By Mallory Sweeney

After my first rehearsal with two Irish actors, a term project assigned while studying at the Gaiety School of Acting in Dublin, I sat in the school’s black box space, and hung my head.  The stage was truly set for disaster.  I thought I was being clever by selecting a scene from Act One of John Millington Synge’s famous play, Playboy of the Western World—the scene in which Pegeen and Christy are left together in the public house and comic flirtation ensue.  My actors seemed unresponsive to my direction—as if there was a gap between us I could never bridge.  I remember specifically, in that first rehearsal, my actor playing Christy shaking his head and explaining how I could never understand the play because I, “Just wasn’t Irish.”  He asked me if I knew about the play’s impact on the people who watched the first performance in 1907 and why they rioted.  I had to admit that I didn’t know the full story—but I wanted their guidance in order to become a better director.  The actors agreed to offer any help they could, but also made me promise to do my part of the research as well. 

At the time I had an Irish theatre history class under the careful instruction of Deirdre Mulrooney, an author of many articles on Irish theatre and dance.   The course was geared around exploring the Irish theatre and how it mirrored the political climate of the time.  For W.B. Yeats and Lady Gregory, theatre was a unifying factor, as in the creation of the National Playhouse, The Abbey Theatre, with the hopes of constructing a sort of national identity in its wake as well as promoting the performance and commission of Irish plays.  The theatre opened December 27th, 1904 and in the 1907 performance of Synge’s Playboy of the Western World, rioting caused such a tumultuous reaction as to become a landmark in Irish history.  The Abbey refused Synge’s next play.  Because of Ireland’s unstable history, the country has often found itself caught in a struggle to be—or impersonate so many different people.  The country was, at best, often personified like a person suffering from an identity crisis.  I knew both my actors had studied Irish Theatre from a literary perspective—one in secondary school and one at the University College Dublin.  But where I understood it as an outsider, both could grasp it from a different, more personal and cultural standpoint.  Luckily, after a few rehearsals and once I earned their trust as a director, each would open up and illuminate for me the pieces of Synge, Playboy, and Irish Theatre that was before, beyond my comprehension.

Before this rewarding trust though, came my fulfillment of my part of the bargain.  In what seemed like a miraculous blessing my one roommate was interning under the Archivist, an incredibly kind and knowledgeable woman named Mairead Delaney, at The Abbey Theatre.  Once equipped with her permission and some latex gloves, my roommate and I were permitted to dive into the archives that were in her charge for the next two months.  What we found became integral in my understanding of Irish Theatre.  There, laid out for me, was an indispensable treasure map—letters of correspondence between Lady Gregory and Yeats, letters from figures like Synge and Sean O’Casey, documents requesting funding and commissions for plays to be written.  One could even view the blueprints of the “new” Abbey Theatre, created after fire assaulted and destroyed the original in 1951.  I finally could hold in my hands and read the proof of the battle that Yeats and Lady Gregory struck out to win.  My mind expanded to understand and overcome the boundaries of culture.  In one of her letters to Yeats about the establishment of The Abbey, Lady Gregory expressed her plan of attack by quoting Aristotle, saying they must, “…think like a wise man, but to express oneself like the common people.”  There was even the document granting The Abbey government funding in 1925 which made it the first subsidized English speaking theatre in the world.     

I returned to my actors and the scene, fresh from my Abbey illumination, still needing help to understand the Playboy riots.  I knew that the Nationalists present at the performance were disgusted that the play was not potent enough toward their cause, but I couldn’t wrap my brain around the reason why some audience members thought it was disgraceful toward women.  My actors were willing to explain.  They told me about the various constructs of Irish figures as they have appeared on stage in the history of theatre.  For women it was always either the idealization of the rural Celtic lass, complete with rosy cheeks and fair complexion—or the war-weathered matriarchal figure, like that of Lady Gregory’s Cathleen Ni Houlihan.  Neither seemed to match the wild and audacious Pegeen, who glorifies Christy’s murder of his father, saying “…and it’s near time a fine lad like you should have your good share of the earth.”  I also learned of the “stage Irish” figure—red-faced and stumbling and the subsequent cultural send-ups of this figure like Synge’s creation of the characters of the squatter Mahon and the pub owner Michael James.  Even the setting of Synge’s play a, “Country public-house or shebeen, very rough and untidy,” would have offended some and been another catalyst for the riots at The Abbey Theatre.          

But my actors helped me see the disorganized pub and its inhabitants in an altered light.  By setting The Playboy of the Western World as he does, Synge was able to capture the popular imagination and the flavor of the language.  “He shows you the good and the bad and it’s honest,” my one actor told me.  I came to grasp then, that Synge was showing us a slice of culture, a place where stories, personal accounts and even the communication of information were exchanged.  Synge masters what I later learned was the Irish “folk imagination” and I could understand how art for him became collaboration between life and culture.  What struck me as most captivating was how my actors explained that in modern culture surrounding Irish theatre—there still existed a sense of questioning and contradicting. 

After seeing another production at The Abbey, a piece commissioned by Paul Mercier entitled Homeland, the actors explained to me its basis in Irish myth as well as its connection to the modern day crisis of the exposing and exploitation of Ireland’s real-estate tribunals and their economic profiteering.  Just like Synge before them, playwrights like Mercier, Marina Carr, and even Samuel Beckett were all simultaneously investigating social dilemmas and their relation to the Irish way of life as a whole.  Thus another goal of the Abbey is served: the presentation of the notion that Ireland is constantly interrogating and re-inventing itself.
After our performance, my actors took me to The Abbey to see a new production by Conall Morrison, The Bacchae of Baghdad.  It would be the third and final production I saw at The Abbey during my stay in Dublin.  As I stared at the stage, I couldn’t help but smile, in spite of myself, as I watched the action of play, specifically the commentary the author made on the United States' current involvement in Iraq, through costume, dialogue choices and scenery.  The play was Euripides’ The Bacchae, but it was set in modern day Baghdad, complete with American soldiers occupying the terrain, and a war hawk Pentheus equipped with a Southern accent and closely resembling a certain commander in chief. The Abbey production took the play, originally a comment on religion and obedience, and tried to use the themes in an analogous sense to the troubles of the Middle East, the infiltration of the United States and subsequent abuse of power, and the religious “ecstasy” which causes even a modern culture to destroy and kill.   I would not say that I was offended in the traditional sense, but I suppose I could say I felt my “culture” was misrepresented.  It bundled a variety of political sentiments together under the assumption that many Americans agree with the government’s actions relating to the conflict in Iraq.  Perhaps the actors, producers, or writers just didn't understand what it was really like to be “American."  I was, however, delighted when afterward, my cast raised questions for me about the production choices and how they related to American politics.  They wanted to know if most American soldiers would “act like that”, if I personally agreed with the government’s actions, and what I thought of the Irish perception of Americans.  Now it was me who was explaining the political implications and the symbols appearing on stage.  I also had, once again, a great reason to acknowledge the fact, that as a director, you can assume nothing nor can you make any broad generalizations about culture.     

The Abbey Theatre itself remains a survivor.  Not only has it lived through decades of change and social order, it has lasted in its integrity as well.  It possesses a life force, originally given by Yeats and Lady Gregory in their struggle to create something to unite a nation through the medium of art, and today, lives on through the countless efforts of directors, actors, and patrons.  One can only hope that The Abbey and The Peacock, the unique black box space in its basement, continue to draw audiences from around the world, and through the creation of original material, redefine “Irishness” as it changes, for years to come.

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