The Washington herald., 1911-11-14
AT 1I[IiItEE[ I![[iItIzlK1FIggIIIIzS
THE BELASCO.
The Irish Players.

The Irish Players.
It was assuredly no ordinary or
conventional array OF plays which the
Irish Players offered to the theater-
going public of Washington at the Be-
lasco Theater last evening, whatever
else may be thought of them. They
we're strange, eerie, a bit uncanny,
with scenes as bleak and of such naked
grandeur as a Winslow Homer sea-
scape; they were not pretty, they were
not sweet, or trite, or sentimental or
common.
Washington was introduced last
evening to one of the minor poetic
plays of William Butler Yeats-"Kath
leen nj Houlihan;" to a more preten-
hous play by that riotous Celtic genius,
John NJ. Synge, whose recent death
was a real loss to the modern literature
Of the drama play called The Well
of the Saints" and a wisp of play by
Lady Gregory, THE Workhouse Ward.
With the exception of the last, these
plays are all linked with NEUROLOGICAL
and legendary Ireland-the Ireland of
the peasantry, where the true wildness
and extravaganza OF the Celtic imagi-
nation is seen at its best, and which
is, in sooth, far. far removed from the
average audience which assemblies in
q Washington playhouse-even further
away than is Ibsen or Stringborg.
To attempt to analyZe the dramatic
values Of these three plays, as opposed
to the intellectual values, would re-
open an old and ponderous problem of
esthetics. There can be little exception
to the statement that the intellectual
and symbolic elements in the plays en-
tirely dwarfs their dramatic side Many
plays Of recent years, in the potent
hands of great players, such as the
Sister Beatrice" of Maeterlinck, evolve
a successful union of poetry, symbolism,
and drama. Speaking purely from the
viewpoint of the theater and not Of the
scholar 1t may seriously be doubted if
these Irish plays do. Greatness Of con-
ception, profundity of meaning, are Of
little avail If the full sweep and power
of the plays are not projected across the
footlights. The Irish players, simple,
direct, and artless, as they are in their
appeal, might gain a frmer grip on their
auditors If they possessed a few OF the
tricks and the articles of the profess
sional actor, whose traditions and whose
methods and whose technique may be Of
some avail even in the realm Of the
newer drama
In Kathleen nj Houlihan' William
Butler Yeats has symbolized the spirit
Of Ireland. To a peasants hut IAN old
woman, in a long cloak" comes, casts
her witchery over the son of the house,
and persuades him to heed the fighting
call of the French, who have just landed
on Irish shores to attack the English.
To do so he deserts his sweetheart and
leaves her weeping and heartbroken in
his mothers arms. Yeats in a pro-
gramme footnote explains just who
Kathleen nj Houlihan'' was: She was
Ireland herself, that Kathleen nj Houli-
han for whom so many songs have been
sung and for whose sake so many have
gone to their death. I thought If 1 could
write this out as a little play I could
make others see my dream as had seen
it"
The real features of last nights pro-
gramme was Synge's We'll Of the
Saints" which is a three-act mystical
drama showing peasant life in the raw.
Martin Doul, a blind doubled-up old
creature, and his withered bag of a wife,
also blind, are the central figures. In
their sightlessness they both cherish the
fond illusion they are good to look upon.
A wandering friar comes to the village
, and restores their sight through the
magic water of the well of the saints"
The appalling truth then breaks in upon
them. Vision brings a veritable Pan
>dora's box of evils, for physical beauty
is by none valued so highly as those
who are forever barred from gazing upon
1t. The old peasant spurns his wife,
and in his faithlessness seeks to win the
heart of the belle of the village, who
laughs him to scorn. The aged wife, for
her part, finds Martins haggard face and
bent figures equally repulsive; they be-
come the laughing stock of the village.
Blindness reYiSits them, and reuniteS
them. When the friar returns and offers
to restore their sight, he finds two I'M
willing hearts. Sight, which has brought
them torture, they are firmly resolved
to do without, and Martin casts the holy
water from the we'll out of the hands
of the priest in defiant rage.
The plaV rich
lect and a native Celtic poetry which can
do not know Ireland intimately Synge
spent years among the peasantry. and
declares he has Transcribed their twists
of thought and phrase with exactitude.
He loved the peasants of the Aran and
Basket islands, and it is their legendary
lore, their imaginative fecundity their
wild, untamed Pagan spirits which he
has tried to give to the world in his
dramas.
The Well of the Saints" was well
acted. Arthur Sinclair the leading man
of the company, was injured in Albany
last evening, and his place was taken by
J. NJ. Kerrigan. His work was adequate
and satisfactory. Miss Sara Allgood,
who plays the chief feminine roles had
, an excellent opportunity in THE Well of
the Saints and played Mary Doul with
rare skill. Eileen O'Doherty, Cathleen
Nesbit. Sydney ]. Morgan, and j. A.
O'Rourke all played in the characteristic
spirit Of the company with simplicity
and directness.
Tonight the much-discussed Shaw play,
THE Showing Up OF Blanco Posnet," is
presented with T. c. Murray's Birth
right" and Lady Gregory's The Rising
Of the Moon" A. NJ. J.