Get Lit!>>The Celtic Literary Revival--Drama

The Celtic Revival in Ireland:
More correctly called the Irish Literary Revival, one part that is relevant here is the manifesto for the Irish National Theatre (begun 1899), penned by Lady Gregory, Yeats, and Edward Martyn, who will not be mentioned here again most likely, in 1897. This document mentioned that they wanted to show the world that Ireland is not the home of buffoons, but a home of "an ancient idealism." They wanted at once to both reflect the real qualities of Irish people, and also to improve them. Shaw talked about Ireland too, in John Bull's Other Island, in which almost every character has at least two different dialects to use, such as Keegan who has a heavy lilt when he addresses a grasshopper in his pretended madness, and a more "modern" standard sound when he talks with his people.

John M. Synge
He was more famous, perhaps, for his Playboy of the Western World, which infuriated people though I have read it and I don't feel it's outrageous.

Riders to the Sea
Short play that seems rather pointless. Some peasants are worried about their family members drowning, and then they are found to have really drowned. Something about flannel shirts as a possible identifying mark.

Lady Gregory
Her place was Coole Park. She was a big mover for the Abbey Theatre, like Yeats, and wrote for them too.

Characters:
The Sergeant
Two other Extra Cops
A ragged man, actually a young nationalist, considered a criminal by the ruling government.

Another very short play. Policemen are looking for a scary escaped criminal by the harbor, and putting up placards. The sergeant stays on stage and a poor balladeer comes by, trying to go down the stairs, but the Sgt. won't let him on accound of the dangerboy. The balladeer tries to sell some ballads to him, but he won't bite. They talk about the bad guy, who is a freedom fighter, and the policeman keeps repeating adamantly that he must do his job though all the people are against him. Then the balladeer, back to back with the cop on a barrelhead, sings some songs that come from the policeman's hometown, which soften him up and makes him think, perhaps, about the love he has for his homeland. When the balladeer removes his disguise and says that he is the man the policeman is seeking the cop is not too surprised. The badguy adures the cop not to betray him, and hides at the sound of the junior policemen's return. The sgt. decides not to turn the guy in, but sends them away with their lanterns. The badguy takes his disguise back, thankfully, and escapes down the stairs. The cop, who would have earned a reward for the capture of the criminal, asks the audience if he is as big a fool as he thinks he is, and we figure so. One critic says that the ballad from the sgt's hometown is a magical song, but I don't see that. It is just sentimental.

At the Hawk's Well
Characters: Three Magicians
The Guardian of the Well--a "solitary girl" according to Cuchulain, the Young Man, but called the Woman of the Sidhe by the Old Man: the Mountain Witch.
An Old Man
A Young Man
This is a highly mystical and ceremonial play, one of many he wrote and had performed at the Abbey, especially during Yeat's middle period. It, too, is super short. I had to go dig this one out of Yeats' Collected Plays, as Norton doesn't collect it--odd for this List.
There are singers made up to look like they're in masks, not perhaps symbolically (though on second thought the Norton often suggests that Yeats, in his poems, had various personas, which of course means masks!) but just to go along with the idea of ceremony---perhaps he is making a parallel with ancient Greek drama. Music and singing and ritualistic dancing, and a hawklike cloth. Verse drama. People move like marionettes for some reason, Yeats says.
The Old Man finds a folly-filled Young Man named Cuchulain coming to the well. The OM tries to get the YM to leave, but the proud YM of an ancient family won't go, for he is following a rumor about immortality and wants to drink from the Hawk's well. The OM wants to drink, too. The Guardian calls out like a hawk, the OM falls asleep the Guardian starts dancing and leaves and the YM follows her off. The OM goes to the well and finds it dry. The YM returns saying that the Guardian has shaken him from the track. The OM tries to protect the YM and says "I do not now deceive you" but the YM takes up his spear to do battle with the fierce women of the hills, going off. The musicians unfold a cloth and sing, and when it's unfolded the OM goes off, hidden behind it. Then they refold the cloth. They sing about a dry well and a withered tree, who both praise lackwitted old sedentary men, and then wonder who would praise the well and the tree (themselves!) but idiots. That's all. Huh?? I sure don't get it.

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