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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

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

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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

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.

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.

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.

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

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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

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,

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

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).

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.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Figure 1.1. The original Abbey Theatre, c. 1936.

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

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

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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)

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.

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).

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.

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).

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).

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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).

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.

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.

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.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Figure 2.2 Profile of Lady Gregory. (Courtesy of Colin Smythe)

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.

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)

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)

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.

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.

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.

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)

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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,

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.)

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.

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.

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.

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.

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)

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)

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.

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.

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.

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

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)

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.

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.

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.

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.

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)

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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.

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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.

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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).

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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)

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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.

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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)

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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)

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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. (22 Jan. 2002). 33Victoria White, “Patrick’s Days,” The Irish Times 8 Jan. 2000: 10. 170

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.

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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.

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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

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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.

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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.

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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

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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

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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

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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

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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

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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

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Dowling, Vincent. Personal Interview. 29 April 2001.

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Frazier, Adrian.Behind the Scenes: Yeats, Homiman, and the Struggle for the Abbey Theatre. Berkeley: U o f CA P, 1990.

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221

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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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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.

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“The Abbey Theatre.” The Irish Times 18 Mar. 1919: 7.

“The Abbey Theatre.” Editorial. The Irish Times 8 April 1993: 13.

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“Arms and the Man.”The Irish Times 6 Dec. 1922:4.

“Arts at the Crossroads (Part 1).” The Irish Times 9 June 2001: 60.

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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. (14 Sept. 1998).

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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.

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“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.

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“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.

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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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Hynes, Garry. Interview with Lynda Henderson.Theatre Ireland 23 (Autumn 1990): 10- 17.

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Irish Times 22 January 1909: 9.

Irish Times 18 March 1919: 7.

The Irish Times 9 Feb. 1926: 7.

The Irish Times 12 Feb. 1926: 7-8.

The Irish Times 25 Feb. 1950.

Irish Times 1 Dec. 1971.

Irish Times 1 Sept. 1985.

Irish Times 21 Oct. 1985.

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.

“Lelia Doolan Leaves Abbey Theatre Post.” The Irish Times 17 Nov. 1973: 1.

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.

230

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.

McDiarmid, Lucy. “Augusta Gregory, Bernard Shaw, and the Shewing-Up of Dublin Castle.” PMLA 109.1 (Jan. 1994): 26-44.

McGrath, Kieran. “McGahem’s Play.” Letter to the editor. The Irish Times 28-29 Oct. 1991:11.

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.

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“Mo power to Irish women.” The Irish Times 27 Oct. 2001: 72.

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Morgan, James. “The Abbey Theatre Incident.” Letter.The Irish Times 10 Nov. 1947: 5.

The National Theatre o f Ireland Home Page. (22 Jan. 2002).

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.

Nowlan, David. ‘“St. Joan' at the Abbey.”Irish Times 6 Dec. 1972: 12.

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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.

“Play on Feudal System o f 18th Century West.”The Irish Times 19 Oct. 1948: 3.

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Purcell, Deirdre. “A Director Takes the Spot He Coveted at Centre Stage.”The Irish Times 31 July 1999: 2.

Quidnunc. “An Irishman’s Diary.”The Irish Times 18 Nov. 1947: 5.

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Robinson, Lennox. “As Man of the Theatre.”The Arrow (1939): 20-21.

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“The Shewing-Up of Blanco Posnet.”The Irish Times 26 Aug. 1909: 7.

Stephens, Judith L. “Gender Ideology and Dramatic Convention in Progressive Era Plays, 1890-1920,” Theatre Journal 41.1 (Mar. 1989): 45-55.

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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.

. “From Murphy to MacMahon at the Abbey.”The Irish Times 29 Oct. 1992: 12.

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.