerning a priest’s duty to his sin-
ridden parishoners, whileThe Irish Times considered the production unrehearsed and
badly timed. A production of the same play by a different company had played at the same
theatre just shortly before the Abbey opened its production. The few positive comments
in the review go to a few of the players and to Mooney’s “unobtrusive” directorial skill.79
But Mooney’s skills were not confined to productions o f new, mediocre plays.
For the Abbey’s golden jubilee celebration in December 1954, she directed Synge’sIn the
Shadow o f the Glen and Gregory’sSpreading the News, two plays from the theatre’s
classic repertoire. The Irish Times described the first piece as “realistically lighted” and
“stylistically produced,” but faulted the players for their lack of stage presence and
76 “Prize-winning Play at the Queen’s Theatre,”The Irish Times 23 Feb. 1954: 4. 77 “An Honest Irish Tragedy,”Evening Herald 23 Feb. 1954.
78“Tomelty Play Should Have Good Run,”Irish Press 4 Nov. 1954. 79 ‘“Is the Priest at Home’ At the Abbey Theatre,” The Irish Times 9 Nov. 1954: 9. 97
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. concentration. The reviewer thought the Gregory piece to be the most successful of the
evening, and that it had been handled “delightfully” by Mooney. In a comment that is
reminiscent of Mooney’s earlier practice at the Civic Repertory Theatre of studying
paintings, the reviewer forThe Irish Times noted that the setting “suggested a painter’s
view o f a western town, with the movements of the crowd constantly forming attractive
patterns that were always alive.”80 Mooney also had the opportunity to direct several
O’Casey plays during her years as Abbey producer, includingThe Plough and the Stars.
Her first production of this O’Casey classic was performed on 17 July 1951, the night fire
destroyed the theatre.81 When the company subsequently moved to the Queen’s Theatre
on 21 September 1951, where it stayed in “exile” until 1966, Mooney, thinking the play
could fill the large space at the Queen’s, suggested a revival of O’Casey’sThe Silver
Tassie to the board. However, reconstruction of the Queen’s stage interrupted rehearsals
and the production of 24 September 1951, according to Mooney, was terrible.82
The critics were usually concerned more with pace than with artistic vision,
especially if a production’s tempo dragged.The Irish Press noted that the pace of
Mooney’s production of M. J. Molloy’sThe Will and the Way (5 September 1955) “was
slowed lamentably by the constant laughter and will have to be quickened considerably.”83
80 “Government Offers Funds for Rebuilding Abbey Theatre,”The Irish Times 25,27,28 Dec. 1954: 4.
8'Mooney also took over the role o f Mrs. Grogan in this production. May Craig bad been cast in the part, but was released to take a role in the film,The Quiet Man. 82 Mooney, “Players and the Painted Stage,” 1.3: 105.
83N.C., “Molloy has Laughter for Abbey,” Irish Press 6 Sept. 1955. 98
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. However, the Evening Herald called Mooney’s direction of the same production “swift
and sure,”84 demonstrating the unpredictability and variety o f audience and critical
reaction. Mooney was criticized for setting a pace “in danger of going oft* the rails at
times”85 in her production of the Synge classicThe Playboy o f the Western World. The
reviewer, though acknowledging that a quicker pace was needed for comedies, said she
had trouble hearing the actors. Whether the pace and unintelligible dialogue were
Mooney’s fault is questionable. The Abbey actors o f the late 1940s and 1950s, while
fondly remembered by audiences for memorable performances, were often described by
Dublin critics as playing for laughs and neglecting the basic elements o f acting. In his
review of Denis Johnston’sStrange Occurrence o f Ireland’s Eye (20 August 1956),
Gabriel Fallon complained of the actors’ inability to deliver the climactic moment at the
end of each scene. He wrote that Mooney’s production “is taken at a good pace but some
of the players might devote a little more attention to pointing the curtain or black-out lines
with more effective intonations.”86 In contrast, the review inThe Irish Times stated that
Mooney “handles a large cast well,” and that, apart from a few minor anachronistic set
details, the “production is swift, the sets effective and the lighting a positive
contribution.”87
84 J. J. Finegan, “Rich Comedy From the West,”Evening Herald 6 Sept. 1955. 85 J.E.M., “‘Playboy’ in Danger of Going Off Rails? Hold Your Horses, Ria Mooney!,” Evening Herald n.d.
86 Gabriel Fallon, “Exciting New Play at the Abbey,” The Standard 22 Aug. 1956. 87 “New Play at the Abbey Theatre,” The Irish Times 21 Aug. 1956: 9.
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Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Mooney quickly realized that the actors in the Abbey company, most of whom
were quite young when she took up her appointment in 1948, lacked discipline. As a
result, many of the actors also lacked respect for her as producer. She knew she had not
been the actors’ popular choice for Abbey producer. The famed Green-Room at the old
Abbey Theatre had become, by the 1940s, a place for male cast members and their friends
to smoke and play cards. Mooney believed that the degeneration of the Green Room
contributed to the Abbey’s decline in artistic standards, though the actors would only
laugh at her if she said so.88 In her autobiography she lamented occasions when the actors
considerably altered productions, one or two weeks into a run, to suit themselves. The
Abbey’s newly established practice of the long run undoubtedly contributed to occasional
overacting and boredom among the actors. In a conversation with Michael O’Neill,
author ofThe Abbey at the Queens: The Interregnum Years 195I-1966, actor T.P.
McKenna blamed the decline in production values on “the absencechallenging of dialogue
in many of the plays”89 produced at the Abbey between 1951-1966. He believed that the
unimaginative plays “led to a spirit of apathy, which resulted in unrehearsed and mediocre
productions.”90 Robert Hogan suggestsAfter in the Renaissance that the mediocrity had
as much or more to do with Mooney’s direction. He believes that she “stressed the
“ Mooney, “Players and the Painted Stage,” 1.3: 89-90. She also states that “women in the company told me that they hadn’t been able to go into that ‘Rest-Room’ for years!” (90). 89 Michael O’Neill, The Abbey at the Queens: The Interregnum Years 1951-1966(Nepean, Ontario: Borealis Press Ltd., 1999) xiiL 90 O’Neill, xiii.
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Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. ‘Abbeyness’ o f plays,”91 which, for him, means that she added “a lot o f broadly comic
business’'92 to the productions. Mooney’s words challenge this accusation. Early in her
career, while touring with the Irish Players, she learned to despise “playing down” to the
audience, and she believed that doing so could destroy a great performance. She
witnessed this kind of destruction at the Abbey in her revival of Teresa Deevy’sKatie
Roche.93 After a successful first week, the production turned from a sensitive drama into a
“rip-roaring farce,” prompting Mooney to believe that “the cast evidently thought they
knew better than their Director.”94 Katie Roche should have attracted audiences for
several weeks, according to Mooney, but instead it ended abruptly. Mooney states in her
memoirs that she, “who could do nothing to stop the rot, went home and wept.”95
While Mooney spent the final fifteen years of her theatrical career working as a
director, her talent also lay in acting and teaching. Tomas Mac Anna, former Abbey
Artistic Director and Gaelic producer during Mooney’s tenure as primary producer, says
that Mooney “was a most competent and professional director. She wasted little time in
discussion, came to rehearsal with her work well prepared . . . A very fine director with
91 Robert Hogan, After the Renaissance: A Critical History o f the Irish Drama Since The Plough and the Stars (Minneapolis: U of MN Press, 1967) 14. 92 Hogan, 96. 93 According to Mooney’s memoirs this production earned her the respect and appreciation o f the Deevy.
94 Mooney, “Players and the Painted Stage,” 1.3: 90. 95 Mooney, “Players and the Painted Stage,” 1.3: 90.
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Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. great confidence in herself and so inspired the players.’’96 However, Dowling, who acted
in most of the plays directed by Mooney from 1953-1963, thinks that she was not a good
director. He believes that she was highly efficient, and that when she was provided with
the right cast, play, and designer, she could create an exceptionally good production as
with Boyd’s Shop in 1951. Yet he asserted, “other than cutting away the things that you
shouldn’t do, I never knew her” to bring actors “to a place,”97 to inspire them. Dowling
notes that Mooney had difficulty directing “traffic” on the stage which frustrated the
actors who grew tired o f what one actor termed, “Mooneyesque” moves.98 Dowling
observed that Mooney’s “uptight, defensive approach” manifested itself during rehearsals
for a Yeats or Synge piece when she would monotonously thump out “‘the beat’” of the
verse, and dismiss skeptical actors by insisting ‘“the beat is all that matters!’”99 Like
Yeats, who she had known briefly during her early days at the Abbey, Mooney had a
passion for verse plays that motivated her to create a system for speaking verse, and led to
her direction of many plays for the Dublin Lyric Theatre. The Abbey rarely allowed her to
produce such noncommercial, experimental works and, when the opportunity did arise, it
was in the smaller Peacock. Mooney’s description of her first verse play for the Abbey in
1948, Yeats’s The Dreaming o f the Bones, a production theIrish Digest called
96 Tomas Mac Anna, letter to the author, 1 Nov. 2000. 97 Vincent Dowling, Personal Interview, 29 April 2001.
98 Dowling, Astride the Moon, 164. 99 Dowling, Astride the Moon, 174.
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Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. “excellent,”100 is an enthusiastic account of teaching the young actors how to speak verse,
as well as how to imaginatively costume actors and dress the set to reflect the magical
world created by Yeats’s words.
If Mooney failed to inspire actors with routine blocking it may have been because
she was uninspired by the plays selected. Her greatest personal successes had been not
during her years as Abbey producer, but earlier and with a different theatre. In her
autobiography she devotes several pages to discussion of the Dublin Lyric Theatre (DLT),
a small theatre society for which she directed verse plays in the 1940s. She believed her
work for the DLT represented her best work. For example, she called her production of
The Countess Cathleen for the DLT, starring Eithne Dunne, beautifully spoken, and
believed that it fulfilled her idea o f how verse should be interpreted. Micheal O hAodha
concured with Mooney’s assessment, calling the production well-orchestrated, and stated
that Dunne’s “splendid speaking of the verse brought a visually exotic quality to the
part.”101 He also identified her as “an excellent actress who had specialised in the
production of verse plays with Austin Clarke’s Lyric Theatre before she became resident
director at the Abbey,”102 confirming that Mooney had the skills necessary to create
outstanding work under the right circumstances. A later productionThe Countess of
Cathleen at the Abbey in February 1950, starring Siobhan McKenna, was not as
100 Irish Digest (Oct. 1949): 38-39. 10’Micheal O hAodha,Siobhan: A Memoir o f an Actress (Dingle [Ireland]: Brandon Book Publishers, Ltd., 1994) 34.
102 O hAodha, Siobhan, 33.
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Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. successful. McKenna’s inability to respond to Mooney’s insistence on delivering the verse
with a particular pace and rhythm103 resulted in “too many key-changes,”104 according to
The Irish Times. The DLT production of Don McDonagh’sHappy as Larry (May 1947)
was also personally satisfying for Mooney, as was T.S. Eliot’s Sweeney Agonistes, which
rocked the Dublin audience “with laughter throughout, until frozen into shocked
silence”105 at the play’s dramatic ending. Mooney’s work as director appears to have been
highly adept at the American Civic Repertory Theatre, the Abbey Experimental Theatre,
the Gaiety, and the DLT. Her record of productions at the Abbey from 1948 to 1963 is
conspicuously different from her earlier achievements.
Mooney distinguished herself in the theatre primarily as an actor, and then as a
teacher. Her performances as the original Rosie Redmond in O’Casey’sThe Plough and
the Stars (1925), Aunt Hennie in D’Alton’sLover’s Meeting, and Mary Tyrone in
O’Neill’s Long Day's Journey Into Night (1959 andl962) have been praised by Irish
theatre critics and historians. Her teaching skills and her influence upon young actors at
the Gaiety and the Abbey, however, have not been folly appreciated. Phyllis Ryan, one o f
the youngest actors to be allowed into the Abbey School of Acting and into the Abbey
company itself, remembers Mooney as “a fabulous giver, who knew more than any stage
authority I have since met; more about her subject, more about imparting knowledge,
more about the need one has to be performing and not just listening to lectures or reading
103 O hAodha,Siobhan , 33. 104 The Irish Times 25 Feb. 1950. 105 Mooney, “Players and the Painted Stage,” 1.3: 73-74. 104
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Figure 3.3 Ria Mooney and other ex-Abbey stars, including Barry Fitzgerald, at the Abbey’s Golden Jubilee in 1954. (Courtesy of Mrs. G. A. Duncan)
105
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. books on theory.”106 Ryan, who won a place in the Abbey School at Mooney’s urging,
recalled her teacher helping students outside of the regularly scheduled classes, and
inspiring them to continue to persevere despite setbacks. Mooney’s commitment to the
school, from 1935 to 1944 when she left to found the Gaiety school, was in addition to
her regular weekly performances on the Abbey stage. Under Mooney’s guidance, her
Abbey students founded the Abbey Experimental Theatre in 1937. Former Abbey actors,
including Marie Kean and Jack McGowran, have also acknowledged their gratitude to
Mooney.
By 1948, when she accepted Blythe’s ofier to return to the Abbey Theatre as
primary producer, Mooney had a wealth of experience and success as an actress, teacher,
and director. However, her experience had little to do with being offered the
appointment. According to Dowling, Blythe openly admitted in a Players’ Council
meeting years later that he had employed Ria “in order to silence criticism that arose in the
newspapers in 1947 in the wake o f poet and diplomat Valentin Iremonger’s outburst from
the stalls of the Abbey,”107 thus giving her enough rope with which to hang herself.108
Iremonger’s denunciation of the Abbey Theatre occurred just before the last Theact of
Plough and the Stars on 7 November 1947, and pointed to what Iremonger believed to be
the ‘“utter incompetence” of Blythe’s artistic policy rather than the content of the play.109
’“ Phyllis Ryan, The Company I Kept (Dublin: Townhouse, 1996) 15-16. 107 Dowling,Astride the Moon, 162.
108 Vincent Dowling, Personal Interview, 29 April 2001. 109 Hunt, 173.
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Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. For several weeks after, the Dublin papers were filled with letters for and against
Iremonger. None of the existing histories o f the Abbey, nor Mooney’s autobiography,
suggest a direct link between Mooney and this incident but, at the time, Blythe believed
Mooney was orchestrating it. A 1949 article in theIrish Digest stating that the Abbey
directorate hired Mooney after the theatre suffered “widespread public criticism” of its
policies is one o f the only sources to imply that Blythe had ulterior motives in appointing
Mooney.110 Similar circumstances surround the addition of Gabriel Fallon to the Abbey
board in October 1958 after the death of Lennox Robinson. Fallon had made his name as
an Abbey actor, playing various roles including Charles Bentham in the original production
of O’Casey’s Juno and the Paycock (1924). Later he worked as a critic for the Catholic
Standard. If he was not immediately aware of the reasons behind Blythe’s invitation to
him, he soon learned that it was, “to shut my mouth as a critic and to paralyse my hand as
a writer on the Theatre that Mr. B. so readily assented to my appointment to the
Board.”"' While there is no evidence that Mooney knew Blythe’s motive for hiring her,
Dowling, who worked with her daily, feels certain that she did.
Blythe’s control over the Abbey Theatre had more of an effect upon Mooney’s
career than any other factor. InThe Abbey Theatre 1899-1999, Robert Welch describes
Blythe’s leadership as a “‘top-down’ style o f management, with its origins in the hierarchic
110 “The Abbey and the Future,”Irish Digest (Oct. 1949): 38-39. 111 Gabriel Fallon, “The Dublin Gate Theatre 1928-1978,”Enter Certain Players: Edwards-Mac Liammoir and the Gate 1928-1978 (Dublin: Dolmen Press, 1978) 46. According to Roibeard O Farachain, he, not Blythe, proposed appointing Fallon to the board in 1958 (Roibeard O Farachain, Letter,Irish Times 22 Aug. 1973: 11). However, the appointment could not have been made without the consent of Blythe.
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Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. style of Yeats and Lady Gregory, which Blythe translated into a mild version of a Stalinist
bureaucracy.”112 The northern-born Blythe began his career not in the theatre but in
government, serving as Minister of Commerce, Finance, and Posts and Telegraph until the
Fianna Fail government voted out the Cosgrave government in March 1932. He was
instrumental in getting the Abbey Theatre its first government subsidy of £850 in 1925.
On 9 March 1935, the Abbey board appointed three new members, prompted by an
anonymously written proposal calling for change in the management structure, read by
Yeats at a board meeting in December 1934.113 Blythe, who preferred to be known as
Eaman de Blaghd, was appointed that day, along with F. R. Higgins and Brinsley
Macnamara. Six years later, on 28 January 1941, after the sudden death of then Managing
Director F. R. Higgins, Blythe became the new Managing Director of the Abbey. He has
been described as “worming” his way into the Abbey114, and manipulating his way to the
top seat of power in order to fulfill his dream o f a National Irish language theatre. His
political background and complete lack of theatrical experience did not make him a likely
choice to run a professional, internationally renowned theatre. However, once in control,
he dominated all aspects of the Abbey throughout his twenty-six years as managing
112 Robert Welch. The Abbey Theatre 1899-1999 (Oxford: Oxford UP, 1999) 174.
113 The memorandum read by Yeats calls for the creation of an Advisory Committee ‘“to advise and confer with the Board of Directors on all matters relating to the management of the theatre’” (149). Hunt suggests that F. R. Higgins and Brinsley Macnamara were the authors of the note because Yeats proposed them for the first Advisory Council. Dr. Richard Hayes, however, countered with a proposal that “new blood” be introduced into the theatre by enlarging the board rather than creating a new council. (Hunt, 149-150.)
114 Vincent Dowling, Personal Interview, 29 April 2001.
108
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. director, and his influence and policies lingered even after his death in 1975. The most
significant policy change he instituted came in 1942 when he mandated that new players be
accepted into the Abbey School of Acting or the Abbey company only if they were
bilingual, could speak both Irish and English. Some actors, such as Dowling, were
accepted on condition that they would spend their summers learning Irish in Connemara.
Existing actors in the company were supposedly exempt from Blythe’s language policy.
In her autobiography, Phyllis Ryan discusses the devastating effect of Blythe’s policy on
her own career. She recalls being summoned to Blythe’s office in 1943: “I can hear him
now, explaining how I did not fit in with the new policies of the Abbey; how I would need
to become versed in Irish history and language and how I could come back when I had a
fluent knowledge of the language.”115 Blythe’s “top-down” approach also affected the
types of plays produced by the Abbey, and he was often accused by critics o f concerning
himself too much with reviving the Irish language rather than creating artistically
significant theatre. Robert Hogan, for example, writing in 1967, claimed that “Blythe
really wants to use the Abbey for an untheatrical purpose.. . . Basically it is this attitude
that keeps Blythe from being a good director for the theatre. When a theatre becomes
anything other than a theatre, when it becomes . . . a weapon in a language revival, it then
becomes something less than a theatre. It loses its artistic honesty.”116
1.5 Ryan, 90. 1.6 Robert Hogan, After the Renaissance: A Critical History o f the Irish Drama since The Plough and the Stars (Minneapolis: U of Minnesota P, 1967) 18-19.
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Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. The static repertoire of English language plays at the Abbey Theatre under Blythe
took its toll on Mooney as much as did Blythe himself. Mac Anna, who produced plays in
Irish or European classics translated into Irish, received encouragement from Blythe to
experiment artistically and to work with a variety of theatrical styles. As long as the
actors spoke the Irish language correctly, which meant to Blythe’s satisfaction, Mac Anna
could do as he pleased.117 The expectations Blythe had for Mooney’s productions were
very different. Her responsibilities were restricted to the direction of realistic plays and
traditional revivals of Abbey classics. Critics such as novelist and playwright Ulick
O’Connor castigated Mooney for allowing the actors to “play down to the audience,”118
and for generating unimaginative productions. According to Mooney’s autobiography,
the board gave her mediocre plays to produce and expected her to work with the scenery
that had been used for years. Many of the plays produced between 1948-1963 included
“an Irish subject by an Irish writer, one set, three acts, preferably ten actors or less,
realistic, observing the unities of time and place; with a logical series of events and no foul
language.”119 In her autobiography, Mooney admits to not remembering the names of
many o f the plays because o f their monotonous similarity. O f the scenic design she wrote,
“It was impossible to visualize vividly different settings for plays which resembled each
other so closely, and when considering the setting for a new play, I have found myself
117 Tomas Mac Anna, “Ernest Blythe and the Abbey,”The Abbey Theatre: Interviews and Recollections, ed. E.H. Mikhail (Totowa, NJ: Barnes & Noble Books, 1988) 170. 118 Ulick O’Connor, “Dublin’s Dilemma,”Theatre Arts XL (July 1956): 65. 119 Dowling, Astride the Moon, 163.
110
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. seeking to achieve some variation by having a door on the right of the stage because there
was one on the left in the current production.”120 When rare opportunities arose for
Mooney to employ a unique setting, failing box office receipts reflected negative audience
response. Regular Dublin audiences had become accustomed to the often broad
histrionics of the Abbey company and the plays selected by Blythe and the board. Mooney
had little control over these matters.
Mac Anna’s ability to carry out his artistic vision without much interference from
Blythe was undoubtedly influenced by their shared interests and friendship. Like Blythe
was, Mac Anna is a fluent Irish speaker and has “highly idealistic republican views, more
than enough to cause Blythe to take him to his bosom.”121 Mac Anna developed into one
of Ireland’s best theatre directors thanks to Blythe, who believed “Tomas could do no
wrong.”122 The domineering managing director had found a protegee in Mac Anna.
Mooney received little or no encouragement or support from Blythe and the Abbey
management, leaving her with the feeling that Blythe was biding his time until he could
find an Irish-speaking producer to take her place. Dowling recalled one incident when
Blythe “derogatorily referred to [Mooney] as ‘menopausal’ when she attempted to deal
with some of the issues facing the company.”123 Gender may not have played a role in
120 Mooney, “Players and the Painted Stage,” 1.3:113-114. 121 Ryan, 194. 122 Ryan, 194.
123 Dowling,Astride the Moon, 162. I l l
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Mooney’s appointment, but Dowling’s comment identifies that sexism was present at the
Abbey.
When Mooney first took up her position at the Abbey, she told friends that she
could not imagine being there longer than four years. She believed she would either die of
overwork, or be sacked by the management.'24 Neither of these scenarios occurred.
Considering how much she grew to loathe her position, as well as how much abuse she
endured from Blythe and the hectic schedule of each season, one wonders why she did not
resign her position before 1963. Mooney had proved herself a successful teacher and
actor with other Dublin theatres and could have easily found employment elsewhere.
According to Jim McGlone, scholar and author of a forthcoming biography of Mooney,
the “love of Dublin, and the theatrical conditions at the Abbey”125 are what kept Mooney
at Ireland’s National theatre. He suggests that Mooney cherished the Abbey’s repertory
system which allowed players to become familiar with and trusting of one another’s skills
and techniques, a system McGlone aptly likens to a modem sports team.126 Confirmation
o f Mooney’s love for her native land and city is in her memoir. During her first summer
break from the Civic Repertory Theatre, Mooney returned to Ireland to find that her
perspective had changed. She wrote, “Until this return visit to Ireland, the country of my
people had been to me, just so much land surrounded by water, with my beloved Dublin as
its centre. I had had no thought for family or friends, much less country, and couldn’t
124 Mooney, “Players and the Painted Stage,” 1.3: 101. 125 Jim McGlone, e-mail to author, 7 June 2001. 126 Jim McGlone, e-mail to author, 7 June 2001.
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Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. understand why, on coming by train from Cobh to Dublin, the tears kept filling my eyes.
So this was the country that men had died for in 1916!”127 Fondness for Dublin and the
Abbey may not have been all that contributed to Mooney’s employment. Dowling
believes that she “hated her position as producer under Blythe,” but that she was “terrified
that, at her age, she would lose the security that provided a home for herself and her
ageing father, for whom she was the main financial support.”128 Mooney, who talks about
her family history in the first half of her memoir, mentions very little in the second half.
She rarely refers to living with or supporting her father. William Mooney, who died in
October 1967 just shy o f 95,129 was alive for all but five years o f Mooney’s life. It seems
that Mooney, and not her siblings, accepted the responsibility o f caring for her father until
his death. The Abbey provided her with the means to do this and remain in Dublin.
The goals and expectations Mooney had when she first joined the Abbey as
producer in 1948 did not meet with complete resistance. Almost two years after her
appointment, theIrish Digest commented on the changes she had instituted at the National
Theatre, as well as the arduous task she had in bringing about those changes.Digest The
praised her reintroduction of the Abbey School of Acting and the Abbey Experimental
Theatre, and noted that her reforms had given young playwrights the freedom and security
to experiment with their writing. However, the columnist for theDigest also stated that
127 Mooney, “Players and the Painted Stage,” 1.2: 78. 128 Dowling,Astride the Moon, 172. 129 Jim McGlone, biographer of Mooney, states that William Mooney died in 1968 at the age of 95. (McGlone, e-mail to author, 7 June 2001.)
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Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Figure 3.4 Ria Mooney as Mary Tyrone in Eugene O’Neill’sLong Day’s Journey Into Night, with Vincent Dowling and Phillip O’FIynn (in back). (1959) (Courtesy of Mrs. G. A. Duncan)
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Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. “the scope allowed her has not been quite commensurate with the wreckage,” citing the
existence of melodramatic, stage Irish characterizations in Abbey plays as examples of the
wreckage.130 Mooney also received credit fromThe Irish Times for her “talents and
devotion” which had “gone far towards moulding a new and younger company, as worthy
successors to the great players o f an older day.”131 Mooney did successfully revive a few
of Yeats’s plays, although the venue used was usually the Peacock rather than the Abbey’s
main stage, and she was able to add some new design elements to some productions,
though again, these were primarily her productions for the Abbey Experimental Theatre.
In her final years at the Abbey, Mooney took on further responsibilities which
ultimately led to her resignation. In the spring of 1957, she played the lead role in the
Gate Theatre’s production of Marcel Maurette’sAnastasia , a speculative drama on the
fate of Tsar Nicholas II’s daughter. Christopher Fitz-Simon’s assessment of her
performance was lukewarm. He said she “had the command, but not the regality . .. and
she did not manage to project the feeling that there were centuries of privilege behind
her.”132 He also mentioned that her employment as Abbey producer had greatly tired her,
implying that her performance suffered as a result. On 28 April 1959 she starred as Mary
Tyrone in the Abbey’s premiere production of O’Neill’sLong Day’s Journey Into Night.
The Irish Times raved about her performance, stating that she gave “a magnificent
130 “The Abbey and the Future,”Irish Digest (Oct. 1949): 38-39. 131 “Phoenix Flame,” The Irish Times 19 July 1951: 5. 132 Christopher Fitz-Simon, The Boys: A Double Biography (London: Nick Hem Books, 1994) 212.
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Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. performance, vividly tracing the retreat from reality to a dream-world, and the final climax
of suffering.”133 Dowling, who played Edmund Tyrone, remembered seeing her as the
“actress she [once] was”134 in that production, and Micheal O hAodha described her
performance as “the greatest in her career and the most discussed since her Rosie
Redmond.”l3S She also earned praise for her reprisal of Aunt Hennie in D’Alton’sLover’s
Meeting (1961), a role she originated at the Abbey in October 1941. Despite grueling
weeks of executing her regular production duties for the Abbey in the afternoon and
rehearsing the D’Alton and O’Neill pieces later in the day, the opportunity to act in such
rewarding plays was a welcome change for Mooney. Another diversion from her schedule
occurred in 1962 (most likely in June when the theatre was dark) when Mooney went on a
lecture tour to the United States.136 When the Abbey revived the O’Neill play on 24
December 1962, Mooney’s stress escalated. Fear and an incurable inner ear problem hurt
her concentration and ability to memorize, according to Dowling, who said she would
forget lines, and “barely got through” the run of the production.137 A few months later,
Mooney suffered what has been described as a breakdown, or a “crack-up,”138 and spent
133 “Eugene O’Neill at the Abbey,”The Irish Times 24 Apr. 1959: 6. 134 Dowling, Personal Interview, 29 April 2001. 135 Micheal O hAodha, Siobhan: A Memoir o f an Actress (Dingle, Co. Kerry, Ireland: Brandon Book Pub., 1994) 167. 136 Mooney, “Players and the Painted Stage,” 1.3: 96. This is the only reference this author has found to Mooney’s lecture tour.
137 Dowling, Personal Interview, 29 April 2001. 138 “Ria leaves, but not in anger,”Sunday Press [Dublin] 2 June 1963.
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Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. some time recuperating in the Irish countryside before leaving the Abbey and Dublin for
London. At the time she claimed that she never wanted “to see a stage again, or appear in
any form of public entertainment.”139 She held to the latter promise and never worked in
theatre or film again, but she did see the new Abbey stage and at least one production
there before her death.140 Her resignation from the Abbey in 1963 came as a “deep relief,”
and occurred at a time when her way “at last became clear.”141 What is meant by this
statement is unclear, other than that she had found a means of escape from Blythe and the
chaos at the Abbey.
Mooney’s account o f her life and career during those fifteen years, which she
wrote in 1969, is similar to the memoirs o f a spouse caught in an abusive marriage, or a
POW prisoner held in an enemy camp. Her resentment toward Ireland’s National Theatre
and the stress she endured while there is clear throughout. In one of the final paragraphs,
she notes: “I have tried to write something of the nightmare that was that period of my
final years in our National Theatre, but I find it a little too painful to go into more detail.
Those who understand how professional theatres are run might not believe me, and those
who know the theatre only as members of an audience might think, ‘The lady doth protest
too much!”’142 The evidence suggests that those who knew Mooneydid believe that her
torment was real. Sean O’Casey, who had his own bias against the Abbey for refusing
139 Ria Mooney, Letter to Micheal O hAodha, 13 Sept. 1966. (NLI)
140 Mooney, “Players and the Painted Stage,” 1.3:117. 141 Mooney, “Players and the Painted Stage,” 1.3:116. 142 Mooney, “Players and the Painted Stage,” 1.3:116.
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Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. The Silver Tassie in 1928, wrote about Mooney to a friend in 1955. He suggested in the
letter that Mooney “probably exaggerates” about the artistic environment at the Abbey,
but admitted that “the plays she has to produce, are, on the whole, pretty dull things: safe
and commonplace.”143 Irish theatre historians also support O’Casey in asserting that
Mooney suffered from what Hunt calls the “heavy demands o f a thankless and
unrewarding task”144 of producing the Abbey’s English language plays.145 Blythe gave
Mooney the huge responsibility of overseeing the larger part o f the Abbey’s production
schedule, yet he did not have enough trust to grant her the freedom to make artistic
decisions, nor did he open up the budget enough to allow her to experiment with
production values. Even in February 1963, during rehearsals for John O’Donovan’s
Copperfaced Jack, one of Mooney’s final Abbey productions, Blythe was the one making
decisions to delete lines from the text, much to the dismay of the playwright. According
to Robert Welch, a “board and a chairman who do not allow as much freedom to their
employees as is consistent with probity and efficiency will invariably produce a culture of
wariness and cynicism, which in turn will result in fatigue and frustration.”146 For
143 Sean O’Casey, letter to Mrs. R, 9 May 1955, The Letters o f Sean O ’Casey 1955-1958, ed. David Krause, Vol. Ill (Washington D.C.: Catholic U o f American P, 1989) 131. 144 Hunt, 185. 145 When Mooney left, the Abbey hired two producers, both men, to take over the responsibilities that had been hers (Mooney, “Players and the Painted Stage,” 1.3:116). 146 Welch, 174. 118
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Mooney, he states, this environment where there was no trust ended in “a breakdown in
her physical and mental well-being.”147
The Abbey has often been a target for Irish critics, and this was especially true
during Mooney's tenure while the company lived in exile at the Queen’s Theatre. The
mis-matched space symbolized the Irish National Theatre’s struggles to maintain its
significance. However, the criticism undoubtedly resulted from the overly ambitious
expectations for the Abbey. Mooney’s tenacity and ability to remain in place as producer
at the Abbey for fifteen years in spite o f Blythe’s controlling style, disrespectful actors,
and criticism from the press is remarkable. Mooney brought a wealth o f theatrical
experience from America and England to the Abbey. She is also an important link
between the early years of the Abbey, when Yeats and Lady Gregory reigned, and the
players and directors who helped shape the modem Abbey. At a time when few women
worked outside the home or held administrative positions in any field in Ireland, Mooney
held a high-ranking position in the country’s national theatre. Without overtly advocating
the advancement of women directors or playwrights at the Abbey, Mooney did reopen the
door into the Abbey’s administration for women that had closed at Lady Gregory’s death.
147 Welch, 174.
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Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. CHAPTER 4
LELIA DOOLAN: THE ABBEY THEATRE’S FIRST ARTISTIC DIRECTOR
When she was appointed artistic director of the Abbey Theatre in 1991, Garry
Hynes, according to Clare Bayleyo f The Independent, became “the first woman to be
entrusted with that Holy Grail of Irish cultural life.”1 Fiachra Gibbons, a writer for the
The Guardian, also proclaimed that Hynes “was the first woman in the job.”2 These
statements, however, are incorrect and ignore past contributions and involvement by
women at the Abbey Theatre. Twenty years before Hynes’s appointment at the Abbey,
the board of directors hired Lelia Doolan as its first full-time and first female artistic
director. The board’s decision to hire Doolan is of interest for several reasons. First,
although a fine director and an innovative artist, she had no previous connection with the
Abbey as an actor, director, or playwright, as had all other Abbey artistic directors.
Second, Doolan’s artistic directorship is a touchstone for understanding the Abbey’s
process of modernization. Third, the Abbey hired a woman at a time when few women in
Ireland held management positions in any field, including professional theatre, yet her
story has never been told. This chapter examines the political infighting that characterized
1 Clare Bayley, “A New Voice for Ireland,” The Independent (London) 28 Feb. 1996: 6.
2 Fiachra Gibbons, “When Garry Ran Off With a Tony,”Guardian (London) 24 June 1998:12.
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Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. the modernizing process of the Abbey o f the late 1960s and early 1970s, and the effects of
Doolan’s leadership on this process.
There are many challenges that can lace a growing theatre. In the case of the
Abbey in the 1960s-1990s, the struggles between writers, directors, actors or players, and
even audiences for a voice in the production process, or in the daily running of the theatre,
often culminated in verbal rows and antagonistic letters. These struggles played a major
role in the hiring of Abbey staff, as Doolan discovered after taking the job. Only Hugh
Hunt had held the title of artistic director before Doolan, and his was a part-time position.
After two tumultuous years Doolan received a vote of no-confidence from the Abbey
board of directors, still chaired by Micheal O hAodha, and was asked to resign on 12
November 1973. Her struggle for a voice at the Abbey is a significant part of the story of
Doolan’s career.
The better part of Doolan’s life has been devoted to endeavors other than theatre.
She was bom on 7 May 1934 in Cork, but grew up in Dublin. Her father, a civil servant
first in England and then in Ireland, and her mother were what she describes as “steadfast
people,” and they instilled in Doolan and her five siblings the importance of education.3
Doolan knew French by the time she left primary school at the age o f ten or eleven, to
which she added German when she went to high or secondary school.4 She noted in a
1971 article that she drifted inadvertently into the theatre, and subsequently into television.
3Lelia Doolan, interview,My Education, ed. by John Quinn (Dublin: Town House, 1997) 97-98. 4Doolan, My Education, 98. Doolan attended Loreto Convent school in Dublin during her teen years.
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Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. In a more recent interview she noted that she became interested in theatre during college,
and admits to “being a bit of a show-off.”5 One of her first experiences with theatre
occurred with University College Dublin’s (UCD) dramatic society, Dramsoc, for which
she served as director, only the second woman to do so at the time. Her productions for
the troupe included what she considered a “most presumptuous and impertinent” version
of Goethe’s Faust. She also joined UCD’s musical society which put on Gilbert and
Sullivan operas, and took part in an intensive, twelve-production summer theatre venture
with college students from UCD and University College Galway in Kilkee, Ireland. After
graduating in 1954 with honors in French and German,6 she spent the academic year of
1955-1956 at graduate school in Berlin pursuing an M.A. degree, with an emphasis on the
work of Bertolt Brecht, the renowned German playwright and director. However, a
divided Germany and a partitioned Berlin prevented her from focusing her studies
completely upon Brecht, who resided and worked in East Germany. Yet, she was able to
observe the Berliner Ensemble’s rehearsals forMother Courage, starring Brecht’s wife
Helena Weigel and directed by Brecht. She also saw the Berliner Ensemble’s
unconventional production of Sygne’sPlayboy o f the Western World. The rehearsal
process of the Berliner Ensemble and Brecht’s theories greatly influenced Doolan who
came to see the process with the actors in rehearsal as important as the final product.7
Upon her return to Dublin in 1956, Doolan was, for a few years, an actress and stage
5Doolan, My Education, 98.
6She was a gold medallist in French and German.Irish ( Times I Dec. 1971) 7Lelia Doolan, My Education, 99.
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Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. manager for Carolyn Swift and Alan Simpson’s Pike Theatre in Dublin. She also acted
with the Dublin Globe Company during this time, and directedSlings and Arrows, a revue
by Fergus Linehan, at the Gate Theatre. Other theatrical jobs for Doolan in the late 1950s
and early 1960s included a brief tour with a Pike revue to the Hammersmith Theatre in
London and some freelance work in Ireland and Europe. However, auditions, substitute
teaching, and waitressing occupied most of her time.
In 1964 she became a producer-in-training for Radio Telefis Eireann (RTE), for
which she trained for one month each in New York, Chicago, and Toronto (NBC, CBS,
CBC), observing those television studios in action. In the years 1965-1966 she directed
news and music programs for RTE, as well as the soap opera “The Riordans.” This
assignment was followed by her creation of “Seven Days,” a weekly current affairs
program. In 1969 she was appointed head o f Light Entertainment and managed programs
such as the “Late Late Show,” but within months she resigned in protest against the RTE
director general’s policy that she not “participate in any public criticism o f the station.”8
Doolan subsequently coauthoredSit Down and be Coimted: The Cultural Evolution of a
Television Station with two colleagues, Jack Dowling9 and Bob Quinn, who had resigned
with Doolan. In the book, the three express their frustration with Irish television for not
living up to what it could be: a medium for a small country with its own distinct language,
8 Irish Times 1 Dec. 1971.
9 Jack Dowling is brother to Vincent Dowling, Abbey actor, as well as Abbey artistic director (1987-1989).
123
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Figure 4.1 Lelia Doolan, c. 1998. (Courtesy of Lelia Doolan)
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Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. customs, and traditions.10 Incidentally, their agenda echoed some of the hopes expressed
for Irish theatre by the Abbey Theatre’s founders. In her resignation letter, quoted in a
subsequentIrish Times article, Doolan stated, ‘‘‘I believe the station iscontinuing to
produce programmes that are dangerously trivial, emasculated and contrary to the national
cultural spirit.’”11 After leaving the station, Doolan spent her time working as a freelance
journalist and writer in Ireland, writing a weekly columnThe for Irish Press and a
television column for the magazineThis Week. In 1971, however, she returned to a role in
theatre.
In a memo dated 23 March 1971, Hugh Hunt, then artistic director o f the Abbey
Theatre, outlined his concerns for the theatre’s future to Micheal O hAhodha, the
chairman of the board. He strongly suggested that the Abbey update its managerial
procedures, which should include, he felt, the appointment of a full-time resident artistic
director. His own part-time appointment, he noted, resulted in “hasty and ill-thought
planning”12 for both productions and policy. The board heeded Hunt and in the autumn of
1971 hired Doolan as its first full-time artistic director. According to Hunt’s history of the
Abbey, the board unanimously agreed to hire Doolan, whose idealism and passion for the
theatre “not just as business but as a social institution”13 made her an appealing choice.
10 Lelia Doolan, My Education, 101.
11 Irish Times 1 December 1971.
12 Hugh Hunt, memo to Micheal O hAodha, 23 Mar. 1971 (NLI Ms. 33,369 [5]). 13 Hugh Hunt,The Abbey: Ireland’s National Theatre 1904-1978 (New York: Columbia UP, 1979)238. 125
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. After spending a few months shadowing Vincent Dowling, deputy artistic director from
April-December 1971,14 she took on the full responsibilities of artistic director on 1
December.
At the time of Doolan’s appointment, the women’s movement in Ireland was
gaining in strength and numbers, as was the case in the United Kingdom, Europe, and the
United States. In Ireland the primary struggle centered on eliminating numerous
restrictions on women’s rights, including bans on the employment of married women and
on contraception. One result of these efforts was the Commission on the Status of
Women established by the Irish government in March 1970. The goal was to diagnose
existing inequalities for women in Irish society and to suggest proposals for change. The
first report in December 1972 contained “forty-nine recommendations and seventeen
suggestions ‘designed to eliminate all forms of discrimination against women in the fields
of employment, social welfare, education, the taxation code, property rights and in all
areas of central and local administration.’”15 Six years later, thirty-seven of the forty-nine
recommendations had been implemented,16 including the repeal in 1973 of the marriage
ban forcing women civil servants to resign upon marriage. These changes, however, were
more effective in theory than in practice. For instance, the establishment of equal pay
14 The board of directors hired Dowling as deputy to the artistic director, Hugh Hunt. Hunt, who lived and worked in Manchester, could only remain in Dublin for brief periods. Due to these circumstances, he resigned. 15 Jenny Beale, Women In Ireland: Voices o f Change (Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire: MacMillan Education, Ltd., 1986) 4-5. 16 Beale, 186.
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Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. scales for Irish men and women did little to narrow the gap between salaries. One angry
citizen, Colette Ni Mhoitleigh, wrote to The Irish Times in 1973, expressing her
disappointment in the government’s attempts to reform pay scales by citing advertisements
she had seen recently in theIrish Times: “Three posts as information assistant in the
Government Information Bureau. Salary: entry up to £2,100 (man) or £1,850 (woman);
maximum £2,598 (man), £2,161 (woman).”17 Maternity leave and childcare at the
workplace also remained contentious issues with employers who were reluctant to accept
their female employees’s roles as workers and mothers. With the strong influence o f the
Catholic Church upon Irish law and culture, such issues as abortion, divorce, and
contraception remained taboo. The Health Act of 1979, one of the first steps forward in
the legalization o f contraceptives, allowed married couples to obtain prescriptions for
contraceptives. However, because of personal moral beliefs, doctors and pharmacists
could refuse to supply patients with contraceptives.18 According to Yvonne Scannell, the
implementation of anti-discriminatory laws created in the 1970s to secure Irish women’s
rights had less to do with the government’s attempts to satisfy the Commission’s
recommendations, and more to do with Ireland's decision to join the European Economic
Community (EEC) in January 1973. The EEC’s directives on equal treatment for men and
women required Ireland to improve working and social conditions for Irish women.19
17 Colette Ni Mhoitleigh, “Equality How Are Ye?,” letter to editor,The Irish Times 25 Apr. 1973: 11.
18 Beale, 105-107. 19 Yvonne Scannell, “Changing Times for Women’s Rights,”Irish Women: Image and Achievement, ed. Eilean Ni Chuilleanain (Dublin: Arlen House, 1985) 66-67. 127
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Several laws passed throughout the 1970s tended to do more to favor the rights of
married women than to improve conditions for women in general. Single women, who in
1975 constituted over 50 percent of the population,20 did not receive the same government
attention during the 1970s as did married women. For instance, the Social Welfare Acts
of 1973 and 1974 provided wives deserted by their husbands and wives of prisoners with
allowances from the state, and the 1976 Family Home Protection Act made the selling o f a
family home without the consent o f a spouse illegal. Married women were legally able to
purchase contraceptives after 1979, while single women sometimes had to resort to
forging marriage certificates in order to buy them. Yet, single women in Ireland generally
had more freedom and rights throughout the twentieth century than those who were
married. For example, until the 1980s Irish tax laws deemed the income o f a married
woman to belong to her husband while a single woman’s salary was recognized as being
her own. Women were also either legally forced or socially pressed to resign from a job
after they married, and the laws allowed widowers butnot widows to claim housekeepers
on their taxes.21 However, all women, married, single, or widowed, encountered
discrimination from the Social Welfare Department. They had to work for twenty-six
consecutive years before being able to receive unemployment assistance from the
20 Mary Robinson, “Women and the New Irish State,”Women in Irish Society: The Historical Dimension, eds. by Margaret Mac Curtain and Donneha O Corrain (Westport, CT: Greenwood P, 1979) 59. 21 Nadine Hennessy, “Working Married Women,” letter to editor,The Irish Times 5 Dec. 1972: 13.
128
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. department, in comparison to the three years required for men.22 All Irish women battled
the “spectre o f undeserving women holding down ‘men’s jobs’,”23 and the “philosophy
that women are dependent on men and that society must only support them when this
dependence “for one reason or another ceases.”24
In contrast, on the surface at least, Irish theatre seemed to offer equal opportunity
to Irish women. Irish theatres employed single and married women in junior and senior
level positions for most of the past century, a practice that was noticeably opposite of the
general trend in Ireland. The Abbey in particular appointed women to its board or artistic
management, whereas theatres such as the Dublin Gate Theatre, or the National Theatre in
London, have had no women artistic directors and few women working in management
throughout the twentieth-century. Thus the gender of an individual seems to have played
less of a role than his or her qualifications. However, to say that the Abbey has been at
the forefront o f promoting equality of would be an exaggeration. Until recently the
Abbey’s board o f directors has historically been primarily comprised o f men who have
controlled the decision making. Women tended to have little input into Abbey policy.
During Ernest Blythe’s tenure as managing director for the Abbey, from 1941 to 1967,
few plays by women writers were performed, and not much has changed today. Only one
22 Hennessy, “Working Married Women,” 13.
23 Yvonne Scannell, “The Constitution and the Role of Women,”The Irish Women’s History Reader, eds. Alan Hayes and Dia Urquhart (London and New York: Routledge, 2001)76. 24 Yvonne Scannell, “Changing Times for Women’s Rights,”Irish Women: Image and Achievement, ed. Eilean Ni Chuilleanain (Dublin: Arlen House P, 1985) 69. 129
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. play by a woman was presented on the Abbey’s main stage between 1984 and 1989.15
Moreover, aside from Ria Mooney and Garry Hynes, women directors rarely had the
opportunity to direct for the Abbey’s main stage during the second half of the last century.
And like Mooney and Hynes, most women who have directed, or held high-ranking
positions for the Abbey, have been unmarried. Appointing women to the board and to the
position of artistic director during the final three decades of the twentieth-century has not
resulted in an exponential increase in their presence on stage or back stage.
Between 1969 and 2001, ten people held the post of artistic director for the Abbey
Theatre, an average of only 3.2 years. Four years prior to the creation of the artistic
director post, the Abbey implemented the job o f artistic advisor, which was held by three
different people between 1965 and 1969. In consequence, although the Abbey was
maintained by its board of directors, it was not allowed to develop its artistic mission. Not
surprising, then, Dublin critics, faulting the Theatre’s inability to maintain a stable artistic
vision, often mercilessly trounced the Abbey’s productions in the 1970s and 1980s. In a
1985 letter to The Irish Times , Mary Manning went so for as to accuse the Abbey’s board
of directors, or the “Advisors,” of stifling artistic freedom. She wrote, “When I was
drama critic forHibernia during the Seventies, I prophesied over and over again that no
artistic director of the Abbey Theatre could work with a gang or a Mafia of so-called
advisors behindhim... Until the ‘Advisors’ go, no Artistic Director can survive.”26 In
25 Steve Wilmer, “Women’s Theatre in Ireland,”New Theatre Quarterly 7.28 (1991): 355- 357. 16 Irish Times 7 Sept. 1985. 130
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. October of that year, David Hayes, an advocate for the Abbey writers and players, wrote
that the onus for the Abbey’s deteriorating standards was on the artistic director, who,
Hayes believed, should be less influential in the Abbey’s “choice o f plays.”27 The battle for
artistic control of the Abbey may have been won by the artistic director by the mid-1980s.
However, when Doolan became artistic director in late 1971 the battle had barely begun.
At that time, the Abbey Theatre’s board of directors consisted o f chairman
Micheal O hAodha and Seamus Wilmot, who were government appointees, Ernest Blythe,
Roibeard O’Farachain, and Gabriel Fallon. All had been members for ten years or more,
and they averaged more than seventy years in age. According to Abbey policy, one
member came up for retirement each year by rotation. He could be reinstated if he did not
want to retire and if he had the support and the votes of his fellow board members. For
instance, the Players Council demanded Fallon’s resignation in 1970 after the latter
published an essay about the Abbey’s acting standards. When Fallon conceded, the board
readily convinced him to do otherwise.28 An article in the DublinSunday Press in 1971,
“The Men Who Run the Abbey,” illustrated their power and their influence upon the
national theatre. Five men did indeed run the Abbey theatre in 1971. Shareholders could
not easily defeat a unanimous decision by the board because of the division of shares. The
authorized shares for the Abbey at the time amounted to £3,050, of which £1,000 “A”
shares were allotted to board members at £200 apiece, while £220 “D” shares went to the
11 Irish Times 21 Oct. 1985. The one constant throughout the Abbey Theatre’s history has been its ability to earn criticism for its policies and its productions. 28 Desmond Rushe, “Election Campaign at the Abbey”Irish Independent 15 Oct. 1971.
131
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Minister of Finance and £30 “D” shares were assigned to the Taoiseach, Ireland’s prime
minister. Other shares, totaling £625, were divided at £25 a piece between twenty-five
shareholders,29 who were prominent Irish artistic personalities, including present and past
actors and Abbey staff. The Articles of Association for the National Theatre Society
Limited restricted the number of Abbey employees who could hold shares to no more than
one-third of the Abbey company. The influence of the five-man board, therefore, was
enormous if the members remained united. They could stifle anyone who chose to create
theatre that ran contrary to the board’s artistic policies. In 1972, Abbey actress Kathleen
Barrington became the first woman to sit on the board since Lady Gregory’s death in
1932. That the board appointed two women to positions of authority at the Abbey in
1971-1972 suggests that it was attempting to introduce a new direction for the Abbey.
However, when the Abbey artistic policy changed little after Doolan and Barrington’s
appointments, it also demonstrates the board’s resistance to change. With the exception
of a few productions in the smaller Peacock, the Abbey remained conventional and
traditional. Doolan notes: “Did they mean to have a change? Perhaps - but the structures
that had cemented themselves into place over the years made it actually a painful thing for
them to do .. . The stomach for experiment and failure was not pre-eminent in the Board’s
temperament. They were all rather old.”30
The appointment of an artistic director at the Abbey was first suggested in 1965.
29 Robert Welch, The Abbey Theatre 1899-1999: Form and Pressure (Oxford: Oxford UP, 1999)212. 30 Lelia Doolan, e-mail to the author, 2 March 2001. 132
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. According to Robert Welch, authorof The Abbey Theatre 1899-1999, several members of
the Irish National Theatre Society advanced the idea in an attempt to reduce the authority
of then Managing Director, Ernest Blythe. This was met with opposition from the board
of directors whose control would be diminished by the addition of a senior Abbey officer.
O Farachain, a director since 1940, noted that an artistic director or advisor “would nullify
the directors function,”31 making their role in the theatre nominal rather than practical.
Blythe resented the proposal. The shareholders, including playwright Brian Friel,
continued to push the issue, and on 4 December 1965 the board resolved to hire Walter
Macken as the Abbey’s new assistant manager and artistic advisor. The carefully chosen
title “advisor,” rather than “director,” ensured a nominal as well as authoritative
distinction between the board of “directors” and the artistic advisor. The duties of the
artistic advisor, as outlined by the board in a memo dated 29 November 1966, were to: “I.
advise Board re scripts, productions, scene designers, producers, musicians and players; 2.
Submit schemes re full use of both Theatres and school of acting in Peacock; 3. consult
with authors as Board decides; 4. discuss with Manager re financial issues; 5. make
suggestions re producers’ problems.”32 Additional responsibilities included co-editing
theatre programs, returning plays with the boards’ comments to authors, circulating cast-
lists after board approval, and general supervision of the Abbey’s artistic operation. The
artistic advisor became a middleman between the players, playwrights, producers, and
board, entrusted with the power to offer suggestions for future productions and programs
31 Welch, 176. 32 A memo found in NLI manuscripts, the Micheal O hAodha papers.
133
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. but lacking the ability to make any final decisions. Macken remained the Abbey artistic
advisor only until June 1966 when he resigned. Six months later, in December 1966,
Tomas Mac Anna became artistic advisor. Upon Mac Anna’s resignation two years later,
Alan Simpson took up the post from 1968 to 1969.
A stipulation Hunt made when he re-joined the Abbey in 1969 was that the title of
“artistic advisor” be changed to “artistic director.” Hunt was familiar with British theatres
which had been using the term artistic director since the 1950s.33 In 1970, perhaps at
Hunt’s urging, the Abbey secretary, John Slemon, compiled notes from contracts for
artistic directors/administrators in Great Britain. The document clearly shows the
differences between the function of the artistic director at the Abbey and its counterpart in
Britain. The Arts Council of Britain considered the artistic director the senior officer in
the major regional theatres, answering only to the board. The wording, however, for the
artistic director’s specific duties is important. The artistic director, in accordance with the
board’s policy and the financial provisions, chooses the plays, directors, designers, cast
and technical staff with the manager/administrator.34 British theatres endowed artistic
directors with the authority to make decisions, which was very different from the job
outlined for the Abbey artistic advisor. Although the title Hunt insisted upon did not alter
the job description for the Abbey artistic director, the board did begin to seriously
33 The Royal Court Theatre opened in 1956 with George Devine as its artistic director. When the National Theatre opened in 1962, Sir Laurence Olivier became its first artistic director.
34 John Slemon, memo to Micheal O hAodha, The National Theatre Society Limited, 21 Aug. 1970. (NLI) 134
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. reconsider the responsibilities of the Theatre’s artistic management.
Letters written from Hunt to O hAodha during Hunt’s tenure articulated the
problems lacing the executive staff of the Abbey. In addition to pointing out the necessity
for a full-time resident artistic director, Hunt noted that frequent staff meetings involved
“the Board too closely with the functions of their executive officers and this operates to
the detriment of the objective view that the Board should be able to have of the carrying
out of its policy.”35 He explained that contemporary managerial practices outside the
Abbey allow for decisions for casting and hiring of stage personnel to be made by the
artistic director and the general manager, if those contracts are within the budget set by
the board. As the Abbey’s artistic director in 1969-1971, Hunt did not have the authority
to make casting or hiring decisions without first consulting the board. In July 1970, the
board asked Hunt to compose a document containing his perspective of his preferred
relationship between the theatre’s executive staff. Hunt stated in the memorandum that he
had become convinced the Abbey could not maintain its position as a major international
theatre if it did not pay more attention to its productions. He noted that “without an
Artistic Director with full control of the artistic departments and work of the Theatre, I am
convinced the Abbey would cease to be an artistic institution with any coherent artistic
leadership.”36 A resident artistic director with more authority, he said, would provide the
attention needed for production work, thus freeing the board to concentrate on the overall
operation of the theatre. Such authority would include the right to choose the season,
35 Hugh Hunt, memo to Micheal O hAodha, 23 Mar. 1971. (NLI) 36 Hugh Hunt, memo to Micheal O hAodha, 23 June 1971. (NLI)
135
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. allowing for the board's suggestions or veto if necessary.37 Undoubtedly the board would
need to trust the artistic director to make good decisions.
According to John Slemon, Abbey manager from 1971 to 1975, “the Chairman,
Micheal O hAodha, was keen to bring Lelia in as he saw her performance at RTE as the
kind of vigour and new broom which the Abbey needed.”38 Slemon also noted that in
1971 “Lelia was articulate and respected as a new factor in Irish life - a woman who was
independent, intellectual and outspoken.”39 Doolan's outspokenness resulted in criticism
from the press during her initial months as the Abbey's artistic director. Aodhan Madden
o f the Everting Press questioned Doolan’s qualifications, noting that Doolan is an actress,
“though she has never really distinguished herself as one,” and asked, “what has she done
for the theatre?”40 He suggested that Doolan’s social conscience, which caused her to stir
up controversy, projected “the image of youthful dynamism”41 that the Abbey believed it
needed. The reference to the “youthful dynamism” undoubtedly conjured up Doolan’s
conflict with RTE, and her public protest against a production staged at the Peacock in
September 1970. According to Desmond Rushe, editorial writerThe for Irish
37 Hugh Hunt, memo to the Abbey Board of Directors, 21 Aug. 1970. (NLI) 38 John Slemon, letter to author, 25 June 2001. Doolan also had a connection to the Irish government; her brother-in-law, George Colley, was the Minister of Finance, the same minister in charge o f funding the Abbey. While there is no evidence to suggest Colley’s position influenced the board in their choice, it could not have hurt Doolan’s chances. 39 John Slemon, letter to author, 25 June 2001. 40 Evening Press 12 Jan. 1972. 41 Evening Press 12 Jan. 1972.
136
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Independent, the performance o fA State o f Chassis was interrupted by Eamonn McCann,
of Derry, who took offense to the representations of Northern Irish personalities in the
play. Doolan, who was at the performance, did not attempt to stop him, and voiced her
support for him after the curtain call. Rushe calls the incident “a regrettable intervention
by the Abbey’s new Artistic Director.”42
Doolan was given a one-year appointment, beginning 1 December 1971, with the
possibility of a two-year extension if the first year was successful. The board agreed that
she could seek subsequent terms following the end of her first three years. Her contract
stated that she would direct two plays each year, at least one of which would be in the
Abbey Theatre, that she would work in close collaboration with the manager, and that she
should relinquish “journalistic criticism of theatre and television in the national press.”43 In
her two years as artistic director, Doolan directed Shaw’sSt. Joan (5 December 1972)
and M. J. Molloy’sThe King o f Friday's Men (14 August 1973) in the Abbey Theatre,
and in the Peacock she directedEye-Winker, Tom-Tinker (8 August 1972) by Tom
MacIntyre and Padraig O Giollagain’sJohnny Orfeo (27 April 1973). She co-directed the
latter play, an Irish-language rock opera, with Colm O Brien. In a press report for her
first Abbey production,Eye-Winker, Tom-Tinker, Doolan called the play “universal
enough and Irish enough for everyone to enjoy,”44 which proved to be true. The main
42 Desmond Rushe, “Election Campaign at the Abbey,”Irish Independent [Dublin] 15 Oct. 1971.
43 Lelia Doolan’s contract for the position of artistic director at the Abbey Theatre, signed by John Slemon, Abbey Theatre Manager, 19 Dec. 1973. (NLI) 44 “Next Week in the Arts,” Irish Times 5 Aug. 1972: 12. 137
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. character of the play is a revolutionary who spends more time talking about his cause than
he does doing anything for it, which audiences associated with Ireland’s history o f
revolutionary movements.The Irish Times critic, Seamus Kelly, commended Doolan for
giving MacIntyre’s play “a crisp production,”45 even though he thought the play too long.
St. Joan, her second production as artistic director and her first for the Abbey’s main
stage, was “flat,”46 according to David Nowlan ofThe Irish Times. He described the set
and lights as distracting and hesitant, and also said the production “contained no certainty,
no personal style or vision and only minimal theatricality,”47 which made it seem
extraordinarily long. Doolan has said, retrospectively, that the Shaw play was not “the
happiest thing in the world”48 she had decided to do, and she acknowledged that the
production was not a success.
Her two subsequent and final productions as artistic director faired better with
audiences and with critics.Johnny Orfeo, a version ofOrpheus and the Underworld, was
influenced by the success of Andrew Lloyd Webber’sJesus Christ Superstar. The
production stretched the traditional conventions of theatrical staging at the Abbey by
incorporating technology. Every possible space at the Peacock was used for the
performance, and television screens were placed on either side of the theatre. Dominic O
45 Seamus Kelly, “Essay in revolutionary tactics at the Peacock,”Irish Times 9 Aug. 1972: 10.
46 David Nowlan, ‘“St. Joan’ at the Abbey,”Irish Times 6 Dec. 1972: 12. 47 Nowlan, ‘“St. Joan’ at the Abbey,” 12. 48 Lelia Doolan, interview with Subotica Films, April 2001.
138
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Riordan, o fThe Irish Times, “enjoyed every moment” ofJohnny Orfeo, despite its
deafening music, and observed, “the audience danced, clapped and, I am sure if they could
have heard the words, would have sung also.'’49 He also remarked that the production
was “directed excellently.”50 Doolan’s final production for the Abbey was M.J. Molloy’s
The King o f Friday’s Men, a play that was first directed by Ria Mooney in October 1948.
The play interested Doolan because it is what she calledmale “a liberation play - about
the time [18th C.] when women were commodities, and thrown around like snuff at a
wake.”51 Doolan had contracted the designer and director Sean Kenny to direct this
Molloy play, which tells the story of a family’s attempt to prevent the landlord from taking
their daughter as his mistress. However, Kenny died of a brain hemorrhage shortly before
the first rehearsal, so Doolan took over because “there was nobody around at the time to
do it.”52 According to Doolan, the experience o f directing the Molloy play proved to be
“much more comfortable and . .happier... . and more enjoyable”53 than the rehearsal
process for St. Joan, in part because she had become more familiar with the Abbey
company. Seamus Kelly, in his review forThe Irish Times, called the production “a
worthy revival. .. ennobled by the magnificent sets . . . [of) bronze and gold interiors.”
49 Dominic O Riordan, “Irish rock opera at the Peacock,” The Irish Times 27 Apr. 1973: 10.
50 O Riordan, “Irish rock opera at the Peacock,” 10.
51 “Next Week in the Arts,” The Irish Times 11 Aug. 1973:12. 52 Lelia Doolan, interview with Subotica Films, April 2001. (for a forthcoming centenary special about the Abbey Theatre for RTE, due in 2004) 53 Doolan, interview with Subotica Films, April 2001.
139
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. But he criticized Doolan for being “over-indulgent to some of her players in the matter of
diction.”54 He not only castigated Harry Brogan, a long time Abbey actor, for playing for
laughs, but blamed Doolan for not having dealt more “ruthlessly” with Brogan.55
Doolan attempted to supplement the Abbey’s standard fore of new and classic Irish
plays by bringing in innovative artists from outside o f Ireland. For example, rather than
lose profit by keeping the Abbey’s main stage closed during June, the company’s vacation
month, she and Slemon brought foreign productions and companies to the Abbey, such as
Athol Fugard’sSizwe Bansi is Dead, the Glasgow Citizen Theatre, the Tentz Forum from
Frankfort, Germany, and various dance groups. Doolan also brought in guest directors
and designers, including the Greek film director, Michael Cacoyannis, who directed Yeats’
version o f Sophocles’ King Oedipus in April 1973. For this production the actors agreed
to rehearse all day instead of the typical four hour rehearsal from ten-thirty to one-thirty,
which resulted in a higher morale and sense o f involvement within the company. Doolan
remembers the opening ofOedipus as “a very happy night in the company. It was a very
good feeling to have an audience who loved it, to see the work that was done and to
recognise with the actors how happy they were about it.”56 She also extended invitations
to the Swedish film maker Ingmar Bergman and to the British director Lindsay Anderson
to direct an Abbey production, but neither offer came to fruition. Bergman had no wish to
direct another English-language production after he had difficulty with a London
54 Seamus Kelly, ‘“ Friday’s Men’ at the Abbey,” The Irish Times 15 Aug. 1973: 10.
55 Kelly, ‘“Friday’s Men’ at the Abbey,” 10.
56 Doolan, interview with Subotica Films, April 2001. 140
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. production of Ibsen’sThe Wild Duck, and Anderson “decided it would be impossible to
get the lifers [permanent contract actors] to do new things!”57 The Abbey company also
toured internationally during Doolan’s artistic directorship. Hunt’s 1972 production of
O’Casey’s The Silver Tassie traveled to Helsinki, Brussels, Belgium, Paris, and
Edinburgh, and Cacoyannis’s productionOedipus of toured to Edinburgh. In 1972, she
asked the English Clifford Williams, a director o f Shakespeare and a vocal coach, to lead a
few workshops for the Abbey company. Later that year, the board granted Doolan’s
request to bring in a permanent vocal coach. Patrick Mason was hired. Although some of
the thirty-six member company, all of whom had lifetime contracts with the Abbey,
resisted the idea of taking voice classes, Doolan believes the theatre and the company
benefitted greatly from Mason’s outside influence.58 Doolan also convinced the board to
institute an apprenticeship program for young actors. Her intention was to bring in people
from outside the Abbey tradition with the expectation that they would “work off the talent
that was” at the Abbey “and bring a kind o f a new life into the work.”59 Her exposure to
directors such as Brecht as well as her own wish to take risks brought her success and
failure with critics and with the Abbey company and management.
Looking back upon the Abbey documents from the time of Doolan’s artistic
directorship - a period that John Slemon has termed the “Lelia Doolan affair” — one can
begin to understand why the Abbey was so troubled during her tenure. Rumors circulated
57 John Slemon, letter to author, 25 June 2001.
58 Doolan, interview with Subotica Films, April 2001.
59 Doolan, interview with Subotica Films, April 2001. 141
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. at the time of Doolan’s appointment that the players were not happy with the board’s
choice of artistic director, prompting one reporter to comment on thediminishing
standards at the Abbey. He reported that the players’s unhappiness is “basically, a good
sign. It indicates a degree of trepidation on the part of talented people who have allowed
both their professional and artistic standards to become sloppy.”60 Doolan lacked the
experience of Mac Anna and Hunt, which may explain why the actors were unhappy about
the board’s choice and considered her, according to Doolan, “not quite ‘Abbey’.”61
Slemon also noted that the failure of her first production,St. Joan, lost Doolan the
support of the players, and she “was not canny enough to regain that by staging some
easier war-horse quickly.”62 St. Joan convinced some of the company, as well as previous
players such as Siobhan McKenna, that Doolan “did not know what she was doing.”63
Within months of Doolan’s appointment, her conflict with the board began. In a
memo to the board, dated 29 February 1972, Doolan voiced her frustration regarding the
board’s interference with the Abbey premiere of Brendan Behan’s final playRichard’s
Cork Leg (14 March 1972). Behan had died before he could finish a complete draft of the
play, and Alan Simpson, who directed it at the Abbey, had to edit Behan’s multiple drafts
into a single coherent text. The play was approved by the board before Doolan’s
60 Bruce Arnold, n.p., n.d. (NLI) 61 Lelia Doolan, e-mail to author, 14 May 2001. 62 John Slemon, letter to author, 25 June 2001. 63 Micheal 6 hAodha, Siobhan McKenna: A Memoir o f an Actress (Dingle [Ireland]: Brandon Book Publishers Ltd., 1994) 177. 142
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. appointment, with the understanding that she would complete any work on the text that
needed to be done. After working with Simpson and suggestingam endm ents,she
informed the board of “these activities and this work” in January. The following month,
while Doolan was out of the country, the board re-examined the script and asked for
changes. Doolan’s response was direct and to the point. She noted that the board did not
let her absence deter them from making decisions regarding the production, and that the
board’s “interference at this stage” was unfortunate and impossible since the show had
only two weeks before it opened. She also proposed “that the board gives serious
consideration to placing their judgement and experience as a valued advisory service at my
disposal. I suggest that the board would become part of a new system of reading in which
their opinions would be a weighty factor in my decision for acceptance or rejection.”64
Realizing the battleground she was cultivating by questioning policy, she asserted, “The
board can fire me if it finds my decisions seriously and regularly at fault. Until that time, I
believe it will find merit in maintaining accountability for these decisions, while reposing
responsibility for them in me.”63 Unfortunately, the board’s response to Doolan’s memo is
not with the other documents in O hAodha’s papers at the National Library of Ireland.
Several documents from early 1973, however, confirm that the frustrations were as real
for the executive staff and the players as they were for Doolan.
64 Lelia Doolan, memo to the Abbey Board of Directors, 29 Feb. 1972. (NLI) 65 Lelia Doolan, memo to the Abbey Board of Directors, 29 Feb. 1972. (NLI)
143
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. In December of 1972 Doolan directed the “unhappy production”66 of Shaw’sSt.
Joan which did nothing to reassure the board of her abilities as a director. The National
Theatre Society Ltd.’s director’s report for 13 October 1973 calls the winter season of
1972/1973 “disappointing.” Coupled with a fall season that lacked foreign bookings, the
Theatre ended the year with a £61,688 deficit.67 Theatres are rarely able to produce only
successful productions. Even with an annual government subsidy, the Abbey’s spending
has often exceeded its resources, making finances a constant challenge. Further problems
for Doolan and the Abbey resulted from strained relations between the Abbey manager,
John Slemon, and guest director Alan Barlow. Doolan was caught in the middle. In a 13
February 1973 letter from Doolan to O hAodha, in which she details her conversations
with Barlow and Slemon, she describes her attempts to convince Barlow to stay at the
Abbey. He did temporarily but left by August 1973. Barlow told Doolan that he
“excluded from consultation,” prompting Doolan to point out the effect their respective
busy schedules had on clear communication. However, she began her letter to O hAodha
by noting that she discussed, on 2 February, future productions and solutions to staff
problems with Barlow. After a conversation with Slemon, Barlow tendered his
resignation, unbeknownst to Doolan until after Barlow had discussed the matter with O
hAodha, board chairman.68 The “lack of consultation” that Doolan had suspected did
66 Hunt, 242. Micheal O hAodha also calls Doolan’sSt. Joan as an “unhappy production” (O hAodha,Siobhan: A Memoir o fan Actress, 177). 67 NLI, Micheal O hAodha papers.
68 In a letter to O hAodha, presumably in 1971, Mac Anna makes reference to the “abrupt and biting letters” from Slemon, and his “unfortunate communication process.” A prior 144
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. exist, and she was the “victim.”69 As the artistic director, she thought she should be
apprised of artistic matters, instead of hearing about situations such as Barlow’s
resignation after a decision had been made. Doolan’s letter regarding Behan’sRichard’s
Cork Leg and Barlow’s first resignation indicate that communication between the Abbey
board and staff and the artistic director was far from ideal.
Tensions mounted in the Abbey in August 1973, and culminated in Doolan’s
dismissal. On 22 August, Doolan wrote to O hAodha in reference to “some serious
concerns” about her working conditions that were “making it impossible” for her to fulfill
“important aspects of my contracted responsibilities.”70 She claimed that she had tried
unsuccessfully to speak with him in person about the matter and that writing was now her
only option. The board’s interference with play selection, productions, and other artistic
matters had not subsided, and continued to prove to be an obstacle for Doolan. Carolyn
Swift, director, actor, and former Abbey board member, noted that her ex-husband, Alan
Simpson, had similar problems during his nine months as artistic advisor to the Abbey in
1968-1969. Slemon has suggested that undue interference from a board of directors at a
theatre such as the Abbey “is normally a consequence of weak or ineffectual artistic
direction.”71 However, he also concedes that the Abbey’s board members have often
letter angered Mac Anna so much that he hastily submitted and, after consultation with Hunt, withdrew his resignation. (NLI)
69 Lelia Doolan, letter to Micheal O hAodha, 13 Feb. 1973. (NLI) 70 Lelia Doolan, letter to Micheal O hAodha, 22 Aug. 1973. (NLI) 71 John Slemon, letter to the author, 25 June 2001.
145
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. idealized their roles as caretakers of the Abbey tradition. As a result, the Abbey board
maintained actual artistic control in the Theatre,m aking Simpson “subordinate to the
Board of Directors in all major areas.”72 A request from O hAodha to Doolan to suggest
ways in which the Abbey’s artistic administration might be improved, indicates that board
members, or at least its chairman, were not completely opposed to change. The
suggestions which Doolan sent to O hAodha on 28 August 1973 are not in the O hAodha
papers. However, O hAodha’s response refers to a section of Doolan’s note in which she
set out reasons why she regarded her “contract with the Theatre ‘in principle and in feet
invalidated.’”73 Doolan expected that her note would be considered “informal” and remain
confidential until further discussion could take place between O hAodha and herself.
O hAodha thought otherwise and read her letter to the board. O hAodha and the other
members of the board decided that the problems raised by Doolan could only be solved
“by a complete reversal of several major policy and appointment decisions by the
Board,”74 which they were not willing to do. They regarded Doolan’s letter as a “request
for release” from her contract because she felt she could not perform her duties, and
informed her that they would be appointing an interim artistic director.
By 25 September the board had discussed appointing an “artistic director
designate” by 1 December. They had also offered Doolan the option to stay at the Abbey
as a literary consultant. Doolan did not give in to the board immediately. In a 3 October
^Carolyn Swift, Stage By Stage (Dublin: Poolbeg, 1985) 143. 73 Micheal O hAodha, letter to Lelia Doolan, n.d. 1973. (NLI)
74 Micheal O hAodha, letter to Lelia Doolan, 18 Sept. 1973. (NLI)
146
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 1973 letter to O hAodha she stated that she did not wish to be released from her contract,
and she maintained that her 28 August letter was meant to initiate conversation concerning
“certain structural anomalies and difficulties”75 in the office of artistic director. Her words
did not sway the board members. On 12 November 1973, Doolan received a memo from
O hAodha which said, “I wish to confirm theunanim ousdecision of the Board that you
should not continue as Artistic Director for the remaining year of your contract. I also
wish to confirm that I am ready to discuss an alternative post which would be acceptable
to you and to the Board.”76 Doolan had turned in her artistic director’s report with
planned spring schedule at a meeting just one day prior to her receipt of this memo. The
official press release tersely stating that Tomas Mac Anna would “become Artistic
Director on Ist December 1973 in succession to Miss Lelia Doolan, currently the Artistic
Director”77 appeared in the local newspapers on 17 November 1973.
Several issues led up to Doolan’s discharge. The board often disagreed with
Doolan’s choice o f plays. For example, in winter 1973 Doolan selected a new play,Thirty
New Pence, for the Peacock season, at the urging of the Peacock director, Vincent
Dowling. The board criticized the choice and concluded that the play was “counterfeit,”
possibly meaning that the play had been plagiarized or that it was a derivative of other
plays.78 Comments from others, such as the Abbey manager John Slemon and Hunt,
75 Lelia Doolan, letter to Micheal O hAodha, 3 Oct. 1973. (NLI) 76 Micheal O hAodha, memo to Lelia Doolan, 12 Nov. 1973. (NLI) 77 Abbey press release, 16 Nov. 1973. (NLI)
78 Micheal O hAodha, letter to Lelia Doolan, 4 Jan. 1973. (NLI)
147
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. characterized Doolan’s decisions for the Abbey production seasons as capricious. Slemon
noted in a 7 November 1973 letter to the board that he was confused by receiving five
different spring schedules from Doolan during October alone. Doolan asserted that the
five plans were most likely “options” for the board and Slemon to consider.79 In a 5
March 1973 letter to O hAodha, Hunt confidentially reported a conversation he had with
Doolan concerning the Abbey. He stated that he “found the discussion regarding our
problems extremely confused, more especially as relates to choice of repoertoire [s/c],”
and that Doolan said she had “abandoned her original policy statement for the remainder
of this year and next.”80 According to Doolan, altering the schedule became a financial
necessity as she sought a balance between the Abbey’s “published intentions” and its
“strained resources.”81 In a disproportionate system o f checks and balances, such as the
one employed by the Abbey, the question seems to be not so much why Doolan submitted
five different plans for spring 1974, but how communication between Doolan, Slemon,
and the board had deteriorated to such an ineffective point.
In addition to differences over play selection, some staff and company members
were dissatisfied with Doolan. Patrick Mason, who served as Abbey artistic director from
1993-1999, worked as a voice trainer for the Abbey from 1972-1973. On 23 September
1973 Mason resigned because o f his inability to “give the Artistic Director the support that
79 Lelia Doolan, letter to author, 16 May 2001. 80 Hugh Hunt, letter to Micheal O hAodha, 5 Mar. 1973. (NLI)
81 Lelia Doolan, artistic director’s report, 24 Oct. 1973. (NLI) 148
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. she is entitled to.”82 The specific reason why Mason felt he could not accept Doolan as
artistic director is unclear, only that he could not work under her leadership. The
members of the Players Council were also unhappy with Doolan, in part because they
blamed her for the resignation of Alan Barlow. They saw Barlow’s departure as another
indication of the deterioration o f the Abbey’s artisticadministration- Doolan’s name was
not mentioned in their 16 August 1973 letter to the board in which they express their
frustration with the “breakdown in the artisticadministration of the theatre.”83 However,
the Player’s Council, a representative body of players that met with the management, had
never developed a trusting relationship with her.
In his history of the Abbey, Hunt suggests that Doolan’s unsuccessful attempt to
unify the Abbey players and staff to work as a team, dedicated to an artistic ideal, was a
the primary reason for her discharge. The other reason he offers concerns the board’s and
the players’ inability to trust Doolan.84 The latter reason seems probable since Doolan’s
passionate idealism had encouraged the Abbey board to hire her. Hunt does not question
that Doolan had the energy and the determination to fulfill her responsibilities. What he
does not acknowledge was the Abbey’s tendency to be exclusive. Of the sixteen people
who have served the Abbey as artistic director/adviser, only those who began or spent a
significant portion of their careers with the Abbey had successful tenures. Tomas Mac
Anna (1966-1968, 1973-1978, 1984-1985), Patrick Mason (1993-1998), and Ben Barnes
82 Patrick Mason, letter to the Abbey board of directors, 3 Sept. 1973. (NLI) 83Eamon Morrissey, letter to Micheal O hAodha, 16 August 1973. (NLI Ms. 33,369 [7]) 84 Hunt, 242.
149
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. (1999- ) are all products o f the Abbey and all had happy artistic directorships. Those
employed from outside the Abbey establishment had less success. Alan Simpson, who
held the post from 1968 to 1969, was fired after only nine months because the board did
not agree with his ideas. Joe Dowling, Abbey artistic director 1978-1985, also had
difficulties with the board. Although he had worked in the Peacock Theatre during Mac
Anna's second tenure, Dowling's experience at the Abbey amounted to only eight years,
in comparison to Mac Anna’s twenty years or Mason’s twenty-two years at the time of
their appointments. However, Doolan and others, including Irish theatre historian Robert
Welch, consider Dowling as the person who really consolidated the position of artistic
director at the Abbey.85 Doolan, and later Garry Hynes, both had their lack of connection
with the Abbey working against them. Mac Anna wrote many letters to the board during
the longer of his terms as artistic director, as did Doolan, criticizing the Theatre’s policies
and requesting changes. The difference between the two is the outcome. Mac Anna, who
had the support and trust o f the board, often received a positive response to his requests,
whereas the board considered Doolan’s ideas difficult or impossible to implement.
Slemon agrees that Doolan “needed fullthe support o f the Players and the
Board”86 in order to be successful as Abbey artistic director. He admits that though she
seemed “intelligent, honest and courageous,” Doolan remained “naive when it came to
handling the political and personal prejudices of both the Board of Directors and the
Abbey Players,” and she was “too honest to play the power games which was the norm to
85 Doolan, interview with Subotica Films, April 2001.
86 John Slemon, letter to the author, 25 June 2001. 150
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. many of those people who were intent upon their own survival.”87 Mac Anna is
mentioned by both Slemon and Doolan as someone who did not appreciate Doolan’s
appointment, and who, according to Slemon, “wanted to be AD for life.”88 However,
Slemon has noted that Doolan only “faintly fought” against Mac Anna and others who
wanted the artistic director post, and the players who “did not like Lelia’s spirit o f
adventure.”89
According to Doolan herself three reasons made it difficult for her to carry on at
the Abbey. First, the frequency o f Abbey board meetings every two weeks meant that she
continually had to produce reports for the board in addition to her daily work and
directing responsibilities. Second, the Abbey Theatre building helped make the overall
environment a very unstimulating place in which to work. Others, including Hynes and
Vincent Dowling have concurred with Doolan, noting that the backstage areas and the
main stage are not inspiring or conducive to work. Third, trying to run the theatre,
administer a company, and direct plays became an immense challenge. On 16 November,
when the board ended her contract, Doolan felt relieved. She recounted the event in a
recent interview: “they [the board] said would I mind waiting outside the Board meeting.
This happened quite frequently if they had serious matters to discuss, and Micheal O
hAodha, the poor man, came in and saidthat... they... would be terminating my
87 John Slemon, letter to the author, 25 June 2001.
88 John Slemon, letter to the author, 25 June 2001. 89 John Slemon, letter to the author, 25 June 2001.
151
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. contract... I have to say the relief was absolutely amazing.”90 She felt happy in leaving
knowing that someone like Joe Dowling, then the director of plays in the Peacock, would
continue pushing for change at the Abbey as she had.91
When Doolan assumed her artistic directorship within the Abbey’s existing
structure in 1971, she did so as a single, thirty-seven year-old woman. Her marital status
afforded her freedom to choose employment opportunities. Yet, being unmarried and
childless made her the opposite of what society expected of Irish women. There are no
references to or discussions of Doolan’s marital status in contemporary essays and articles,
though she chose her career over her constitutional duty to support the Irish State “by her
life within the home.”92 Her freedom to choose and earn a position within the Abbey’s
hierarchy did not amount to any substantial change at the Abbey. As Jenny Beale explains
in Women in Ireland, there is no guarantee of change for women working in hierarchal
organizations because they are expected to conform to existing male standards and
methods. Hierarchies, such as the Abbey Theatre, also “tend to be fixed, bureaucratic and
slow to adapt.”93 Power remains with the top few, making it “hard for those lower down
to make their voices heard. Such structures are maintained by competitiveness and the use
of authority. As a result, any attempt to make a hierarchy more responsive, or to replace
it with a more cooperative system, is likely to be perceived as threatening by those holding
90 Doolan, interview with Subotica Films, April 2001. 91 Doolan, interview with Subotica Films, April 2001. 92 Beale, 61. 93 Beale, 189. 152
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. power within it.'’94 This description of a hierarchal organization suggests the problems
Doolan experienced during her Abbey tenure. With so much authority and decision
making power vested with the board of directors, the position of artistic director almost
seems redundant. Doolan could not make final decisions without consulting board
members and obtaining their approval and the board had the right to revise those decisions
without conferring with her. Vincent Dowling described Doolan’s situation: “She had the
vitality, the vision, the artistic and educational experience. She had the character to
harness these gifts to move the Abbey Theatre to a higher level of theatrical excellence and
purpose. She had the will and the way to do it. But she did not have the support in the
Abbey or the obliqueness to build it. Curious coalitions brought her down. Fear o f
change, like misfortune, makes strange befellows.’’9S When Doolan began questioning
Abbey policy and the board’s oppressive supremacy, the board members fired her96 and
employed one o f their own, Mac Anna, as artistic director.
After leaving the Abbey Theatre, Doolan altered her life and career considerably.
She enrolled in graduate school at Queen’s University, Belfast, in the Department of
Social Anthropology, and wrote a dissertation on ritual in an industrial society entitled,
“Elements o f the Sacred and Dramatic in Some Belfast Urban Enclaves.” While attending
Queen’s University, Doolan also spent her time tutoring in community television for the
94 Beale, 189.
95 Vincent Dowling,Astride the Moon: A Theatrical Life (Dublin: Wolfhound P, 2000) 322. 96 Robert Welch states that Doolan “resigned,” which, though technically correct, fails to fully explain her departure from the Abbey. (Welch 213).
153
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Figure 4.2. Lelia Doolan with the author’s mother and brother. (June 2001)
154
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Institute of Further Education in Be Hast, lectured at Belfast Polytechnic, and helped with
adult education programs. Prior to her graduation in 1982, Doolan took a lecture
appointment at the College of Commerce, Rathmines, just outside of Dublin, though she
continued to do freelance work as a writer, lecturer, film/video producer, and researcher.
In 1987, Doolan became a student of herbal and folk medicines and then continued her
studies at the Burren School of Homoepathy between 1990-1994, becoming a licensed
homoepathologist in 1995. She returned to theatre in 1986 when she directed Mozart's
The Marriage o f Figaro at the An Taibhdhearc in Galway, but her attention in the mid-
1980s was really on film and media. In 1988 she became a lecturer in film and media
studies at the Galway Regional Technical College and the Peader O'Donnell Centre for
the Unemployed, Galway, respectively. That year she also founded and became the
director o f the Galway Film Fleadh, an annual international film festival, which led later to
membership with the board of the Film Institute of Ireland, and a chairpersons hip with The
Irish Film Board from 1993-1996. Most recently Doolan launched a traveling cinema, the
Cinemobile, to the smaller communities of Ireland.97
Beale's opinion that women tend to work collaboratively,recognizing the validity
of every worker’s opinion, was certainly true in Doolan’s situation. During her final
months as artistic director, Doolan wrote many memos to O hAodha, Mac Anna, and
others in an attempt to discuss the problems she was experiencing. These memos show
that Doolan made an effort to communicate and to obtain her colleagues’ opinions, with
decisions and solutions to be reached cooperatively. In a recent interview with RTE,
97 Lelia Doolan, curriculum vitae, last updated May 2001.
155
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Doolan discussed her efforts at the Abbey to bring playwrights into rehearsals to work
with the actors cast in their plays. This only occurred with Tom MacIntyre’s playEye
Winker, Tom Tinker, which Doolan cites as an example o f the collaborative rehearsal
process she would have liked to see more of at the Abbey.98 In turn, the Abbey’s board
of directors has rarely acted as a collaborative group, instead preferring to follow the
board’s leading member. In the earliest years, Yeats’s wishes kept Gregory in check, and
after 1941, Blythe’s totalitarian leadership was the one voice heard. Only now, in the
present, with power at the Abbey shifting into the hands o f the artistic director,m anaging
director, and general manager, is the Abbey’s management the more collaborative body
that Doolan envisioned and tried to create.
Lelia Doolan held a new, important position within Ireland’s national theatre at a
time when women in Ireland received unequal pay, social benefits, and employment
opportunities. Even so, the process of modernizing the Abbey did not extend to all parts
of the theatre and the surviving management structure prevented Doolan from fulfilling her
daily responsibilities and caused her eventual dismissal. The Theatre would wait seventeen
years and employ five men before appointing another woman as artistic director.
98 Doolan, interview with Subotica Films, April 2001.
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Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. CHAPTER 5
GARRY HYNES: A PLOUGH ASTRAY AMONGST THE ABBEY STARS
“I was too busy to notice there was anything unusual about being a woman director until
the early 1980s, when I looked around the professional theater and realized there weren’t
many o f us.”'
- Garry Hynes
Garry Hynes, who is “five foot nothing,”2 according to fellow theatre director
Deborah Warner, has been “patronized for her sex and her size.”3 However, the awards
and recognition Hynes has received over her twenty-six-year directing career suggests that
she has not had difficulty making her way in a profession dominated by men. Between
1982 and 1989 Hynes won three different awards for best direction in Ireland and England
and in 1998 became the first woman to win a Tony for her production o f MacDonagh’s
The Beauty Queen o f Leenane. By 1990, Hynes had earned more critical acclaim and
1 Benedict Nightingale, “The Sort of Renown That Would Make Any Troupe Green,”M ew York Times 22 Feb. 1998: 2:1:4. 2Lyn Gardner, “Garry, champion of the world,”The Guardian (London) 3 July 2000: 10. 3Nightingale, 4.
157
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. “done more in her young career than most directors do in a lifetime.”4 In January of the
following year, Hynes left the small Druid Theatre that she had co-founded in Galway to
become artistic director at the Abbey Theatre, the second woman in twenty years to hold
the post. The decision was “broadly welcomed”5 by the Irish theatre profession and
community who believed Hynes’s artistic talent would ensure her some longevity at the
Abbey. However, three years later, Hynes left the Abbey after her contract ended. Yet,
her influence upon the Abbey, and her importance as a high-profile Irish woman in late
twentieth-century Ireland, have already left its mark on Irish theatre history.
Gearoidin “Garry” Hynes was bom on 10 June 1953 in her mother’s hometown,
Ballaghdereen, Co. Roscommon, Ireland. She and her three younger brothers spoke only
Irish until they went to school. Their father, a native o f Athenry, Co. Galway, served as
headmaster for the vocational school in Ballaghadereen until Hynes was five, when the
family moved to Monaghan. Hynes attended school at the St. Louis Convent in
Monaghan. The family moved again in 1965, when her father became chief executive
officer with the Co. Galway Vocational Education Committee (VEC), and Hynes finished
her secondary education at the Dominican Convent in Galway. Hynes, who is reluctant to
discuss her personal life, has recalled “the great warmth, unconditional love and security of
her childhood.”6 She notes that she grew up in an Ireland “when everything was suddenly
possible,”7 such as college and a choice of career. A fundamental change in women’s
4Joe Dowling, “How is the show so for?” The Irish Times 26 Oct. 1991.
5Paddy Woodworth, “Fine finale for a premature exit,”The Irish Times 29 Dec. 1993: 14. 6Eileen Battersby, “The Image Maker,” The Irish Times 12 June 1997: 13. 7Battersby, 13. 158
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. rights had yet to be adopted in Ireland in 1971, when Hynes started her studies at
University College Galway (UCG). However, the transformation in Irish culture produced
not only Hynes, but also Mary Robinson and Mary Macleese, the past and present
presidents o f Ireland.
Hynes joined Dramsoc, the University’s dramatic society, when she arrived as a
first year arts student at University College Galway in 1971. She chose to direct Brian
Friel’s The Loves o f Cass Maguire, casting her fellow classmate and friend, Marie Mullen,
in the title role. Subsequent productions for Dramsoc included EugeneThe Ionesco’s
Bald Soprano, Edward Albee’sTiny Alice, and Paul Foster’sElizabeth One, which went
to the Athlone Amateur Drama Festival in 1975. That same year, following their
graduation, Hynes, Mullen, who played the leading rolesTiny in Alice andElizabeth One,
and other Dramsoc members decided to create a summer theatre for Galway. According
to Guardian columnist Fiachra Gibbons, 1975 was “the summer the sixties reached the
west coast o f Ireland. Galway then had a laid-back, decadent experimental spirit,”8 but the
idea of three college graduates establishing a theatre was still unconventional. In order to
open a bank account for their incipient theatre, they needed a name. They first decided on
“Clan Lurgain” in deference to the ancient name for Galway Bay, Lough Lurgain, but
Hynes and Mullen changed their minds. While sitting at a coffee shop one day, reading
the comic strip “Asterix the Gaul,” Hynes and Mullen agreed on the name Druid. Hynes
8 Fiachra Gibbons, “When Garry ran off with a Tony,”The Guardian (London) 24 June 1998: 12. 159
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. recalled, “I knew the Gauls had druids, and the druids were also the ancient pagan priests
of Ireland, and they had power in the community.”9
During the summer o f 1975, Druid stagedPlayboy o f the Western World, The
Loves o f Cass Maguire, and Kevin Laffan’sIt's a Two Foot Six Inches Above the Ground
World. They applied for a £500 grant and received £350 from Bord Failte, the Irish
Tourist Board. After a successful summer season, Hynes, Mullen, and Mick Laity, who
played the eponymous character inPlayboy, made an auspicious decision to continue with
the Druid during the year. This resulted in the creation of an organization that theatre
critic Fintan O’ Toole considers “the most triumphant case in modem Irish cultural history
of how to make a virtue of necessity.”10 At its beginning, the company had little funding,
no permanent space in which to perform, and an audience base in a city that “had no
tradition of professional English language theatre.”11 Hynes’s own parents were enlisted
to help out with the box office and transportation of materials for the set.12 The Druid
company persevered and developed its small enterprise into a thriving center for Irish
theatre.
Now considered by Irish theatre critics to be one of the three most important
theatres in Ireland, the Druid has worked steadily over the past twenty-six years to
produce theatre for Galway audiences. Despite the financial failure of some productions,
Nightingale, “The Sort of Renown That Would Make Any Troupe Green,” 2:4:1. I0Fintan O’ Toole, “Twenty-one years of Druid,”The Irish Times 25 June 1996: 10. "O’Toole, “Twenty-one years,” 10. I2Gibbons, 12.
160
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. such as Alexei Arbuzov’sThe Promise (1977) and Beckett’sHappy Days (1976), the
company earned enough recognition to win an annual grant from the Arts Council. The
continued growth in audiences eventually necessitated a larger, more permanent facility
than the first two performance sites at the Jesuit Hall and Fo’castle. The latter was a
forty-seven seat studio theatre in which performers were three or four feet from the
audience, a wonderful space for intimate productions but too small to allow for flexibility.
In May 1979, after five months o f arduous preparation by all members o f the Druid
company, Hynes and her colleagues opened the new 110-seat Druid Theatre in an
abandoned warehouse. The Druid’s reputation has since flourished, helped along by
international visibility at the Edinburgh Fringe Theatre Festival (1980) and in London’s
West End. The company’s third production o f Synge’sPlayboy o f the Western World in
1982, directed by Hynes and starring Mullen, Maeliosa Stafford and Brid Brennan, played
to full houses in Galway, Edinburgh, and Dublin at the 1500-seat Olympia Theatre. The
Irish Times dubbed the production the ‘“definitive Playboy,””3 andSunday the
Independent awarded Hynes an Arts Award for Druid’sPlayboy and named her director
of the year. In May 1983, Ireland gave its version of the Tony award, “the Harvey,” to
Hynes for Best Director for Playboy, to the Druid for Best Production for Dion
Boucicault’sThe Shaughran, and to Mullen for Best Supporting ActressPlayboy. in
Touring and lunchtime theatre became a defining activity for the Druid Theatre
during its early years. Although lunchtime theatre had been introduced to Dublin, Galway
13 David Burke,Druid: The First Ten Years, ed. Jerome Hynes (Galway: Druid Performing Arts Ltd. and Galway Arts Festival Ltd., 1985) 33.
161
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Figure 5.1 Garry Hynes, c. 1977. (Courtesy o f the James Hardiman Library, Galway)
162
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. had nothing of the kind. The Druid company members tapped into this new entertainment
when they produced two short one-act plays during their inaugural Orisonseason, by
Fernando Arrabal and Beckett’sAct Without Words. In its early days the Druid chose to
tour rural towns and villages, making this Galway troupe distinct from all other nationally
recognized theatres, including the Abbey Theatre, which did not tour the provinces. The
company brought its “unusual rural tours”14 not only to appreciative audiences in rural
areas, such as the Aran Islands, Inis Meain, Lisdoonvarna, and Clifden, but to the cities of
Limerick, Derry, and Beliast. The Druid discontinued its lunchtime performances in
1991,15 but the national tours are still an integral part of every season. Hynes’s desire to
connect with audiences inside and outside Galway makes touring a priority for the Druid.
One of the Druid Theatre’s most memorable milestones occurred in 1980 with the
production o f Hynes’s own play.Island Protected by a Bridge o f Glass. The company
won a coveted Fringe First award for the play fromThe Scotsman at the Edinburgh Fringe
Theatre Festival in August of that year, and subsequently received an offer to perform the
play at the Dublin Theatre Festival in October. Upon examining their finances, however,
Hynes and the company agreed that they could not transport the production to Dublin
“without a guarantee of £1,350 against loss.”16 The Festival Committee could only offer
£500, so the Druid reluctantly declined the offer, even when the Committee increased the
14 The Druid company has dubbed its unconventional tours URT, unusual rural tour. See Paddy Woodworth, “Druid: celebrating in the present tense,”The Irish Times 24 Jan. 1996: 10. l5Ciara Ni Shuilleabhain, e-mail to the author, 19 Apr. 2001. I6David Burke, 27.
163
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. funding to £800. This decision, according to Fintan O’Toole, was a “crucial psychological
turning point in Irish theatre. Druid had broken once and for all the idea that there was a
metropolitan centre that might condescend to the provincial margins.”17 The Abbey
eventually invited Druid’sIsland to play at the Peacock in 1981, along with the Druid
production of Geraldine Aron’sBar and Ger
Smaller theatre companies from across the country are now beginning to gain
recognition because Dublin is no longer perceived as the center of theatre in Ireland. Yet,
the Abbey’s history and mythical stature in Irish culture continually inspires young
directors and artists. Ben Barnes, artistic director at the Abbey since 1 January 2000,
noted in a 1999 interview that a director who lives and works in Ireland will undoubtedly
aspire to run the National Theatre.19 Hynes did not have the same single-minded ambition
as Barnes, who announced publicly in 1989 his intention to one day be the Abbey’s artistic
director. Her work kept her in Galway with a successful theatre company that rivaled any
theatre outside o f Dublin. The Druid’s 1986 premiere o f Tom Murphy’sBailegangaire ,
starring the internationally renowned Siobhan McKenna as Mommo in her last role for the
stage, gave the company even more respect as it connected to Ireland’s theatrical past.
Hynes’s reputation grew as one of Ireland’s most successful directors and made her a
popular candidate for artistic director o f the Abbey.
l70 ’Toole, “Twenty-one years,” 10. 18 The Druid staged the Irish premieres of three Geraldine Aron plays:Bar and Ger (12 October 1978), A Galway Girl (14 November 1979), andSame Old Moon (30 April 1984). 19 “A Director Takes the Spot He Coveted at Centre Stage,” Irish Times 31 July 1999: 2. 164
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Figure 5.2 Garry Hynes and members of the Druid Theatre company, c. 1977. (Courtesy of the James Hardiman Library, Galway)
165
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Hynes rejected the Abbey’s first offer in 1986.20 However, in the years that
followed, the Druid Theatre experienced a difficult period. Hynes began directing
occasional productions for the Abbey Theatre in 1986,21 and between 1988-1989 directed
for the Royal Shakespeare Company (RSC) in Stratford and London. For her efforts
Hynes won a Time Out London award in 1988 for best director. Hynes also received an
honorary doctorate of laws degree in 1988 from University College Galway. The Druid’s
main actors, Mullen, McGinley, and Lally, started working outside Galway, not only in
Dublin and on Irish television, but also in England. The Druid’s business
manager/administrator and brother to Garry, Jerome Hynes, left to pursue a position at the
Wexford Festival Opera. The scattered focus of the company’s members led to the break
up of the original Druid company.22 Hynes decided that the time had come to step aside,
allowing the Druid to develop its own identity separate from her, its highest profile
member.22 At that same time, the Abbey board unanimously agreed to offer Hynes the
position of artistic director. After months o f negotiations over the terms of her position,24
she accepted a three-year contract at the Abbey beginning in January 1991. Hynes’s
acceptance of the top job portended to the Abbey’s supporters the possibility o f a new era
20Battersby, 13. 21 Vincent Dowling also brought in Hynes, Patrick Mason, and a few other directors during his tenure (1987-1989) so the Abbey board could view their work. Dowling had no intention of staying past his three-year term, and thus wanted to establish contacts between the Abbey and directors who might take his place. (Vincent Dowling, personal interview, 29 April 2001.) “ O’ Toole, “Twenty-one years,” 10. “ Woodworth, “Druid: celebrating,” 10. 24Paddy Woodworth, “Drama At the Abbey,”The Irish Times 26 Oct. 1991.
166
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. at the Abbey and the hope that her creativity would rejuvenate the theatre. Since power
struggles between the board and the artistic director had caused most of the company’s
problems in the past, Hynes’s supporters hoped that she would cultivate a good working
relationship with the board and the company.
The “savage saga” between the Abbey Theatre’s board and its artistic directors has
been, according to Patrick Mason, “a long and often fierce battle.”35 Following the
board’s dismissal o f Lelia Doolan in December 1973, the Abbey experienced a brief period
of stability under the artistic directorships of Tomas Mac Anna (1973-1978) and Joe
Dowling (1978-1984). Upon Dowling’s departure the Abbey had a succession of four
artistic directors in just six years. Mac Anna was appointed interim artistic director
following Joe Dowling, after which Christopher Fitz-Simon, the Abbey’s Script Editor,
took over from 1985 to 1987. Vincent Dowling, followed Fitz-Simon and signed for
three years, but stayed only two (1987-1989). Noel Pearson, then chairman of the Abbey
board of directors, assumed the responsibilities of artistic director through 1990, upon
Vincent Dowling’s early departure in early 1990. Various issues, such as the relevance of
a permanent company in a contemporary theatre and the financial status of the Abbey,
prompted debates and rows between the Player’s Council, the artistic director, and the
board, resulting in the high turnover in the theatre’s artistic management.
According to the Abbey’s “Articles of Association,” adopted on 28 May 1983 and
amended in December 1985 and June 1989, the “Management o f the business and the
25 National Theatre Society Ltd.’s application for grant-in-aid from the Arts Council, 31 December 1994. 167
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. control of the Company. . . shall be vested in the Directors,” and the “Directors may
appoint a General Manager and Artistic Director and may delegate to them such of their
powers (not being powers to borrow money or issue Shares) as they may deem expedient,
and may remove and discharge any such Manager or Artistic Director and appoint another
in his or her place.”26 These tenets were added to structural policies instituted at the
Abbey in the mid-1960s which established the shareholding body and amended the
configuration o f the board of directors. The state-appointed shareholders are responsible
for electing three of the possible eight board members, called ordinary directors, and they
can elect new shareholders should any existing shareholder choose to end his or her term.27
The rest of the board, according to the Abbey’s 1983 “Articles of Association,” is
comprised of two directors appointed by the Taoiseach (Prime Minister) to represent the
government. These members hold four-year terms and are eligible for re-election, as are
the ordinary directors. Three other directors are co-opted, or invited rather than elected
by the existing board members, to be part of the board. One must be a playwright, and two
are extended invitations on recommendation o f the Abbey staff. They hold office for two
years, and are eligible for co-option for subsequent two-year periods. There is no time
limit set for the shareholders’s service, nor any for the director’s terms, though they must
be re-elected to remain on the board.
26 Found in NLI, New “Articles of Association” (Adopted by Special Resolution of the Company on the 28th May 1983) of The National Theatre Society Limited: 10. 27Fintan O’Toole, “Sound and Fury at the Abbey,”The Gnradian 28 Sept. 1994: T6. 168
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. The membership of the Abbey’s board of directors in January 1991 when Garry
Hynes took up her post included six out o f the eight possible board members: Chairman
Noel Pearon, Sebastian Barry, Fedelma Cullen, Augustine Martin, Carolyn Swift, and
Tony Wakefield. By 1992, Vera Colins, Michael Doyle, Frank McGuinness, and Deirdre
Purcell had been added to fill the four available seats after the departures of Barry and
Wakefield.2* A year later the board remained the same, except for the addition of John
Fanning and James J. Hickey as chairman, following the departure of Noel Pearson and
Augustine Martin. Throughout most of Hynes’s time there were four women present on
the board,29 compared to the one female board member during part of Doolan’s tenure.
The balance of power at the Abbey began to shift from the board of directors to
the artistic director in the 1970s with the appointment of a full-time artistic director. The
process has, however, been a slow one. After many battles between Abbey staff, board,
shareholders, and players, permanent contracts for players were discontinued in the early
1980s. Over a decade later, further attempts were made to change Abbey policy and
structure. In 1994,Irish Times columnist Fintan O’Toole reported that some Abbey
board members tried to ameliorate what they believed were the “unsatisfactory structures
of the Abbey board and shareholders.”30 They proposed that there be an increase in the
number of shareholders, from 25 to 30, and that the board membership include two Arts
Council nominees and two governmental nominees. They also introduced the idea of an
28Abbey Theatre programs dating Nov. 1990-July 1993, Abbey Theatre Archives. 29Vera Colins and Deirdre Purcell were added to the board in June 1991. 30 Fintan O’Toole, “Even the Abbey knows the Abbey needs reform,”The Irish Times 22 Feb. 1994: 10.
169
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. eight-year membership limit for shareholders and board members. However, O’Toole
states that the shareholders rejected the proposal. Not until the late 1990s did the board
have enough support from shareholders to increase the shareholding body from 25 to 35.31
In 1998, an important change was made when Richard Wakely became Managing
Director, removing some of the business responsibilities from then artistic director Patrick
Mason. Also, Kathy McArdle became the director for the Abbey’s newly created
Outreach Department, and in 1998 Sharon Murphy became the Abbey’s first Education
Officer in 1998. Today the Abbey defines its structure as being “managed by an Executive
of three people — the Artistic Director, the Managing Director and the General
Manager.”32 The board of directors is considered a voluntary group with a “non-
executive”fiinction, while the role of shareholder is an honorary position. The daily
running of the theatre is left to the three executives, which is a different scenario than
dictated by the previous “Articles o f Association.”
Hynes’s responsibilities as artistic director at the Abbey included being a
“politician, office manager and media personality, as well as a theatre director,”33
according to Victoria White, current arts editor Thefor Irish Times. Christopher
Fitzsimon, former Abbey artistic director (1985-1987), literary manager, and script editor,
notes that the Abbey’s artistic director selects the repertoire, supervises productions,
31 Robert Welch inaccurately states that the number of the original shareholding body, created in 1966, had thirty members (212). 32 The National Theatre o f Ireland Home Page.
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. including the design, casting, and promotion, and creates “opportunities for tours at home
and abroad.”34 He notes that the artistic director is “responsible to the Board for the
theatre’s satisfactory profile”35 in the media and publicimagination The artistic director,
in the past fifteen years especially, has been the focus of the Irish media’s criticism and
praise. The media began assessing the success of Hynes’s artistic directorship six months
into her term as it had done with Vincent Dowling, and as it did after her term with
Patrick Mason. For this reason, many have considered the post of Abbey artistic director,
even as late as 1998, “the most thankless” position in all o f Irish theatre.36 The terms of
Hynes’s contract with the Abbey were carefully worded to allow her the opportunity to
settle into her new position. Muiris MacConghail, who was on the Abbey board in 1990,
recalls that Hynes “was to devote her full energies to the formation of an artistic policy,
and not to direct plays herself.”37 She did direct plays, however, throughout her tenure.
Hynes also took on the responsibility of monitoring the production costs for the theatre.
She remarked in a 1990 interview that a director cannot “apply creative criteria” to a
production and pretend that it “doesn’t have to answer to any financial. . . rules.”38
During her three years, Hynes directed a total of six productions. The first, an
expressionist revival of O’Casey’s The Plough and the Stars (7 May 1991), starred
“ Christopher Fitzsimon, letter to author, 1 Oct. 2000. “ Fitzsimon, 1 Oct. 2000. “ Nightingale, 2:4:1. 37Muiris MacConghail,The Irish Times 26 Oct. 1991. 38 Garry Hynes, interview with Lynda Henderson,Theatre Ireland 23 (Autumn 1990): 10- 17. 171
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Hynes’s friend and colleague, Marie Mullen, as Bessie Burgess. Hynes has never been
considered a traditional director and this production reaffirmed her unconventional
approach to the classics. According to Irish theatre historian Cathy Leeney, the “much
loved figures” in O’Casey’s play did not appear on stage in Hynes’s production, and
neither did the traditional realistic setting. Many audience members, expecting the
O’Casey play they knew, were shocked to see a traditionally dressed Uncle Peter and the
Woman from Rathmines wandering into an “expressionist nightmare”39 on the Abbey stage
in which the other actors wore “an assortment of graceless dresses, jeans and battledress,
ripped a la mode.”40 The actors also appeared “with shaved heads, whitened faces, heavily
blacked eyebrows and reddened lips . . . .”41 David Nowlan, criticThe for Irish Times ,
described the setting by former Druid designer Frank Conway as “a large sloping platform,
bridged by a tall false proscenium arch and covered at both start and finish by a massive
Union Jack.”42 Hynes’s radical approach toPlough divided critical opinion. Nowlan
called the production admirable, “daring,” and “intelligent,” but he criticized its
“deliberately slow pace” and its failure to act as a catharsis and “drain the emotions.”43
Fergus Linehan, a writer forThe Irish Times , applauded Hynes for challenging the Irish
39 Cathy Leeney, “Deevy’s Leap: Teresa Deevy Re-Membered in the 1990s,” The State o f Play: Irish Theatre in the ‘Nineties, ed. Eberhard Bort (Postfach and Bergstrafe: Wissenschaftlicher Verlag Trier, 1996) 48. 40Fergus Linehan, “A Tale of two Ploughs,”The Irish Times 11 May 1991: 5. 41Linehan, 5. 42 David Nowlan, “Hynes puts emphasis on expressionism,”The Irish Times 8 May 1991: 8. 43Nowlan, “Hynes puts emphasis,” 8. 172
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. theatre establishment, but deemed her “experiment” a total failure.44 He noted that the
production did not have any of the warmth or humanity of the play, so that it seemed more
an unenlightening “bad tempered snarl” than a “powerful parable of poverty.”45 He and
other critics also commented on the inaudible dialogue and poor diction of the players, a
technical problem that plagued Hynes’s productions throughout her term. Paddy
Woodworth, also with The Irish Times , disagreed with the negative assessments of
Hynes’s Plough. He “found it a revelation, a breathtakingly daring and ruthless exposure
of the violence and misery at the core of the play, which had become obscured by a thick
crust of familiar sentimentality.”46
Subsequent productions included novelist John McGahem’s firstThe Powerplay,
o fDarkness (16 October 1991), Tom Murphy’s Conversations on a Homecoming (11
February 1992), Lennox Robinson’sDrama at Inish (15 June 1992), and Murphy’sA
Crucial Week in the Life o f a Grocer’s Assistant (17 November 1992). The first o f these,
The Power o f Darkness, opened as the Abbey’s entry in the Dublin Theatre Festival in
1991 and, according to theIrish Times's Paddy Woodworth, caused “a storm of
controversy, compared to which the row over the Plough seemed minor.... This
production has found some articulate and impressive defenders, but none of them has
convinced me that its melodramatic stereotypes, however passionately rooted in
McGahem’s clear perception of evil, were not whipped into ludicrous and hysterical
44Linehan, 8. 45Linehan, 8. ^Paddy Woodworth, “Fine finale,” 14.
173
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. incoherence under Hynes’s direction.”47 The British critics gave generally positive
critiques of the production, while the Irish papers tended to pan it. To combat the
negative reports in the Irish press, the Abbey took out a full page add in the 22 October
edition ofThe Irish Times, in which they had printed Michael Coveney’s positive review
for the London’sObserver. Coveney calls the play “brutally raw and discomforting,” and
the production a “tremendous . .. terrifying picture o f poverty-stricken rural lifo shot
through with Catholic guilt and oppression and unequivocally related to the hours of
Atreus and the disturbing melodramas of Eugene O’Neill.”4* The play was inspired by a
Tolstoy melodrama, though McGahem claims the piece is not an adaptation. It is the
story of an old and dying Irish landowner, Peter, who is married to a woman half his age.
His wifo, Eileen, is in love with their hired hand, Paul, and hopes that she and Paul will be
able to assume ownership of the land once her tight-fisted husband is dead. When Paul’s
mother offers Eileen poison with which to murder Peter, Eileen accepts. However, nine
months later Paul, who has married Eileen, foils in love with Peter’s daughter by his first
wife. When Maggie, the daughter, gives birth to a premature still-born baby, Paul is given
the task of getting rid of it. The subject of McGahem’s play caused more controversy
than Hynes’s staging of it. Gerry Colgan ofThe Irish Times faulted Hynes and the Abbey
for foiling to monitor the editing of the script prior to and during rehearsals.49 Two letters
to the Irish Times editor suggest that some members o f the general public enjoyed the
47Paddy Woodworth, “Fine finale,” 14. 48 Reprinting of Michael Coveney, “Mortality and a sock in the fece,”The Observer (London); cited Irishin Times 22 Oct. 1991: 20. 49Gerry Colgan, “A Tough Act to Follow,”The Irish Times 26 Oct. 1991. 174
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. production as much as British critics. Liz Fawcett remarked, “listening to the [negative]
comments of other Irish people who saw it [the production] the same night as me, one
might have thought we’d seen two different productions.”50 Kieran McGrath stated in his
letter that the play provides an “accurate portrayal of the darkest side of Irish family life.”51
Hynes’s next production fared better thanThe Power o f Darkness. David Nowlan,
theatre critic for The Irish Times, consideredConversations on a Homecoming to be
“intelligently directed, splendidly acted and well worth seeing”52 in spite of Hynes’s
emphasis on theme rather than character. The setting by Frank Conway eschewed the
naturalistic detail of the original Druid production, directed by Hynes in April 1985, for a
‘‘massive design . . . adorned by a temporally defunct quotation from John F. Kennedy”
and impressionistic “stagey pools olight... f .”53 Hynes’s next production as artistic
director was a classic Irish text, Lennox Robinson’sDrama at Inish. The production,
according to Nowlan, “taxe[d] Robinson’s affectionate mockery and inject[ed] into it an
intensity and a sharpness o f performance that verge[d] dangerously on the caricature.”*4
The heightened characterizations, he noted, prevented the play from becoming overly
sentimental, and helped in the effective execution of the almost sixty-year-old play.A
Crucial Week in the Life o f a Grocer’s Assistant also fared well with Dublin critics.
50Liz Fawcett, “McGahem’s Play,” letter to the editor, The Irish Times 31 Oct. 1991: 13. 51 Kieran McGrath, “McGahem’s Play,” letter to the editor, The Irish Times 28-29 Oct. 1991: 11. 52David Nowlan, “Acid humour in a night o f drama,”The Irish Times 12 Feb. 1992. 53Nowlan, “Acid humour.” 54 Nowlan, “Mockery with a sharp edge ‘Drama at Inish’ at the Abbey Theatre” The Irish Times 16 June 1992: 8. 175
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Hynes had previously directed the Murphy play at the Abbey in 1988.The Irish Times
columnist Paddy Woodworth spoke favorably of the second production, noting that
Hynes’s new venture “will not be a revival of her 1988 production”55 since it had been
almost entirely recast. According to Nowlan, the latter production also incorporated more
effectively the “creative hallmarks” o f Hynes’s earlier production, including “humourless
laughter, vicious caricature and a broken series o f cameos portraying a loveless, mean,
stunted and warped society in a small western town...Irish Despite his approval o f
the production, Nowlan considered Hynes’s productions ofConversations both on a
Homecoming andA Crucial Week in the Life o f a Grocer s Assistant to be unnecessary
“restatements” that, while good, “carried an inevitable sense o f deja vu.”57 Woodworth, in
summing up Hynes’s tenure at the Abbey, echoed Nowlan’s opinion that the negative
response by Dublin critics toThe Power o f Darkness compelled Hynes to produce safer
works, marking her final years as artistic director with “cautious entrenchment rather than
adventurous discovery.”5*
Hynes’s final production as Abbey artistic director was Murphy’sFamine (6
October 1993), a play that she had successfully directed at the Druid Theatre in 1984.
Nowlan devoted most of his review of the Abbey production to the faults of the play,
55 Paddy Woodworth, “From Murphy to MacMahon at the Abbey,”The Irish Times 29 Oct. 1992: 12. (Only Sean McGinley reprised his role as Jonjo.) 56 Nowlan, “A Crucial Week in the Life of a Grocer’s Assistant, Abbey Theatre,”The Irish Times 19 Nov. 1992: 12. 57Nowlan, “One stage - at home and away,”The Irish Times 30 Dec. 1992: 10. S8Paddy Woodworth, “Fine finale,” 14.
176
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. which he believed focused too much on making socio-political statements to the detriment
of the “scantily limned” characters. Additionally be commented that the production did
not alter his evaluation of the play because Hynes and the company failed to improve upon
earlier productions of the play. Frank Conway’s setting “of an ancient stone circle” did
nothing to help the stage action, and Thaddeus O’ Sullivan’s “poor grey patchy lighting,”
and the “monochrome” costumes and emotions all worked to actively disengage Nowlan
from the performance.” Woodworth’s assessment had more tact, but was not favorable.
He called the production “unremittingly and terrifyingly bleak,” and noted that it
“depended . . . on rhetorical assertion of horror rather than its dramatic expression.”60
Fintan O’Toole, however, calledFamine “Irish theatre’s one great national epic,” with
scenes depicting “ritualistic poetry to domestic realism to Brecht-like epic . . . .”61
Other productions produced under Hynes’s leadership, included Eugene O’Neill’s
The Iceman Cometh (14 October 1992), directed by the Goodman Theatre’s Robert Falls
and starring Brian Dennehy, Henrik Ibsen’sHedda Gabler (25 June 1991), directed by
Deborah Warner and starring Fiona Shaw, Bryan MacMahon’sThe Honey Spike (12
January 1993), and Friel’sWonderful Tennessee (30 June 1993). Fiona Shaw returned in
July 1993 to directThe Hamlet Project (July 1993), which was presented at the Galway
Arts Festival. Italian director Francesca Zambello was also invited to the Abbey to direct
the 1993 production ofThe Honey Spike.
59David Nowlan, “Famine, Abbey Theatre,” The Irish Times 8 Oct. 1993: 13. “ Paddy Woodworth, “Fine finale,” 14. 61 Fintan O’ Toole, “Famine, some food for thought,”77ieIrish Times 1 Oct. 1993: Supplement. 177
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Hynes brought to the Abbey her knowledge of Irish theatre from outside the
hermetic structure of the national theatre. She had developed her skills at the Druid
Theatre, and honed her talent at the RSC and the Abbey (prior to becoming its artistic
director). This varied experience and exposure informed her artistic policy for the Abbey.
One of her primary objectives involved "changing a certain perception abroad that the
Abbey is ju st. .. about the past. I believe the institution is as important now as it appears
to have been historically. If it isn't, it shouldn't exist. That's what my artistic directorship
is all about. I absolutely believe that we need the Abbey now. And despite my respect for
its past, my prime concern right now is trying to ensure its future.”62 Her goal was to
capture audiences with a new focus for the national theatre which appealed to all Irish
people. She noted, for instance, that a play about travellers, or tinkers, in Ireland should
be performed not just for average middle class Irish theatregoers but for travellers, and the
production should involve travellers.63 Incidentally, this inclusive approach to theatre
production is significantly different from the Abbey Theatre of the 1950s when Blythe
excluded actors who were not bilingual in English and Irish, and when Blythe pushed the
production of Irish-language plays despite the dearth of Irish-speaking audience members.
Hynes attempted to expand the Abbey’s audiences for both the main stage and the
Peacock. This project included making the Peacock known as one of Ireland’s prominent
experimental spaces, and involved training a new ensemble of young actors who would
perform there. Hynes also wanted to develop a regular national touring policy for the
“ “Changing Direction,”Irish Times 23 Sept. 1992: 11. “ Paddy Woodworth, “Shaping up at the Abbey,”Irish Times 22 Dec. 1992: 10. 178
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Abbey that would bring the National Theatre to a variety of locations throughout Ireland.
“Without a coherent long-term touring policy,” Hynes argued, “the Abbey’s definition of
‘national’ must be somewhat compromised.”64 Her goals also included the important task
of commissioning new works by untried and established playwrights.
Early in her Abbey artistic directorship, Hynes toldThe Guardian (London) of
another policy initiative she hoped to implement at the Abbey: “Women’s voices have got
to be heard in the Abbey, in the writing and every other way. It is almost an emergency
that so few women are writing for the theatre here.”65 Hynes has never considered herself
a feminist, but during her tenure at the Abbey she brought in women directors and
performers such as Deborah Warner and Fiona Shaw, and made plans to produce work by
playwright Marina Carr. According to a December 1992Irish Times article, Hynes only
planned to direct one play, Carr’sThe Mai , during the 1993 season.66 Apart from Carr,
however, the Abbey produced few plays written by Irish women between the years 1990
and 1993. Hynes directed six plays during that time, all of which were written by Irish
men. The hope she voiced inThe Guardian did not carry through into practice at the
Abbey.
^Garry Hynes, quoted in: Woodworth, “Shaping up at the Abbey,” 10. 65Garry Hynes, interview by Desmond Christy, The Guardian (London) 19 April 1991. 66 Plans changed, however, and Hynes instead directed Tom Murphy’sFamine. Carr’s play was produced by the Abbey but not until 1994 during Patrick Mason’s tenure. Brian Brady directed the play.
179
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. According to Paddy Woodworth, Hynes’s artistic policies for the Abbey did not
often match her practice, which he blamed partly on last minutep lanning .67 He made this
same criticism of Hynes in a 1991 article, stating that Hynes’s habit of quickly deciding
whether or not to produce a play at Druid, did not transfer successfully to the Abbey.68
Hynes did accomplish several of her goals. For example, her expressionistic production of
O’Casey’s The Plough and the Stars was regarded by Dublin critics and audiences as a
direct challenge to Abbey tradition, though it simultaneously recalled the controversy,
minus the riots, that surrounded the original production in 1926. Hynes, in her first
months as artistic director, succeeded in clearly demonstrating a way to keep the Abbey
looking towards its future rather than its past. Hynes also cultivated a new generation of
actors to revise the Peacock’s image. She noted in a December 1992 article that she was
only partially successful in finding a new audience for the Peacock, but some of the young
talent she helped bring to the Peacock went on to perform on the Abbey’s main stage.
Hynes’s goal to commission innovative works by established and untried playwrights
resulted in a “radically increased rate”69 of original writing nurtured by the Abbey. This
includedThe Calvalcaders by Billy Roche, and five new plays for the Peacock in 1993
alone.
Other initiatives, such as her attempt to make the Abbey a theatre for all Irish
people, were not as effective. Whether Hynes expanded the Abbey’s audience base for its
67Woodworth, “Shaping up,” 10. 68 Woodworth, “Drama at the Abbey,” n.p.; Hynes also canceled a productionShe of Stoops to Conquer, directed by Joe Dowling, at the Abbey in 1993 at very short notice. 69Wodworth, “Shaping up,” 10.
180
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. main stage can be determined by looking at audience averages. During her three-year
directorship, the Abbey filled an average of sixty-five percent of its house, theminimum
needed, as established by the Irish Arts Council,m to aintain financial solvency. She
sustained but did not increase audience attendance. Her goal to establish a regular touring
policy was even less successful due to lack of available funds. The subsidy from the Arts
Council, although a significant part of the Abbey’s income, only funded the Abbey
building and its two stages and not annual tours throughout Ireland. According to Hynes,
“touring, unless you have[Dancing a at] Lughnasa on your books, is inevitably loss-
making.”70 In January 1992 the Abbey had a deficit of £160,4707‘ which, according to
Noel Pearson, had decreased from about £400,000 in 1989.72 The theatre also generated a
surplus of £6,187 during both the 1990-1991 and 1991-1992 seasons.73 Hynes, therefore,
inherited a theatre experiencing a financial recovery.74 Yet, with limited and diminishing
funds from the government, and increased production costs, Hynes almost never had
enough money during her tenure to tour Abbey productions.75 The Arts Council awarded
the Abbey an average of 20 percent of the Council's funds annually in the early 1990s,
70Woodworth, “Shaping up at the Abbey,” 10. 71 Minutes of the Annual General Meeting of the National Theatre Society Limited, 12 Sept. 1992: 3. (NLI) 72Joe Jackson, “Backstage at the Abbey,” The Irish Times 23 Sept. 1992: 11. 73 Minutes o f the Annual General Meeting o f the National Theatre Society Limited, 12 Sept. 1992: 3. (NLI) 74 In 1987, the Irish government used the National Lottery funds to rid the Abbey of most of its debt. 75In 1992 the Irish Arts Council decreased its annual fund to the Abbey by £50,000.
181
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. which totaled £1,929,000 in 1992.76 Although the 1992 funding was an increase o f 2.5
percent from the previous year, it was not adequate for the operation of two theatresand
a touring company. Apart from the 1992 regional and Australian tour of FriersDancing
at Lughnasa, to towns such as Tralee, Derry, Belfast, Cork, Melbourne, and Sydney, and
the 1993 tour ofThe Hamlet Project throughout Ireland, Abbey productions did not leave
Dublin. Bernard Allen, a Fine Gael member o f the Dail in 1992, echoed Hynes’s earlier
statement when he questioned whether a national theatre without a regular national
touring policy was living up to its responsibilities to create theatre for the people.77 The
government expected its national theatre to take its productions to the whole of Ireland,
but in order to do this, the Abbey needed adequate resources. Although the government
funding amounted to more than the funding for any other theatre in Ireland, it was still not
enough to support a regular touring program. Hynes saw this as an unfortunate
circumstance that impeded the Abbey’s attempts to reach a wider audience.
During Hynes’s second year as artistic director a problem unrelated to her artistic
policies, and that had long plagued artistic directors at the Abbey, reared its ugly head. At
the Abbey’s September 1992 Annual General Meeting, an actor accused Hynes o f “having
‘completely demoralised the company,’ claiming that ‘for whatever reason, through non-
76The Abbey received 23 percent o f the Arts Council funding in 1988, and 17% in 1993. In comparison to the subsidy received by the British National Theatre, an institution similar to the Abbey, the Abbey’s subsidy is noticeably small. For example, the National Theatre received an average o f £13,170,000 from the Arts Council of England in 2001-2002 while the Abbey received only €4,575,310 in the same year. 77Joe Jackson, “Backstage at the Abbey,” 11. 182
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. use we have been left to rot against the wall.’”7* Hynes believed that she was
innocent o f any wrongdoing. She asserted in a September 23 1992Irish Times article that
she had never “systematically excluded” Abbey company members from Abbey
productions. She stated that the board of directors had decided to disband the permanent
company o f actors long before she had arrived at the Abbey, and that life contracts were
not “appropriate to contemporary theatre.’779 Tensions between players and management
have always existed at the Abbey, beginning with the resignations o f actors Maire Nic
Shiubhlaigh, Frank Walker, and others in 1906 after Yeats led a restructuring o f the
society. Throughout the last three decades of the twentieth century, conflict has existed
between the management and the players regarding the nature o f the permanent company.
The Abbey ceased issuing lifetime contracts to company members during Joe Dowling’s
tenure (1978-1984), though existing contracts were allowed to continue until each player
retired or was bought out by the Irish National Theatre Society (INTS). This change in
policy was an attempt to bring the Abbey into line with contemporary theatres in and
outside of Ireland, and to prevent what had become stagnant performances from some
actors who had lost their incentive to work.80 According to Vincent Dowling, the concept
of having a permanent company at a theatre is not a problem itself. Rather, the actors
contracted for life at the Abbey were, by the 1970s, not creating good work. There were
also “an awful lot o f people there whoany guest director coming in didn’t want to use.
78Joe Jackson, “Backstage at the Abbey,” 11. 79“Changing Direction,” 11. 80Only two actors still hold lifetime contracts at the Abbey: Des Cave and Clive Geraghty. 183
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. And even some of the very good ones they [guest directors] very quickly didn’t want to
use because they [actors] wouldn’t work certain hours, or they wouldn’t be in a play.”*1
Several prominent figures including Hugh Hunt, Joe Dowling, and Hynes believed the
Abbey should be in line with contemporary theatre policies and preferred the new system
of issuing short-term contracts to actors. They also believed the new policy would bring
about the inevitable opening up of the casting pool. Not until Ben Barnes took up the
post in 2000, however, has an artistic director been free of the permanent company and its
protracted demise.
In April 1993 Hynes announced her decision not to renew her Abbey contract, and
on 14 May 1993 the Abbey reported that Patrick Mason would be assuming the post of
artistic director beginning January 1994.*2 Her decision to conclude her Abbey
appointment after only three years was perceived as “puzzling” byThe Irish Times,*3 while
the Abbey board members, who had not known of her decision prior to her announcement
and were excited about her program for the 1993-1994 season, accepted her decision with
“surprise and regret.”*4 By the fell o f 1992, Hynes began speaking out publicly about the
81 Vincent Dowling, personal interview, 29 April 2001. 82 Paddy Woodworth, arts editor forThe Irish Times, stated that he had learned from “reliable sources” that the Abbey board had decided to advertise for a new artistic director before Hynes made her announcement, though the board did plan on asking Hynes to reapply for the post. (“Abbey board ‘surprised’ by director’s decision,” 8 April 1993: 3). 83“Gung-ho for the Abbey,”The Irish Times 22 April 1993: 8. 84 Woodworth, “Abbey board ‘surprised’ by director’s decision,” 3. Hynes’s program for the 1993-1994 season included 11 new plays; in turn, she hoped to achieve average audiences of more than the 65 percent, as required by the Arts Council (Nightingale, “The Sort of Renown That Would Make Any Troupe Green,” 2:4:1.) 184
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. problems she had with the Abbey. She tokl The Irish Times that the Abbey had structural
or organizational problems that needed changing, and that the progress made towards
those changes would determine whether she would stay on past December 1993. ‘Ten
years ago,” she explained, “the Abbey had everything within its own four walls: actors,
directors, designers, everything. That process has been turned inside out and the Abbey
now has to compete on the open market. That is a massive organisation to undertake.
And that set of changes has never been taken on board, assessed and the organisation
restructured accordingly.”*5 The issue o f a resident company comprised of actors under
permanent contract had not been resolved by the Abbey management and company by
April 1993, according to notes from an Extraordinary General Meeting of the NTSL.
Those in favor of preserving the resident company, such as Abbey shareholder and former
board member Micheal O hAodha, argued that they were not “resisting change” but
asking for “continuity.” O Aodha believed there “should be a valuable core of actors in
the Abbey or else there is no difference between the national theatre and the Gaiety or the
Olympia,”86 which issued short-term contracts and brought in touring companies,
respectively. The government sided with O hAodha, believing that the Abbey deserved its
subsidy in part because it had a resident company of actors.
In addition to dealing with the residual effect of the board’s cessation of permanent
contracts for actors, Hynes also “found it tough to please a board of trustees, a large body
““Changing Direction,” 11. “Jackson, “Backstage at the Abbey,” 11.
185
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. of shareholders with built-in rights to influence artistic policy, and the Dublin critics.”*7
For example, former board member and shareholder Ulick O’Connor persisted in making
the resident company matter a central issue at general meetings o f the board, management,
and shareholders. Hynes also said in April 1993 that the board o f directors had rejected
her proposal to hire a consultant to “examine every aspect of the Abbey,”** a rejection that
she viewed as a clear sign of the board’s unwillingness to enact reforms at the Abbey. The
minutes from the Extraordinary General Meeting of the NTSL on 24 April 1993 verify the
board’s intention to restructure the board and shareholding body. However, James
Hickey, board chairman in 1993, denied ever hearing of Hynes’s proposal for a consultant,
which propelled The Irish Times's insinuation that Hickey and Hynes “hardly talk to one
another save through the newspapers.”*9 Believing that the board would not listen to her
proposals, and that her differences with its members were irreconcilable, Hynes left the
Abbey.
Carolyn Swift, actress, playwright, former theatre manager, and former Abbey
board member, suggests a different reason for Hynes’s departure from the Abbey after
only three years. According to Swift, Hynes faltered during her initial years as Abbey
artistic director because she “was used to running her own small company, Druid, in their
own minuscule theatre and on a shoestring. She had no experience of working with a
large team both on and off stage, or for an organization of which she was not the sole and
87Nightingale, “The Sort of Renown That Would Make Any Troupe Green,” 2:4:1. 88Woodworth, “Abbey board ‘surprised’,” 3. 89“The Abbey Theatre,” editorial comment, The Irish Times 8 April 1993: 13. 186
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. overall boss.”™ Hynes did have control over almost all aspects of the Druid throughout its
first thirteen years, which is why the media recognized her move to the RSC in 1988 as
“the main reason for speculation over the organisation’s future.”91 However, Swift is
wrong in asserting that Hynes had no experience working with a large group of people in
a large institution. The RSC forced her to re-examine her work process “with a
completely different set of people, in different situations.”92 Granted Hynes, as a resident
director for the RSC, did not have to concern herself with any business other than the
plays she directed, but she did gain the experience of working in a heavily subsidized
theatre that had several venues. Still, according to Hynes, the problems o f running the
Abbey proved “great, and greater, than [she] could ever have anticipated,”9’ which
suggests that in spite of her wealth of experience with Druid and the RSC, she was not
prepared for the struggles she faced with the board of directors and the Abbey actors.
Shortly after Hynes’s departure from the Abbey, the national theatre’s staff was
given “protective notice,” or laid-off, as a result of continued dismal audience attendance.94
Patrick Mason eventually helped pull the Abbey out of extreme debt, but not without
drawing the attention of the board’s and the government’s attention to the very issue
Hynes had stressed, the need to re-figure the Abbey’s role as Ireland’s national theatre and
^Carolyn Swift, letter to the author, 13 Apr. 2001. 91 Robert O’Byme, “At a Crossroads N ot at the end of the road,”Theatre Ireland 17 (Dec. 1988/Mar. 1989): 12. 92Lynda Henderson, “Climbing the Bell Tower,”Theatre Ireland 23 (Autumn 1990): 15. 93Woodworth, “Shaping up at the Abbey,” 10. 94Fintan O’Toole, “Impossible Targets,”The Irish Times 17 May 1994: 10. 187
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. reorganize its structure according to its new “open market” practices. Under Mason’s
tenure, the Abbey opened up its repertoire to include productions of non-Irish plays such
as Tony Kushner’sAngels in America: Millennium Approaches (1995) and Luigi
Pirandello’sSix Characters in Search o f an Author (1996). The Abbey also
commissioned an independent report of its organization in the mid-1990s, a few years
after Hynes’s departure. The report called on the theatre to reorganize its management by
adding the position of managing director, thus giving the theatre a structure more like
successful theatres such as the Gate, the English National Theatre, the Royal Court, and
the Guthrie Theatre.
After leaving the Abbey, Hynes spent a year “traveling, reading, ‘taking time
off,”95 before returning to the Druid Theatre as a consultant artistic director in October
1994. Working in a part-time rather than full-time capacity for Druid gave Hynes
opportunities to do freelance directing in Dublin and London. In March 1996, she
directed the premiere of Marina Carr’sPortia Coughlan, for which The Irish Times wrote
a rave review, and she accepted an associate director position with the Royal Court
Theatre. Her successful production of Martin McDonagh’sThe Beauty Oueen o f Leenane
for Druid, also in 1996, did more to build her international reputation than anything she
had done before. The production transferred to the Royal Court, and then to the Walter
Kerr Theatre on Broadway in April 1998. Two months later, on 7 June 1998, Hynes won
a Tony award for her direction of the McDonagh play. When asked byThe Irish Times
how it felt to be the first woman recipient, Hynes said, “It’s another barrier coming down.
95Battersby, 13. 188
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Figure 5.3 Garry Hynes accepting her Tony award for Best Director (7 June 1998). (Courtesy o f the AP)
189
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. . . . This situation reminds people about the feet that there are women working in the
theatre.”96 Her work on the McDonagh play also earned her the praise of playwright
Arthur Miller, who called her “brave and brilliant”97 and asked her to direct the premiere of
his play, Mr. Peter’s Connections (May 1998) at the Signature Theatre in New York. In
the last three years Hynes has directed in Galway, Dublin, London, and New York on a
regular basis, including annual productions for the Abbey, for which she is a resident
director. Hynes has told at least one reporter that she does not like to discuss her Abbey
artistic directorship, which she says comprised only three years of her entire life.98
However, she admitted in a 1998 interview for London'sGuardian newspaper, that, “If I
had gone into theatre via an institution,” like the Abbey, “I might not have got this fer.”99
Experimentation in production and the willingness to take risks are Hynes’s strengths as a
director. At the Druid she had the freedom to promote those strengths, but at the Abbey,
with its need to please and maintain a conservative audience, she never could.
Garry Hynes, as the Abbey’s second woman artistic director, gives the theatre a
distinction shared by none of the other major commercial theatres in Dublin or London.
The struggles for reform Hynes encountered at the Abbey tended to undermine her artistic
directorship. She became frustrated with the need to please such a large shareholding
body and board of directors, and impatient with the board’s conservative attempts to
96 Francine Cunningham, ‘“Beauty Queen’ reigns as Druid takes a bow and four Tonys in NY,” The Irish Times 9 June 1998: 5. 97Gibbons, 12. 98Battersby, 13. "Gibbons, 12. 190
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. institute organizational reforms. However, her influence did contribute to subsequent
changes in the Abbey repertoire and management. Her insistent declarations that the
Abbey needed to modify its power structure were finally heeded in the mid-1990s under
Mason’s leadership. The position of managing director was created to alleviate some of
the artistic director’s workload, and the board gave Mason the authority he needed to
open up the Abbey repertoire and stimulate the Abbey’s dismal finances. Fortunately for
Hynes, leaving the Abbey resulted in the beginning o f a new, highly successful phase o f
her career, one that positions her as one of the world’s top directors.
191
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CONCLUSION
The purpose of this dissertation is to provide a record of the accomplishments of
the women artistic directors o f Ireland’s National Theatre. O f the eleven histories written
about the Abbey Theatre, only one has any information about Lelia DooIan’s directorship,
none consider Ria Mooney’s tenure as producer in detail, none look into Garry Hynes’s
directorship, and none fully examines Lady Gregory’s contributions as a director and
administrator. Not one of the eleven histories to date gives the women behind the Abbey
Theatre their due recognition. While histories of nineteeth-century women managers in
the United States and England provide information about their women directors, no
articles or book-iength studies that examine the history of Irish women directors or
managers have been published.1 Irish women playwrights may have received their due, but
Irish women directors are still struggling for recognition.
When I began my research for this dissertation, I was under the assumption that I
would be exploring why the Abbey Theatre has employed so few women in positions of
power. I expected to confront evidence of overt sexism that made it difficult for women
in Ireland to work their way into the Abbey’s hierarchy. Such assumptions make sense
1 The exception to this are articles about the work of current directors such as Hynes, Lynn Parker, and Deborah Warner.
192
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. when one considers that the “position of women in Irish society has been strongly
influenced by the Roman Catholic doctrine that a woman’s place is in the home.”2 This is
the same doctrine that led to the passing of the 1983 referendum making abortion
unconstitutional and, until recently, that helped enforce the ban on divorce and
contraception. The women’s movement in Ireland has since the 1960s been a visible
opponent to the country’s conservative tradition, pushing for and achieving greater
equality between Irish men and women through such government led initiatives as the
1970 Commission on the Status of Women. Yet for most o f the century, Irish women
were limited by political, economic, and social influences from working outside of the
home. Surprisingly, my initial conclusions about the Abbey Theatre’s employment of
women proved to be wrong.
Women have been involved in managing the Abbey Theatre’s business and artistic
matters throughout its ninety-seven years. One woman co-founded and helped run the
theatre for almost thirty-two years, another served as primary producer, and two served as
artistic director. None of the other major professional houses in Dublin or London have
had even one woman at their helm, and very few have had women in upper management.
The Abbey’s record is so different from other theatres not because of a philanthropic
desire to promote the employment of women, but because o f specific circumstances
surrounding the hiring of each woman. Lady Gregory’s relationship with Yeats, a mixture
of mentorship and friendship, gave her access to the theatrical world. Her widow status
and her wealth afforded her the freedom to become more involved in the Abbey’s
2 Steve Wilmer, “Women’s Theatre in Ireland,”New Theatre Quarterly 7.28: 353. 193
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. business, and Yeats’s eventual detachment from the theatre necessitated her increased
commitment. Ria Mooney received an invitation to become primary producer at the
Abbey because of her association with Valentin Iremonger. In addition to being a poet
and diplomat, Iremonger was connected to the Friends o f the Irish Theatre and its
campaign to protest what they believed to be the Abbey’s declining standards. Had
Iremonger not heckled the Abbey performance of O’Casey’sThe Plough and the Stars on
7 November 1947 and sparked a tempest of criticism in the papers, Blythe would not have
had such a compelling reason to extend an offer of employment to Mooney, and Mooney
might have taken a job in England or the United States. The Abbey Board’s reasons for
hiring Lelia Doolan in 1971 were not so calculated. She won the job of artistic director
fairly from a pool of several candidates. That the Council on the Status of Women was at
the same time undergoing its investigation may have persuaded the board to employ a
woman artistic director, but that is speculative. The better assessment is that Doolan, a
young, innovative theatre artist, came along at a time when the Abbey was looking for
“youthful dynamism.”3 In turn, when Hynes was invited to become artistic director in
1990, the Abbey and the press hailed Hynes as “the Messiah from the West”4 o f Ireland
who would save the Abbey from years of infighting and mediocre productions. She had
helped build the tiny Druid Theatre into one of Ireland’s most exciting new theatres, and
the Abbey hoped her gift for directing would benefit the theatre.
3 Evening Press 12 Jan. 1972.
4 John Burns, “Dramatic Encore,”The Times [London] 18 Apr. 1993. 194
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. All four women in this study struggled for acceptance from the Abbey board and
the Irish public for their ideas. Mooney’s situation was particularlypoignant She faced a
deep-rooted gender bias within the Abbey Theatre and Ireland itself that subtly but
unmistakably interfered with her ability to carry out her job. Ernest Blythe’s financial
expertise may have saved the theatre from bankruptcy during the company’s years in exile,
but in keeping all decisions regarding production budgets, play selection, and hiring with
himself and the board, he left Mooney little authority and room for creativity. His
description of Mooney as “menopausal,” and the feet that he gave his protege, Tomas
Mac Anna, much more creative freedom with the Gaelic productions is evidence of the
sexism Mooney encountered. When Doolan became the Abbey’s first full-time artistic
director in December 1971, she met with resistance primarily because of her ideas rather
than her gender. The board, comprised of five men all of an older, conservative
generation, were unwilling to change the traditions of the Abbey or to hand over authority
regarding artistic matters to Doolan. When Doolan protested, the Abbey forced her
resignation. Hynes also feced resistance twenty years later in 1991. The board had been
forced to adapt to change following confrontations with intermediate artistic directors,
such as Joe Dowling. More authority over matters such as play selection was granted to
Hynes, but the bureaucracy at the Abbey Theatre frustrated Hynes and caused her to
resign at the end of her three-year term.
In spite of the problems they encountered, the women in this study each
contributed significantly to the Abbey Theatre’s survival. Gregory stepped in and took
over the administration of the Abbey Theatre when Yeats lost interest. Her skill as a
195
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. director and her commitment kept the theatre open following the end of Homiman’s
subsidy in 1910. Unlike Mooney and Doolan, Gregory received much recognition for her
contributions to the Abbey Theatre during her lifetime. Yet she allowed Yeats to publicly
take praise for her work. Mooney, the “work horse” of the Abbey during the 1950s,
directed play after play, long after her creativity had been stifled by Blythe’s conservative
ideas and restrictive policies. Hynes and Doolan can be credited with leading the Abbey
Theatre into the modem world. Their attempts to force changes in the managerial
structure did not go unheard, however long it took for the board to implement any change.
Doolan showed the board members that to revitalize the Abbey they were going to have to
let in new blood and allow future artistic directors a larger voice and greater control over
the artistic management. Hynes openly identified the problems that needed fixing within
the Abbey management. Though there have been many great and influential men in the
Abbey’s history, such as Yeats and Blythe, women have done their part to mold it into the
internationally renowned theatre it is today.
In a 1990 article on the influence of women directors upon future generations,
Steve Wilmer made an interesting comparison: “Just as Lady Gregory must have been a
role model and inspiration to women at the turn of the century, so Garry Hynes, who has
accomplished somuch,... can be a source of encouragement and hope for the future.”5
The dozen or so women who are artistic directors or managers of theatres in Ireland today
gives Wilmer’s statement credence, though almost all of these women work with smaller,
alternative venues. From October 1999 to January 2002, the former director of the
5 Wilmer, 360.
196
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Abbey’s Outreach Department under Hynes, Kathy McArdle, served as the artistic
director for Dublin’s performance arts space, the Project Arts Centre.6 Other women hold
high ranking positions with Irish theatre companys and venues, including Mary Jude Ryan
and Deirdre O’Connell, the administrator and artistic director of the Focus Theatre
Company, respectively; Veronica Coburn, the artistic director of Dublin’s Barabbas...the company Ltd.; Mary Coll, the executive director of the Belltable Arts Centre in Limerick; Annette Clancy and Lilly O'Reilly, the artistic director and general manager of the Garter Arts Centre in Waterford, respectively; and Michelle Read and Tara Derrington serve as co-Artistic Directors for Dublin’s interactive theatre READCO. The placement of these women, and others not listed, into positions of authority in Irish theatres is significant and portends a greater involvement o f women within the artistic managements of the larger professional repertory theatres and commercial houses in Ireland. Before long, the Abbey may no longer be the only major venue in Ireland to have had women artistic directors.
Each of the women in this study took a different path in life. Gregory, a wealthy Protestant landowner, became active in Irish theatre in her late forties, after her husband died. Mooney and Doolan were, and Hynes has been, committed to the theatre and career from their teens. Mooney devoted her life to Irish theatre as actress and director, and Hynes as a director. Doolan turned her attention to school, sociology, and film after leaving the Abbey Theatre. Despite significant differences in their careers these women have a common bond: they have been tenacious, innovative, and dedicated to their craft. Though not all of their productions and policies for the Abbey were successful, Gregory, Mooney, Doolan, and Hynes pushed the boundaries of Ireland’s National Theatre by helping the theatre survive formidable economic difficulties and changes in artistic policy
6 See the following article for information about McArdle’s departure from the Project Arts Centre: Ian Kilroy, “Project’s Potential Unrealised,”Irish Times 12 Dec. 2001. 197
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. to evolve into what it is today a national treasure. Their stories are proof that women
have played a key role in the history of the Abbey Theatre.
198
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CHRONOLOGIES
Chronology: Ladv Augusta Gregory
1852 Isabella August Persse bom on 15 March at Roxborough, Co. Galway
1880 Married to Sir William Gregory on 4 March in Dublin
1881 Birth of their only child, Robert in May 20
1882 Publication of short political essay, “Arabi and His Household;” affair with Wilfrid Blunt begins in December (ends in August 1883)
1884 Probable year of writing unpublished “An Emigrant’s Notebook”
1892 Death o f Sir William Gregory on 6 March
1893 Publishes pamphlet against Home Rule, “A Phantom’s Pilgrimage: or Home Ruin”
1894 Edits William Gregory’s Autobiography, met W.B. Yeats in London
1896 Invites Yeats to Coole; begins collecting folklore
1897 Yeats spends the first of twenty consecutive summers at Coole; plans for the Irish Literary Theatre commence
1898 PublishesMr. Gregory’s Letter-Box: 1813-1835; begins learning Gaelic; writes first play, Colman and Guaire (unpublished)
1899 First performances of the Irish Literary Theatre: Yeats’s The Countess Cathleen and Martyn’sThe Heather Field on 8 and 9 May
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Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 1900 Second performances of the Irish Literary Theatre in FebruaryMaeve and Alice Milligan’s The Feast o f the Fianna; Gregory writes scenarios for Hyde’s Gaelic plays
1901 Writes Cathleen ni Houlihan andThe Pot o f Broth with Yeats (produced, 1902); editsIdeals in Ireland
1902 Publishes the bookCuchulain o f Muirthemne
1903 First play under her name,Twenty-Five , produced by the Irish National Theatre Society; Poets and Dreamers published
1904 PublishesGods and Fighting Men, writes The Rising o f the Moon (produced 1907), Spreading the News (produced 1904 for Abbey opening),Kincora (produced 1905); Abbey Theatre opens December 27
1905 The White Cockade produced at Abbey
1906 PublishesA Book o fSaints and Wonders; Hyacinth Halvey , The Gaol Gate, The Canavans, and a translation ofThe Doctor in Spite o f Himself produced is at the Abbey
1907 The Jackdaw, Dervorgilla, revision ofThe Canavans, translation o f Maeterlinck’s Interior, The Unicom from the Stars (collaboration with Yeats) are all produced at Abbey. Son, Robert, marries Margaret Graham Parry in September
1908 Translation o f Moliere’sThe Rogueries o f Scapin, Sudermann’sTeja, and herThe Workhouse Ward produced at Abbey
1909 Grandson, Richard, bom; Gregory nearly dies o f cerebral hemorrhage in February; translationo f The Miser (directs it in January), a revision Kincora,o f andThe Image are directed by her at the Abbey; finishesThe Traveling Man (produced 1910); publishesSeven Short Plays andThe Kiltartan History Book, directs Shaw’s The Shewing-Up o f Blanco Posnet at the Abbey, defying censors
1910 Translation o f Goldoni’sMirandolina , her The Full Moon andCoats are directed by her at the Abbey; writes Grania (not produced) andThe Deliverer (produced 1911); completes Synge’s Deirdre o f the Sorrows with Yeats and Maire O’Neill; publishesThe Kiltartan Wonder Book
1911 First Abbey tour of America, October - March 1912, including a lecture tour that passes through Columbus, OH; affair with publisher John Quinn, Jan. - Mar
200
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 1912 The Bogie Men andDarner’s Gold produced at the Abbey
1913 Our Irish Theatre published; second Abbey tour of America; writesThe Golden Apple (produced 1920)
1914 The Wrens produced by Abbey players in London
1915 Robert Gregory joins service; Shanwalla produced at the Abbey; third Abbey tour of America; nephew Hugh Lane drowned onLusitania the in May; Gregory travels to America for a lecture tour in October
1916 Writes The Dragon (produced 1919)
1917 Writes Hanrahan’s Oath (produced 1918)
1918 Son killed in January returning from flight over enemy lines in Italy; publishesThe Kiltartan Poetry Book
1919 Writes The Jester for her grandson's school; acts the role of Cathleen inCathleen ni Houlihan at Abbey; directs Shaw’s John B ull’s Other Island at the Abbey
1920 PublishesVisions and Beliefs in the West o f Ireland; all of Coole, except the house, garden, and 350 acres, is sold to the tenants
1921 Publishes biography,Hugh Lane's Life and Achievement, Aristotle's Bellows produced at Abbey
1923 Writes poem on the heroes of Irish history, “The Old Woman Remembers,” and it is read at the Abbey by Sara Allgood; first operation for breast cancer
1924 The Story Brought by Brigit produced at Abbey; begins friendship with O’Casey; Roxborough burned
1926 Publishes expandedKiltartan History Book, her translation of Moliere’sThe Would-Be Gentleman produced at the Abbey; second operation for breast cancer
1927 Writes Sancho s Master andDave, both produced at the Abbey; remnants of Coole sold to Forestry Department; the house and gardens are leased back to Gregory
1928 Three Last Plays published
1931 Published description of her estateCoole in
201
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 1932 Died 22 May
1941 Coole house demolished
202
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Chronology: Ria Moonev
1903 Bom 30 April, Dublin, Ireland
1909 Mooney joins Madame Rock’s dance class
1911 Has her first unsuccessful audition at the Abbey Theatre
1920 Joins the Rathmines and Rathgar Musical Society
1923 - 26 Joins the Abbey Acting Company; her most famous role comes in February 1926 in O’Casey’s The Plough and the Stars
1926 Mooney is asked to be a director o f a new Dublin theatre (what became the Gate Theatre), but she chooses instead to travel to London to look for more lucrative work
1926 - 27 Tours in England and Scotland with the Irish Players, including ex-Abbey stars Arthur Sinclair and Eithne Magee
October 1927 Tours to New York City with the Irish Players; she finds work there with Eva Le Gallienne’s Civic Repertory Theatre
1928 - 32 Mooney acts in some Civic Repertory productions, and later she becomes assistant director to Le Gallienne
1932 Joins the Abbey touring company in Atlanta after the Civic folds as a result of the Depression; after joining the Abbey, she receives and turns down an offer from Cheryl Crawford to come to the Guild Theatre; she tours back to the United States in the fall o f this year with the Abbey company
1933 Mooney joins Edwards and MacLiammoir’s company at the Gate; here she adapts Wuthering Heights w/ Donald Stauffer and plays several roles; before the end of the year, she returns to the Abbey and begins performing with the no. 2 company, since the no. 1 company was on tour
1934 Mooney re-establishes the School o f Acting at the Abbey
1937 The Abbey Experimental Theatre gives its first performance in April under her supervision
1939 - 44 Mooney directs a sampling of plays for the Abbey Theatre and the Abbey Experimental Theatre
203
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 1942 Joins the Dublin Gaiety Theatre where, with the help of Gaiety manager Hamlyn Benson, she forms the Gaiety School of Acting
1944 Mooney begins donating her time to the Dublin Verse-Speaking Society (later the Dublin Lyric Theatre), directing verse-dramas for them
1946 Travels to London, to the Embassy Theatre at Swiss Cottage, London, to direct the premiere of O’Casey’s Red Roses For Me
1946 Directs R ed Roses For Me at the Dublin Gaiety Theatre
1947 Mooney leaves the Gaiety after the war ends, allowing touring companies to resume their usual fore at the Gaiety; she turns down an offer to set up a school of acting at the Embassy Theatre in London (and direct every second or third play), and an offer from Burgess Meredith to do the same thing in Hollywood; she accepts an offer from Blythe to come back to the Abbey
1948 In January she becomes the Primary Producer of Plays in English at the Abbey and re-establishes the Abbey Experimental Theatre
1951-54 After the fire that destroyed the Abbey Theatre, the company takes up residence at the Players’ Theatre (owned by Lord Moyne and the follow directors of Messrs. Guinness and Sons)
1954 The company finds a permanent home at the Queen’s Theatre; Mooney takes the company to the International Theatre Festival at the Sarah Bernhardt Theatre in Paris withThe Plough and the Stars where they win third place
1962 Conducts a lecture tour in the United States in June
1963 Mooney resigns her position at the Abbey Theatre in March
1973 Dies on 3 January in Dublin, Ireland
204
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Chronology: Lelia Doolan
1934 Bom on 7 May in Cork, Ireland
1951-54 Enrolls at the University College, Dublin (UCD); spends three semesters of her four years studying at the Universities of Tubingen, Sorbonne, and Munster in Germany.
1954 Graduates from UCD with honors in French and German, and a Brown Gold Medal (NUI) at degree examination
1954-55 Director of the UCD Dramatic Society
1955-56 Awarded a scholarship to the Free University in Berlin for one year’s graduate work on Bertolt Brecht and the Berliner Ensemble
1956 Stage debut for the Globe Theatre, Dublin; later toured with the company, and handled their publicity and stage direction.
1958-61 Reporter for a South Dublin weekly newspaper
1961 Begins performing in drama and musical programs for the newly created Irish television station; also serves as a researcher, interviewer, and scriptwriter on public aflairs programs for the station.
1964-69 Full-time producer/director for Radio Telefis Eireann (RTE); among other things, she establishes the weekly drama serial “The Riordans,” set in rural Ireland, using mobile (outside broadcast) video system which has since become standard; winner of Jacobs Award for her production of O’Casey’s The Plough and the Stars for RTE (using similar techniques as she did with “The Riordans”)
1966 Transferred from Drama to Current Affairs to found and produce “7 Days,” a weekly program on national and international politics
1967 Promoted to Editor in charge of Drama and General Features
1969 Promoted to Head of Light Entertainment in January; in May she resigns from RTE in protest of the company’s policies; publishesSit Down and Be C ounted with Jack Dowling and Bob Quinn
205
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 1969-72 Weekly columnist forThe Irish Press on social and politicalaffairs in Northern and Southern Ireland; television criticThis for Week; Joint editor of satirical journal,Dublin Opinion
1971-73 Artistic Director o f the Abbey Theatre
1974-78 Graduate student, Queen’s University, Belfast, Department of Social Anthropology; worked in Belfast city and suburban housing estates with drama and adult education groups
1978-79 Research officer to Erris Community Development Committee in Mayo, to research and identify development schemes for funding through the EEC/Irish Government Pilot Schemes to Combat Poverty
1979 Appointed Lecturer in Communications at the College o f Commerce, Rathmines, Dublin
1981 Appointed head of Communications and Journalism
1982 Awarded PhD in social anthropology
1983 Researcher/Organizer for Independent Poverty Action Movement
1984-85 Media Columnist for the fortnightly cultural review,In Dublin
1984 Director o f Meditations in Time o f Civil War, an educational video on W. B. Yeats
1985 Researcher on the condition o f homeless women in Dublin for the bookBut Where Can I Go?, which leads to establishment of Focus Point, a center for homeless people
1986 Directed an Irish-language productionThe of Marriage o f Figaro at the An Taibhdhearc, Galway; also executive producer o f the filmClash o f the Ash
1987 Executive producer Reeferof and the Model, winner of Europa Prize, Barcelona Film Festival; also begins studies in herbal and folk medicine
1988 Founder/Director o f the Galway Film Fleadh
1988- Present Lecturer in radio and television journalism at University College, Galway (UCG)
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Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 1988-89 Lecturer in film at the Galway Regional Technical College, and lecturer in media studies at the Peadar O’Donnell Centre for the Unemployed, Galway
1989-93 Presenter/Scriptwriter forFirst View, seasons o f short Irish films on RTE
1989-90 Consultant to International Labor Office, Geneva to research and write two reports: 1) Women Worker’s Problems — a plan for publications and a video campaign; 2) Improved Livelihood for Disabled Women - following 6 weeks research in Zimbabwe and Botswana
1990-94 Student of homeopathy at the Burren School of Homoepathy; awarded license in 1995
1993-94 Lecturer in Visual Anthropology at UCG
1993-96 Chairperson, The Irish Film Board, the State’s film funding agency
1995- Present Lecturer in film production, Galway-Mayo Institute of Technology
1997-99 Studies in Science and Geology with the Open University
2000-01 Creates Ireland’s first traveling cinema, the C memo bile (launched on I June 2001)
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Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Chronology: Garrv Hvnes
1953 Bom 10 June in Ballaghdereen, Co. Roscommon, Ireland
1971 Enrolls at University College Galway (UCG) as an art student after finishing her secondary education at the Dominican Convent in Galway; she immediately becomes involved with the college's dramatic society, Dramsoc, as a director
1975 Hynes’s production ofElizabeth One travels to the Athlone Amateur Drama Festival; she graduates and founds a summer theatre with college friends, including Marie Mullen; the company, which they name Druid Theatre, continues into the foil and winter
1979 The Druid company takes over an abandoned warehouse and transforms it into a 110-seat theatre; it opens in May
1980 Druid takes Hynes’s playIsland Protected by a Bridge o f Glass wins a Scotsman Fringe First award at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival in August
1982 Druid’s production of Synge’sThe Playboy o f the Western World wins an Art Award and Hynes a best director award; the production becomes known as the “definitive”Playboy
1983 Hynes wins the best director Harvey Award (Ireland’s Tony), the first woman to ever do so; she wins again in 1985
1986 Hynes directs Siobhan McKenna in Tom Murphy’sBailegangaire ; she directs here first production for the Abbey Theatre and is offered the position of artistic director at the National Theatre, but turns it down
1988 Directs Murphy’sA Crucial Week in the Life o f a Grocer’s Assistant at the Abbey Theatre
1988-89 Leaves the Druid Theatre to become a director for the Royal Shakespeare Company in Stratford and London; wins the 1988Time O ut award for best director
1991 Hynes takes up the position of artistic director at the Abbey Theatre on 1 January; her first production as artistic director,The Plough and the Stars, is unconventional and arouses much criticism
208
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 1993 Hynes informs the Abbey and the press of her intention not to renew her contract with the Abbey at the end of her three-year term; Patrick Mason is appointed her successor on 14 May
1994 After taking time off, Hynes rejoins the Druid Theatre as a consultant artistic director in October
1995 Directs Dion Boucicault’sThe Colleen Bawn at the Manchester Royal Exchange Theatre in April
1996 Directs the premiere of Marina Carr’s Portia Coughlan in March at the Abbey Theatre; the production transfers to the Royal Court in April; she accepts an associate director position with the Royal Court; she directs the premiere of Martin McDonagh’sThe Beauty Queen o f Leenane at the Druid Theatre
1997 Beauty Queen transfers to the Royal Court Theatre; Hynes directs McDonagh’s The Lonesome West
1998 Beauty Queen transfers to the Walter Kerr Theatre on Broadway in April; on 7 June, Hynes wins the Tony Award for best direction,B and eauty Queen wins the Tony for best new play; in May, at Arthur Miller’s request, she directs the premiere of hisMr. Peter’s Connections at the Signature Theatre
1999 Directs the seventy-fifth anniversary production of O’Casey’sJuno and the Paycock at the Gaiety Theatre, Dublin; Hynes’s productionThe of Lonesome West transfers to the Lyceum Theatre on Broadway in April; becomes an associate director for the Abbey Theatre
2000 Directs the premiere of Marina Carr’s On Raftary's Hill at the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C.; it transfers to the Royal Court in July; directs Michael Collins’s The Hackney Office for the Druid Theatre in December
2001 Directs John B. Keane’sB ig M aggie at the Abbey Theatre in February; directs Beth Henley’sCrimes o f the Heart at Second Stage Theatre in April; directs Geraldine Aron’sMy Brilliant Divorce at the Druid Theatre in November
209
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. APPENDIX B
WOMEN DIRECTORS AT THE ABBEY THEATRE
The following is a partial list o f productions directed by women at the Abbey Theatre. The dates shown are for the opening night.
Lelia Doolan St. Joan, G. B. Shaw (5 December 1972) The King o f Friday’s Men, M. J. Molloy (14 August 1973) Eye-Winker, Tom-Tinker, Tom MacIntyre (8 August 1972) [at the Peacock] Johnny Orfeo, Padraig O Giollagain (27 April 1973) [co-directed with Colm O Brien at the Peacock]
Caroline Fitzgerald Strange Occurrence on Ireland’s Eye, Denis Johnston ( ? ) White Woman Street, Sebastian Barry (21 May 1992)
FionnulaFlanagan Away Alone, Janet Noble (12 Feb. 1992) [at the Peacock]
Judy Friel The Misogynist, Michael Harding (10 Oct. 1990) The King o f Spain’s Daughter (1994)
Lady Gregory The M iser, Lady Gregory (21 Jan. 1909) The Shewing-Up o f Blanco Posnet, G. B. Shaw (25 Aug. 1909) The Image, Lady Gregory (11 Nov. 1909)
210
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Mirandolina, Lady Gregory (24 Feb. 1910) The Traveling Mem, Lady Gregory (3 Mar. 1910) The Full Moon, Lady Gregory (10 Nov. 1910) Coats, Lady Gregory (1 Dec. 1910) The Deliverer, Lady Gregory (12 Jan. 1911) Galway Races, Lady Gregory (24 Mar. 1913) [at the Plymouth Theatre, Boston]
Garry Hynes A Crucial Week in the Life o fa Grocer’s Assistant, Tom Murphy (1988) A Whistle in the Dark, Tom Murphy (1989) The Plough and the Stars, Sean O’Casey (7 May 1991) The Power o f Darkness, John McGahem (16 October 1991) Conversations on a Homecoming, Tom Murphy (11 February 1992) Drama A t Irtish, Lennox Robinson (17 June 1992) A Crucial Week in the Life o f a Grocer’s Assistant, Tom Murphy (17 November 1992) Famine, Tom Murphy (6 October 1993)
Maire Nic Shiubhlaigh The Singer, P. H. Pearse (25 May 1919) The Fire Bringers, Moireen Chavasse (23 May 1920) The Changeling, Kenneth Sarr (21 Nov. 1920)
Katharine McCormack The Laughter o f the Gods, Lord Dunsany (7 Nov. 1920) — a Dublin Drama League Production
Katie Mitchell The Last Ones (1993)
Ria Mooney Harlequin’s Positions, Jack B. Yeats (5 June 1939) [Experimental Theatre] The Fiddler's House, Padraic Colum, (1942) Assembly at Druin Ceat, Roibeard O’Farachain, (1943)
211
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. The New Regime, George Shiels (6 Mar. 1944) The Caretakers, George Shiels (16 Feb. 1948) The Drums Are Out, John Coulter (12 July 1948) The Lucky Finger, Lennox Robinson (23 Aug. 1948) The King o f Friday’s Men, M. J. Molloy (18 Oct. 1948) The Dreaming o fthe Bones, W. B. Yeats (29 Nov. 1948) [Experimental Theatre] The Grand House in the City, Brinsley MacNamara (31 Jan. 1949) Drama at Inish, or Is Life Worth Living?, Lennox Robinson (28 Feb. 1949) The Bugle in the Blood, Bryan MacMahon (14 Mar. 1949) The Caretakers, George Shiels (28 Mar. 1949) All Soul's Night, Joseph Tomelty (16 April 1949) Devorgilla, Lady Gregory (8 April 1949) The Righteous Are Bold (No producer listed), Frank Carney (2 May 1949) The Country Dressmaker, George Fitzmaurice (23 May 1949) The Dreaming o f the Bones, W. B. Yeats (27 June 1949) The King o f Friday’s Men, M. J. Molloy (9 July 1949) Riders to the Sea, J. M. Synge (9 July 1949) Katie Roche, Teresa Deevy (4 Aug. 1949) Ask For Me To-Morrow, Ralph Kennedy (3 Oct. 1949) The Jailbird (No producer listed), George Shiels (24 Oct. 1949) Shadow and Substance (No producer listed until the third week of the run [28 Nov.]; play produced under the direction of Ria), Paul Vincent Carroll (14 Nov. 1949) Boyd’s Shop, St. John Ervine (5 Dec. 1949) Design For a Headstone, Seamus Byrne (8 Apr. 1950) Mountain Flood, Jack P. Cunningham (10 Aug. 1950) The Goldfish in the Sun, Doual Giltinan (2 Oct. 1950) House Under Green Shadows, Maurice G. Meldon (5 Feb. 1951) The Devil A Saint Would Be, Louis D’Alton (10 Sept. 1951) Window on the Square, Anne Daly (22 Oct. 1951) Innocent Bystander, Seamus Byrne (19 Nov. 1951) The Gentle Maiden, Donal Giltinan (27 Mar. 1952) Home is the Hero, Walter Macken (28 July 1952) The Wood o f the Whispering, Michael J. Molloy (26 Jan. 1953) This Other Eden, Louis D’Alton (1 June 1953) The Paddy Pedlar, Michael J. Molloy (5 Sept. 1953) The Half-Millionaire, John O’Donovan (25 Jan. 1954) John Courtney, John Malone (22 Feb. 1954) Twenty Years A-Wooing, John McCann (29 Mar. 1954) Knocknavain, J. M. Doody (19 July 1954)
212
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. A Riverside Charade, Bryan Guinness (26 July 1954) Is The Priest At Home?, Joseph Tomehy (8 Nov. 1954) Blood is Thicker Than Water, John McCann (25 July 1955) The Will and the Way, Michael J. Molloy (5 Sept. 1955) The Last Move, Pauline Maguire (24 Oct. 1955) The Big Birthday, Hugh Leonard (23 Jan. 1956) Judgement on James O ’Neill, Francis MacManus (20 Feb. 1956) Early and Often, John McCann (16 July 1956) Strange Occurrence on Ireland’s Eye, Denis Johnston (20 Aug. 1956) The Quare Fellow, Brendan Behan (8 Oct. 1956) A Leap in the Dark, Hugh Leonard (21 Jan. 1957) The Flying Wheel, Donal Giltinan (22 Apr. 1957) The Wanton Tide, Niall Carroll (21 Oct. 1957) Give Me a Bed o f Roses, John McCann (25 Nov. 1957) Look in the Looking Glass, Walter Macken (10 Mar. 1958) Cafflin’ Johnny, Louis D’Alton(7 Apr. 1958) Seven Men and a Dog, Niall Sheridan (28 Apr. 1958) The Scythe and the Sunset, Denis Johnston (19 May 1958) A Change o f Mind, John O’Donovan (4 Aug. 1958) The Risen People, James Plunkett (23 Sept. 1958) A Right Rose Tree, Michael J. Molloy (27 Oct. 1958) I Know Where I ’m Going, John McCann (26 Jan. 1959) The Country Boy, John Murphy (11 May 1959) Leave it to the Doctor, Anne Daly (14 Sept. 1959) Danger Men Working, John D. Stewart (19 Oct. 1959) No Man is an Island, Peter Hutchinson (9 Nov. 1959) In Dublin’s Fair City, Criostoir O Floinn (30 Nov. 1959) It Can’t Go On For Ever, John McCann (1 Feb. 1960) The Bird in the Nest, Sean Dowling (28 Mar. 1960) The Shows o fSynge Street, John O’Donovan (25 Apr. 1960) Anyone Could Rob a Bank, Tomas Coffey (1 Aug. 1960) The Song o f the Anvil, Bryan MacMahon (12 Sept. 1960) The Lady o f Belmont, St. John Ervine (31 Oct. 1960) The Deputy’s Daughter, Anthony Butler (14 Nov. 1960) Men on the Wall, Michael Murphy (20 Nov. 1961) Brave Banner, Eamon Cassidy (4 Dec. 1961) The Enemy Within, Brian Friel (6 Aug. 1962) Copperfaced Jack, John O’Donovan (25 Feb. 1963)
Mary O’Hea The Ghost (7 Apr. 1913)
213
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Maire O’Neill Deirdre o f the Sorrows, J. M. Synge (13 Jan. 1910) Asst, onRed Turf, Rutherford Mayne (7 Dec. 1911)
Sara Pia Anderson Carthaginians, Frank McGuinness (26 Sept. 1988) [in the Peacock]
Fiona Shaw The Hamlet Project (July 1993)
Deborah Warner Hedda Gabler, Henrik Ibsen (25 June 1991)
214
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. APPENDIX C
ABBEY PERSONNEL
The following is a list of Abbey personnel from throughout the twentieth century. I have
included each name under the respective title held by each individual. It is the first
compilation of its kind, though it is not comprehensive. When available, dates indicating
when each employee began and ended his or her employment are noted.
Board o f Directors:
Barry, Sebastian (1990 - ?) Barrington, Kathleen (1972 - ?) Blythe, Ernest (9 Mar. 1935 - 1973) Collins, Vera (1991 - ?) Cullen, Fedelma (1990 - ?) D’Alton, Louis (Jan. 1939 - May 1939) Dermody, Frank (May 1939 - ?) Fahy, Martin Fallon, Gabriel (Oct. 1958 - Jan. 1974) Gregory, Lady Augusta (Dec. 1904 - Mar. 1932) Hayes, Richard (1933 - 1958) Hickey, James Higgins, F.R. (9 Aug.1935 - Jan. 1941) Hussey, Gemma (July 1974 - July 1978) Mac Anna, Tomas (1972 - ?) MacNamara, Brinsley (Mar.- Oct. 1935) Macken, Walter (July 1965 - 1966) Martin, Augustine (1990 - ?) McCarthy, Charles (Oct. 1973 - ?) McGuinness, Frank (1992 - ?) Murphy, Tom (1974 -7)
215
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Ni Ghrainne, Maire (1993 - ?) O’Brien, George (1925 - 1926) O’Connor, Frank (Oct. 1935 - 1940) O Dalaigh, Margaret (July 1978 -7) O Farachain, Roibeard (Oct. 1940 - Oct. 1973) O hAodha, Micheal (1966 - O’Reilly, C. Cruise Pearson, Noel Purcell, Deirdre (1991 - ?) Robinson, Lennox (Apr. 1924 - Oct. 1958) Scott, Leslie (Dec. 1974 - 7) Starkie, Walter (1926 - 1943) Swift, Carolyn Synge, J.M. (Dec. 1904 - 1909) Wakefield, Tony Wilmot, Seamus (1958 - 31 Jan. 1974) Yeats, W.B. (Dec. 1904 - Jan. 1939)
Artistic Directors:
Barnes, Ben (1 Jan. 2000-present) Doolan, Lelia(l Jan. 1971-30 Nov. 1973) Dowling, Joe (1978-20 Mar. 1985) Dowling, Vincent (Jan. 1987-Dec. 1989) Fitz-Simon, Christopher (Jan.-Dec. 1986) Hynes, Garry (1 Jan. 1991-31 Dec. 1993) Mac Anna, Tomas (Jan. 1966-1968 [Artistic Adviser]; 1 Dec. 1973-Dec. 1977; 21 Mar.-Dec. 1985) Macken, Walter (1965-1966 [Artistic Adviser]) Mason, Patrick (1 Jan. 1994-31 Dec. 1999) Pearson, Noel (Jan.-Dee. 1990) Simpson, Alan (1968-1969 [Artistic Adviser])
Stage Manager:
Allgood, Sara (Feb. - Apr. 1908) Connell, Norreys (Jan. 1909 - July1909) Ervine, John G. (July 1915 - July 1916) Fay, W.G. (1904 - Feb. 13 1908) Hutchinson, H.E. (? - Feb. 1919) Keogh, J. Augustus (July 1916) Wilson, A. Patrick (1914 - July 1915)
216
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Manager:
D’Alton, Louis (1938 - 1939) Fahy, Martin (Jan. 1977 -7) Hunt, Hugh (Dec. 1935 - Sept. 1936) Liddy, David (1975 - Jan. 1977) O’Kelly, Phil (Aug. 1967 - Apr. 1971) Slemon, John (Aug. 1971 - 1975)
General Manager:
Robinson, Lennox (1909-1914; Feb. 1919-1924)
Producer:
D’Alton, Louis (Jan. - May 1939) Dermody, Frank (May 1939 - Feb. 1947) Hunt, Hugh (Dec. 1935 - Nov. 1938) Monck, Nugent (1911 - 1912 [for the Abbey’s Second Company]) Mooney, Ria (1948 - 1963) Payne, Ben Iden (1906)
Secretary:
Gorman, Eric Henderson, W. A. Perrin, J.H.
Managing Director:
Blythe, Ernest (28 Jan. 1941 - 1967) Connell, Norreys (Apr. - 2 June 1909) Higgins, F.R. (Oct. 1938 - 8 Jan. 1941) O’Connor, Frank (1935 - 1938) Yeats, W. B. (1906 - ?)
217
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. BIBLIOGRAPHY
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Dowling, Vincent. Personal Interview. 29 April 2001.
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221
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Hickey, Des and Gus Smith.A Paler Shade o f Green. London: Leslie Frewin, 1972.
Hobson, Bulmer, ed.The Gate Theatre Dublin. Dublin: Gate Theatre, 1934.
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Holyroyd, Michael. Bernard Shaw: The One-Volume Definitive Edition. New York: Random House, 1997.
Hoppen, K. Theodore.Ireland Since 1800: Conflict and Conformity. London and New York: Longman, 1989.
Hunt, Hugh.The Abbey: Ireland’s National Theatre 1904-1979. Dublin: Gill and Macmillan, 1979.
Hussey, Gemma.Ireland Today: Anatomy o f a Changing State. Dublin: Townhouse/Viking, 1993.
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222
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Johnson, Toni O’Brien and David Cairns.Gender in Irish Writing. Philadelphia: Open UP, 1991.
Kavanagh, Peter. The Story o f the Abbey Theatre. New York: Devin-Adair, 1950.
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224
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225
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Articles
“The Abbey and the Future.”Irish Digest Oct. 1949: 38-39.
226
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. “Abbey Play Deals with Dublin Life.”Irish Press 30 Mar. 1954.
“Abbey Theatre.” The Irish Times 26 Aug. 1909: 9.
“The Abbey Theatre.” The Irish Times 18 Mar. 1919: 7.
“The Abbey Theatre.” Editorial. The Irish Times 8 April 1993: 13.
“Abbey Tradition Was Maintained.”The Irish Times 19 July 1951.
“Arms and the Man.”The Irish Times 6 Dec. 1922:4.
“Arts at the Crossroads (Part 1).” The Irish Times 9 June 2001: 60.
Battersby, Eileen. “The Image Maker.” The Irish Times 12 June 1997: 13.
Bayley, Clare. “A New Voice For Ireland.” The Independent (London) 28 Feb. 1996: 6.
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Cannavan, Jan. “Women’s Struggle Liberates Ireland/Ireland’s Struggle Liberates Women: Feminism and Irish Republicanism.”Irish Women’s History Group.
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“Changing Direction.”Irish Times 23 Sept. 1992: 11.
Cincinnati Examiner 26 Nov. 1911.
Colgan, Gerry. “A Tough Act to Follow.”The Irish Times 26 Oct. 1991.
. “Irish Plays, Focus.”The Irish Times 13 Nov. 1992: 11.
Cunningham, Francine. ‘“Beauty Queen’ reigns as Druid takes a bow and four Tonys in NY.” The Irish Times 9 June 1998: 5.
“Death of Eminent Actress and Producer.”The Irish Times 4 Jan. 1973: 14.
227
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. “A Director Takes the Spot He Coveted at Centre Stage.” Irish Times 31 July 1999: 2.
Doolan, Lelia. “Taking Stock.” Irish Times 1 Dec. 1971.
Dowling, Joe. “How is the show so far?” The Irish Times 26 Oct. 1991.
Doyle, Maria-Elena. “A Spindle for the Battle: Feminism, Myth, and the Woman-Nation in Irish Revival Drama.” Theatre Journal 51 (March 1999): 33-46.
Dwyer, Ciara. “Unquenchable Zest for Life’s Adventure.”Sunday Independent 7 Jan. 2001.
“Eugene O’Neill at the Abbey.”The Irish Times 24 Apr. 1959: 6.
Evening Press 12 Jan. 1972.
Fallon, Gabriel. “Inventing an Audience.”The Standard [Dublin] 24 Aug. 1951.
. “Exciting New Play at the Abbey.” The Standard 22 Aug. 1956.
Fawcett, Liz. “McGahem’s Play.” Letter. The Irish Times 31 Oct. 1991: 13.
Fay, Gerard. “Early Troubles at the Abbey.” The Irish Times 25, 27, 28 Dec. 1954: 5.
Finegan, J. J. “Rich Comedy From the West.”Evening Herald 6 Sept. 1955.
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228
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. “Gung-ho for the Abbey.”The Irish Times 22 April 1993: 8.
Hadfield, Paul. “ Christopher Fitz-Simon.”Theatre Ireland 21 (Dec. 1989): 42-44.
Hayes, David. Irish Times 21 Oct. 1985.
Henderson, Lynda. “Climbing the Bell Tower.”Theatre Ireland 23 (Autumn 1990): 15.
Hennessy, Nadine. “Working Married Women.” letter to editor.The Irish Times 5 Dec. 1972: 13.
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Ireland, Denis. “The Abbey Theatre.”The Bell 2.3 (1941): 67-8.
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The Irish Times 9 Feb. 1926: 7.
The Irish Times 12 Feb. 1926: 7-8.
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Irish Times 22 Oct. 1991: 20.
‘“Is the Priest at Home’ At the Abbey Theatre.” The Irish Times 9 Nov. 1954: 9.
229
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Jackson, Joe. “Backstage at the Abbey.” The Irish Times 23 Sept. 1992: 11.
Kelly, Kevin. “Bringin the Abbey Back to the Light.” The Boston Globe 25 Nov. 1990: A l.
Kelly, Seamus. “Essay in revolutionary tactics at the Peacock.”Irish Times 9 Aug. 1972: 10.
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Kilroy, Ian. “Project’s Potential Unrealised.”Irish Times 12 Dec. 2001.
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“Lady Gregory Here With Irish Players.” New York Times 20 Nov. 1911: 11:3.
“Lady Gregory’s Toothbrush.”The Irish Times 25 Aug. 2001: 70.
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Linehan, Fergus. “A Tale of two Ploughs.”The Irish Times 11 May 1991: 5.
Lowell Sun 28 Oct. 1911.
M., J.E. ‘“Playboy’ in Danger of Going Off Rails? Hold Your Horses, Ria Mooney!” Evening Herald n.d.
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Madden, Aodhan. “What are Lelia Doolan’s qualifications?”Evening Press 12 Jan. 1972.
Manning, Mary.Irish Times 7 Sept. 1985.
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Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. “Marie Kean.” The Irish Times 4 Jan. 1994: 3.
Marsh. “Selfless’ energetic generous — that was the Lady of the Abbey.”Everting Press 13 Aug. 1976: 8.
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McMullan, Anna. “Irish Women Playwrights Since 1958.”British and Irish Women Dramatists Since 1958: A Critical Handbook. Eds. Trevor R. Griffiths and Margaret Llewellyn-Jones. Buckingham and Philadelphia: Open UP, 1993. 110- 123.
“The Men Who Run the Abbey.”Sunday Press 19 December 1971.
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Morgan, James. “The Abbey Theatre Incident.” Letter.The Irish Times 10 Nov. 1947: 5.
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Ni Mhoitleigh, Colette. “Equality How Are Ye?.” Letter. The Irish Times 25 Apr. 1973: 11.
N.C. “Molloy has Laughter for Abbey.” Irish Press 6 Sept. 1955.
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231
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Nightingale, Benedict. “The Sort of Renown That Would Make Any Troupe Green.”New York Times 22 Feb. 1998: 2: 4: 1.
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232
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. . “Twenty-one years of Druid.”The Irish Times 25 June 1996: 10.
“Phoenix Flame.” The Irish Times 19 July 1951: 5.
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Quidnunc. “An Irishman’s Diary.”The Irish Times 18 Nov. 1947: 5.
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‘“Twenty Years A-Wooing’ In Abbey.” The Irish Times 30 Mar. 1954: 9.
“Uncertain Steps to a Modem State.”The Irish Times 12 Oct. 1999: 13.
Waters, Maureen. “Lady Gregory’sGrania: a feminist voice.” Irish University Review 25 (1995): 11-24.
Wilmer, Steve. “Women’s Theatre in Ireland.”New Theatre Quarterly 7.28 (1991): 353- 360.
White, Victoria. “Patrick’s Days.” The Irish Times 17 Jan. 2000.
Woodworth, Paddy. “Drama At the Abbey.”The Irish Times 26 Oct. 1991.
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233
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. . “Shaping Up at the Abbey.” Irish Times 22 Dec. 1992.
. “Abbey board ‘surprised’ by director’s decision.”The Irish Times 8 April 1993: 3.
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Archival Sources
NLI, MS 2,652 NLI, MS 3,208 NLI, MS 4,440 NLI, MS 7,047 NLI, MS 7,050 NLI, MS 7,271 NLI, MS 7,272 NLI, MS 7,273 NLI, MS 7,387 NLI, MS 10, 953 NLI, MS 10,954 (2-3) NLI, MS 13,068 (i, 17, 19) NLI, MS 13,617 NLI, MS 19,844 NLI, MS 19,845 NLI, MS 22,557 NLI, MS 25,500 NLI, MS 25,501 NLI, MS 27,631 NLI, MS 33,037 NLI, MS 33,340 (1-3, 5-7, 10) NLI, MS 33,369 (4-5, 7, 11-12) Micheal O’hAodha papers NLI, MS 33,431 (1-3, 6) NLI, MS 33,444
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.