Controversy in 1944 about the role of the Abbey Theatre – including whether it should be an Irish-speaking theatre, the selection of its directors, and its choice of plays – prompted The Irish Timesto seek the opinion of three playwrights, George Bernard Shaw, Seán O'Casey and Paul Vincent Carroll. None of the three was very likely at that stage to respond positively to the state of the Abbey, and they didn't surprise. – JOE JOYCE
GEORGE BERNARD Shaw, Seán O’Casey and Paul Vincent Carroll, all of whom have had plays produced in the Abbey Theatre, have commented on the theatre’s decline in reply to telegrams asking their opinions.
Messrs. Shaw and O’Casey live in England, Mr. Carroll in Scotland. Declaring that “mediocrity must be the staple of all daily enterprises,” Mr. Shaw described as “thoughtless” a question as to whether the attempt to found an Irish-speaking National Theatre justified mediocrity. Mr. Shaw declined to suggest how the Abbey might be saved. He did not reply to a question asking him if, in his opinion, an attempt should be made to save it.
Declaring that he did not know what the Abbey language policy – past or present – was, Mr. O’Casey asked how the theatre could avoid the inclusion of plays in Gaelic in their programme, “seeing they get a subsidy from a Government that is free as well as Gaelic and Gaelic as well as free. There is no reason why a fine play should not appear in Gaelic, though no sign as yet is showing.
“However good or fine a playwright might happen to be, however the Abbey Theatre might encourage him, it could never give him any kind of living – decent or indecent. And, it seems to me, there will be even a less chance for a Gaelic playwright, unless he gets a Government job or a Government pension. Then, of course, he must write nothing to displease the powers or the nominees who place the powers there. There is the crux – for Eire. She will be, is now in fact, in the condition of control of thought so often attributed to the Socialism of the U.S.S.R. It’s funny.”
Mr. O’Casey says there is a world movement of the peoples which will shape the world to the people’s desires. He says: “Eire won’t be even mentioned. She can go on singing her ‘Song of Bernadette,’ or listen to the champions of Catholic thought – Belloc and Chesterton, the present-day summer of Eire’s faith . . . What the Abbey does is a small thing. If Ireland can become freely Gaelic so much the better – that is singing bawdy songs as well as hymns. If not . . .”
Paul Vincent Carroll, when asked whether he considered the present Abbey policy destructive of the theatre’s heritage, replied: “Dublin’s censorious, provincial and pietistic attitude is chiefly responsible for the Abbey débacle. The introduction of foreign puritanism has proved inimical to native art. Ireland has shed immortality and clothed herself in the rags of a bogus, bombastic freedom. Here lie the ruins of the glorious Anglo-Irish European tradition.”
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