An Irish Theatre

The strongest mind of the earliest Irish Literary Theatre was Mr. Edward Martyn, and when his friends Yeats and Moore pursued fantasy to the ends of the earth, he remained dominantly Gaelic and sensible. And one who wished to know the truth about Edward Martyn had better pay a call to the Irish Theatre in Hardwicke Street than on the sultry pages of Moore's " Hail and Farewell " where the godless hedonist has pinned a false notion of his friend for English boors to see.

Not that anyone will admire the selection of the plays produced this week—only one of which is Irish in any sense—but Mr. Martyn has tired, as the public has, of the unpleasant peasant atrocities which are manufactured ad nauseum in the Abbey Press Bureau. So, in all probability he has had to full back on the " Repertory Theatres " type of foreign or intellectual drama, and wait patiently for the young genius of the future who is destined to lift the Irish dramatic movement from the ditch.

But if our arrived and blossoming Irish dramatists choose the language of Shoneen drawingrooms and not the Gaelic, the comedy of errors will still proceed apace in Gaeldom. We will remain, however, attentive to the Irish Theatre, which is doing useful destructive criticism. The new play produced this week, " The Phoenix on the Roof," is by Mr. Eimar O'Duffy, and, apart from its vague satirical motive, is a piece of very promising work.

The characters were well drawn, defined and contrasted—but a young writer should beware of smartness or caricature with which it is easy to mark out a character. The Rev. Mr. Black (though perhaps a trifle over-acted by Mr. Meagher) is a very easy and unreal character to produce. And Eily Westbrook, daughter of the doctor on whose house the Phoenix lights its funeral pyre, possesses that cheap smartness with which Shaw has influenced the later drama. This character was well-acted by Catia McCormac, who would have been perfect but for an awkward stage-movement here and there.

The rest of the acting was delightful, including the manager's work in the part of Dr. Westbrook. The late St. John Hankin or Granville Barker, however, is hardly a model for the able Mr. Eimar O'Duffy. " The Revolt," by Villiers de l'Isle Adam, the eccentric noble man who shocked Paris thirty years ago, and one of Mr. Yeats' poetic talismans, is a feminist play. Miss Una O'Connor, though very nervous in the part of the woman who breaks from her husband's unthinking domination, only to return, succeeded in making a fine impression of cultured and convincing art. She was assisted by that old friend of dramatic scholarship for whose long absence from Irish stage art the public and the authorities ought to be ashamed—Mr. Frank Fay.

No piece of acting in the past few years has given us such confidence of ungrudging praise, as his " Felix " in the " Revolt," for no actor in the Irish band has such resource and sensitiveness as he. Strong, and yet feeling unable to cope with fate—then flattering himself that he was right after all—the player worked a puppet-character in the very ecstasy of life. Tchakoff's play was nicely done, but does not demand comment. "Fe Bhrigh na Mionn" is a little Gaelic translation, utterly unlike any of these, from the " Troth " by Rutherford Mayne It was played sincerely, by the former caste, to whom was added Art Mac an Bhaird, as Proinsias O Mordha made a strong impression by his inlet and sorrowful speech and gentle manner. An improvement on the former production it certainly was. Maire nic Shiubhlaigh repeated a beautiful rendering of her part, and we venture to ask for the Gaelic element a bigger space, as is justly due, in the schemes of Mr. Martyn's admirable and praiseworthy Irish Theatre.

CRAWFORD NEIL