The weekly times-record. (Valley City, N.D.) 1912-1922, 1921-03-24

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/ Irish Theatre, had said, 1--WE have to
1 write or find plays that will make the
B theatre place of intellectual excite
ment." AS if in. answer to this Synge
! offered HIS In the Shadow Of the
| Glen" a drama that met with bitter
opposition from the patriotic societies
of Ireland. 1t was offensive because
its principal character is a woman, a
little light in her loving. In the end
this woman deserts her husband and
home to live the life Of the road with
tramp lover. Practically none Of
the softer things of life enter into
Synge's plays. If he was truthful he
stripped the Irish character Of all it's
fancy drapings and held it up in it's
naked harshness for the world to see.
Three Of his five complete dramas met
with active hostility. The "Playboy
Of the Western World" being the oc-
casion Of the 2gest theatrical dis
turbance ever known in Dublin. Miss
Kittel told how it held the board for
a week though played on the first few
nights only in dumb show under the
protection of five hundred police. The
Playboy is brilliant fantasy full Of.
wit, humor, and poetry. Christy, it's
principal character, arrives, a strang
er, at a little Connaught shanty and
secures work as general help to the
publican's daughter; he tells how he
had been half-starved and ill-treated
on his fathers farm until becoming
desperate he "killed his dad with
lay" and escapes across the. country.
The peasants among whom he now
lives, instead of condemning him as a
man guilty of numbering his own
father hail him as a hero. He
takes part in the local races and wins.
The girls all press their favors upon
him." but he asks only one thing, that
Peegua, daughter of the publican for
whom he works, complete the happy
day ahy giving him her promise of mar
riage. Peequa somewhat jealous of
his past about which she knows so
little hesitates but finally consents.
Then in the midst of his happiness and
popularity his father enters with his
head wrapped in, bandages. The lay
scene of great brutality in which
Christy again attenDts to kill his
father but is finally denounced by
Peegua, who" calls him boastful
bungler and drives him out of the
place. His experiences, however, have
developed him and he goes home no
longer the slave but master of him
self and his father while Peequa is
left weeping bitterly because into her
life will come no more the charming
personality or the wild wooing words
of her wonderful Playboy.
"The Well Of the Saints" Synge's
other drama that met with opposition
presents an old blind couple weather
beaten and ugly, who have been told
by sympathetic friends they are hand
some. When their sight is restored
by wandering saint and they see
each other their dissatisfaction is so
great they separate. Martin Doul,
the husband, makes persistent love to
the prettiest girl in the place and her
face is the only thing he ever sees
that he calls beautiful. Of the wealth
er, the world, and people he speaks in
this manner, "for it's raw beastly
day we do have each day, till l do be
thinking it's we'll. for the blind don't
be seeing them gray clouds driving on
the hill, and don't be looking on peo- !!
pie with their noses red. and their
eyes weeping,-the like of yours. God
help you Jimmy the Smith. It's a
hard thing for man to have his
sight,. and be living near the like of
YOU, or wed with wife; and l do be
thinking it should be hard thing for
the Almighty God to be looking on the
world, bad days, and men the like OF |
walking round on it, and they
Slipping each way in the muck" Sep
Grated disconnected and disillusioned
to work after so many years
Of enforced idleness they again lose
their sight and refuse to have it re-
stored, Martin DouT Indignantly In
sulting the priest as he is about to
heal them the second time. The peo-
ple resent this and together they are
stoned out of the place, going south,
where Jimmy the smith says, "There's
a power of deep rivers with floods IN
them where you do have to be leaping
the stanes and you going to the south;
80 Pm thinking the two of them will
be drowned in short while, surely"
sSvnge's other plays, a"The Tinker's
Wedding" and .'Riders of the Sea"
met with Indifference. "Riders of the
Sea" is the shortest Of his dramas and
considered his masterpiece. Into this
lie brings that element OF superstition
that is so much part. Of the Irish
peasant. A tragedy yet it is more
3eaceful than any of his other plays.
MR.. FROYSAA SPOKE
ONIORD DIINSANY