If/the Image and Four Other Plays
by . New York: G. P. Putnam’s Sons. 1922. 12mo, pp. x+185. $1.75. by . New York: G. P. Putnam’s Sons. 1922. 12mo, pp. iii+253. $2.00.
THE writing of a play should involve, fundamentally, a consideration of the stage. Otherwise the thing created becomes merely a series of dialogues, variously bound together and with varying success. Conversations from the greatest novel, jotted down in order and transferred to the stage, would hardly prove even a mediocre play. This is primarily, and quite naturally, because the conventions adopted for the word as printed to be read are not those for the word as written to be spoken and heard, Unless a play cry for production and, in itself, demand performance in order to realize fully its potentialities, then it might better have been written in some form other than drama. It is in this choice of a medium of expression that Irish writers have, seemingly, unerring instinct and judgment. One never feels of the writing of Synge, or of Lady Gregory, or of Lord Dunsany, that this play had been better as a story, that story as a poem, or this verse as a play.
A new Lady Gregory volume of plays and the first long play of Lord Dunsany’s to appear in America have recently been published. Both books give more than their weight’s worth in golden enjoyment and satisfaction, yet no two more widely separated genres could be represented. All of the plays are rich in musical and colorful speeches, deliciously worded and imagi ned, and absolutely true in characterization. Yet one play is conceived of fancy, the others compounded of fact. In ‘The Image’ and her three other plays, Lady Gregory writes of Ireland’s children. She is at her best when farthest from plotting or phay making — when her men and women take matters into their own hands and talk themselves alive. On the other hand, Lord Dunsany’s finest work lies in the lands of his imagining, decked with his marvelous names. There is nothing nationalistic in his writing save only the running whimsy of his tongue.
Two of Lady Gregory’s plays are in three acts: ‘The Image,’ a finely spun comedy with the merest wisp of a plot, and ‘Shanwalla,’ a spirit play with humanity and pathos wreathing its robuster story. The other two are quaint fragments of humor, touching upon common foibles with the tenderness of a mother’s hand. ‘The Image’ tells, to the accompaniment of continuous chuckling, how the citizens of Druim-na-Cuan, through their love of talking for its own sake, found themselves pledged to spend some expected community wealth in erecting a statue to a certain hero, who, in the end. proves to be only a legendary figure. Since the wealth does not after all come, there is no harm done. It is not in the tale but in the manner of the telling that its charm lies, and in the lovableness of its people. ‘Shanwalla,’ with more of melodrama, tells how the ghost of his bride returns to save Larry, the stableman, from a false accusation of having poisoned his master’s race-horse. In ‘Hanraan’s Oath,’ a poet plans to keep silent a year and a day as penance for a supposed wrong done a friend, and the playlet makes merry over his difficulties. ‘The Wrens’ shows in a fanciful bit how it may be that the chatter of some servants and strolling singers caused the passing of the Bill for Union, in 1799, by one vote. The short plays are trifles, but are based on a complete understanding of the Irish people. There is a depth in all the characters and a joyous lilt in their talk.
Lord Dunsany is a poet, dreamer, and creator of atmosphere; but in the four acts and ten scenes of ‘If’ the dramatist in him sometimes nods. His story is of a magic crystal which gives a man a chance to do one thing differently in his past. John Beal chooses to catch a train he once missed, and all but the last scenes recount how this one incident changed his whole life. In reliving the past, he goes questing to the East, is enmeshed by politics and a strange English woman, Miralda, and escapes death at the hands of many conspirators to return home to his wife. It has all the weirdness of a dream, but one is left with the lurking suspicion that it may be true as Lord Dunsany wrote it! The play as a whole seems hastily done; it goes by fits anil starts, in ups and downs. The first part one imagines Milne doing more effectively, but later the writer is at his best.
One lays aside these two books with a sigh of regret, and turns back to the everyday clatterand-bang. We are hemmed in and cowed by turgid problem-plays and sourly cynical comedies; wre suffer the yoke of plays with a mission, and we squirm before sickly erotic farces. Thinking of these plays, of Yeats arid Synge, of the novels of Hannay and the wonder-tales of Dunsany, we crave an Irish invasion. It might bring the flush of health to the pallid cheek of our suffering literature. JAMES W. D. SEYMOUR.
These reviews will be reprinted separately in pamphlet form. Copies may be had by any librarian, without charge, on application to the Atlantic Monthly, 8 Arlington St., Boston.