Madam, - It is less than amusing to note the righteous indignation of those attacking Colm Tóibín's play, Beauty in a Broken Place, who, in the time-honoured Irish way in such matters, have not even seen the play on stage. Less than amusing because these attackers are clearly calling for some kind of censorship.
Ironically, the play itself addresses this very theme, as Lady Gregory and to a lesser degree Yeats are represented as aware of opposition to The Plough and the Stars and determined to use O'Casey's play to oppose this menacing trend in the newly formed Irish Free State.
As to the fun poked at F.J. McCormick, has the theatre since the days of Aristophanes not assumed the right to pillory even the greatest of men? Has it not always been the prerogative of the stage to satirise and to mock? Only the Puritans in every age have tried to suppress this ancient privilege by calling for reforms, censorship and even closure of the theatres.
In fact, Tóibín's play quite legitimately holds McCormick and Lennox Robinson and to some extent even Yeats himself up to scorn because the play is narrated by O'Casey himself, retrospectively telling the story of his love for Lady Gregory and his admiration for the manner in which she ensured that The Plough and the Stars went on in 1926 in spite of opposition from some of the players. O'Casey knew that McCormick was one of these ever since the playwright had dared to criticise McCormick's performance in Shaw's Man and Superman at the Abbey in August 1925.
O'Casey's fear of reprisal was well-founded. On the night of the riots over the Plough, McCormick appealed to the rioters from the stage not to blame the players for what the playwright had written. They were enemies from this out.
When eventually O'Casey's The Silver Tassie was seen at the Abbey in 1935, McCormick opposed it too, saying "that he himself, were he a free agent, would not, as a Catholic, have appeared in the play". So Brinsley MacNamara quoted him as saying in an explanatory letter to The Irish Times on October 7th, 1935, following MacNamara's resignation from the Abbey board.
It is thus quite in character for Tóibín's O'Casey to take a negative line on McCormick, who had put himself in the firing line. - Yours, etc.,
CHRISTOPHER MURRAY,
Killiney,
Co Dublin.