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Moments that inspire
May Craig’s legacy
Moments that inspire
Lady Gregory and W.B. Yeats versus the Censor
Moments that inspire
The first tour to America
Moments that inspire
Plays under consideration
Moments that inspire
Riots at The Plough and the Stars by Sean O’Casey
Moments that inspire
‘Madam’ and the Abbey Theatre School of Ballet
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Tanya Moiseiwitch, designer extraordinaire
Moments that inspire
Harry Brogan, a comic star
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Kathleen Barrington’s debut
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Eugene O’Neill and the Abbey Theatre
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Thomas Kilroy’s The Death and Resurrection of Mr. Roche
Moments that inspire
The Sanctuary Lamp is lit
Moments that inspire
The premiere of Aristocrats
Moments that inspire
Mary Makebelieve, the musical
Moments that inspire
Bosco Hogan as W.B. Yeats
Moments that inspire
Portia Coughlan premiere
Moments that inspire
Patrick Kavanagh’s Tarry Flynn is re-imagined
Moments that inspire
Seamus Heaney and Brian Friel
Moments that inspire
Happy Birthday Mr Yeats!
May Craig first appeared as Mary Craig in 1907 as one of the village girls, Honor Blake, in The Playboy of the Western World by J.M. Synge. Her impressive career at the Abbey Theatre went on until 1968.
Actors Stephen Rea and Niall Buggy trace their acting influences back to the Fay Brothers and the influence of May Craig and other greats in Starting Out, a podcast as part of our Oral History Project.
Theatre happens when people come together. Every line, laugh, kiss has been witnessed by you. Help us reel in the lived history of the Abbey Theatre. Share your moments and memories with us.
Share your momentLady Gregory visited Bernard Shaw in Hertfordshire in the summer of 1909. He gave her a copy his unpublished play ‘The Shewing Up of Blanco Posnet’. The play is a court-room drama and prompted an off-stage drama too – one that would ultimately call into question, the future of the Abbey Theatre.
Shaw’s play was banned in England by Lord Chamberlain’s Office. Despite the Censor having no jurisdiction in Ireland, Dublin Castle tried to stop the production and withdraw the Patent (licence) because the play was deemed to be blasphemous.
Lady Gregory and W. B. Yeats passionately fought with officials at Dublin Castle and resolved to ‘go on with the performance and let the Patent be forfeited, and if we must die, die gloriously.’
After much debate, the production went ahead during Horse Week. In Our Irish Theatre, Lady Gregory recalled that “the play was received in perfect silence. Perhaps the audience were waiting for the wicked bits to begin. Then, at the end, there was a tremendous burst of cheering, and we knew we had won. Some stranger outside asked what was going on in the Theatre. “They are defying Lord Lieutenant” was the answer; and when the crowd heard the cheering, they took it up and it went far out through the streets.”
Theatre happens when people come together. Every line, laugh, kiss has been witnessed by you. Help us reel in the lived history of the Abbey Theatre. Share your moments and memories with us.
Share your momentThe Abbey Theatre first toured to America in 1911. This programme records the Abbey Theatre’s first performances in New York, their eleventh stop on a 30 venue tour. Billed as the Irish Players they performed a triple bill of plays: Birthright by T.C. Murray and The Rising of the Moon and Spreading the News both by Lady Gregory, co-founder of the Abbey Theatre.
This was Lady Gregory’s first trip to America. Her presence on the tour was required initially to rehearse Eithne Magee in the role of Pegeen Mike. Prior to their departure Máire O’Neill, the original Pegeen had left the Abbey company, thus requiring a change in cast. In her account of the tour Lady Gregory noted “The interviewers saved me the trouble of writing letters these first days. I sent papers home instead”. Throughout the tour she embraced this new public persona conducting press interviews, delivering lectures and defending the company from those opposing the production of Synge’s The Playboy of the Western World. In New York she recounts her stay at the Algonquin Hotel on Times Square, whilst at the theatre she was given a little room off stage, Maxine Elliott’s own room, where players and guests often had tea with her.
The touring American programmes differed from those produced at home at the Abbey Theatre. The American programmes were populated with numerous advertisements, on occasion obscuring the cast listings. Note the theatrical allusion for the cigarettes advertised.
Theatre happens when people come together. Every line, laugh, kiss has been witnessed by you. Help us reel in the lived history of the Abbey Theatre. Share your moments and memories with us.
Share your momentThis page from the Abbey Theatre submission logbook provides a snap-shot of the numerous plays submitted for consideration. Submissions range from the nearby City Bakery on Store Street, Dublin to addresses in London, Manchester and Glasgow. As the ‘Result’ column reveals most authors were unsuccessful. There is one notable exception, namely the seventh entry which was Seán O’Casey’s The Plough and the Stars written at 422 North Circular Road, Dublin. In the case of Paul V. O’Carroll, his play was sent to Lady Gregory for consideration but we are unaware of any production of the play. It took a mere five years for his first Abbey production. The Watched Pot was presented on 17th November 1930 by the Abbey Theatre School of Acting.
Theatre happens when people come together. Every line, laugh, kiss has been witnessed by you. Help us reel in the lived history of the Abbey Theatre. Share your moments and memories with us.
Share your momentThe Plough and the Stars was first performed at the Abbey Theatre in 1926, less than ten years after the Easter Rising of 1916. On the night of the fourth performance, the Abbey Company was met by an unruly audience who protested against what they believed was a grotesque distortion of historical events slandering those who had died for Ireland. The riot featured a coordinated appearance by the widows and bereaved women of 1916.
During the disruption W.B. Yeats rose to praise the new play and addressed the audience saying, “You have disgraced yourselves again. Is this to be an ever recurring celebration of the arrival of Irish genius?”
This inspirational play has been presented 56 times by the Abbey Theatre, most recently in 2012.
Image Courtesy of the National Library of Ireland, Holloway Collection
Theatre happens when people come together. Every line, laugh, kiss has been witnessed by you. Help us reel in the lived history of the Abbey Theatre. Share your moments and memories with us.
Share your momentDame Ninette de Valois founded the Abbey Theatre School of Ballet at the invitation of William Butler Yeats in 1928. She was Principal of the school, a dancer in productions and a choreographer.
Her last performance at the Abbey Theatre was in The King of the Great Clock Tower by W.B. Yeats and when she left the School of Ballet was continued by her pupils. Its legacy endures to this day. Dancers at the school included Cepta Cullen, Kitty Curling (later an Abbey Actress) and Doreen Cuthbert.
In this photo we have identified Jill Gregory, (middle row, far right); Geraldine Byrne, (front row, far left); Doreen Cuthbert, (front row, third from left); the two boys are Toni Repetto-Butler, (front row), and Arthur Hamilton, (back row).
Fondly known as ‘Madam’, Ninette de Valois was a major figure in ballet world-wide. She also founded The Royal Ballet; the Birmingham Royal Ballet; the Royal Ballet School; danced professionally as a Soloist with Serge Diaghilev’s Ballet Russes; established the State Ballet in Turkey; studied with acclaimed teachers including Edouard Espinosa and mentored younger dancers, among them the iconic Alicia Markova who became a Prima Ballerina Assoluta.
Theatre happens when people come together. Every line, laugh, kiss has been witnessed by you. Help us reel in the lived history of the Abbey Theatre. Share your moments and memories with us.
Share your momentTanya Moiseiwitch with a model box for Casadh an tSugáin by Douglas Hyde for the World Fair in 1939. In 1935 the Abbey Board of Directors announced their intention to adapt a pioneering approach to theatre design. They actively sought out designs from leading figures in the art world including Harry Kernoff, Seán Keating and Maurice Mac Gonigal, grand-father of Fiach Mac Conghail, Director of the Abbey Theatre today.
With the appointment of Hugh Hunt as Play director, changes were afoot. He requested the appointment of Tanya Moiseiwitch. Their collaboration led to innovations in theatre design in Ireland.
Tanya Moiseiwitsch, a pioneering figure in 20th century theatre design was the first full time designer at the Abbey from 1935 to 1939. One of her students Anne Yeats went on to become Resident Designer. This tradition continues to this day.
She went on to work in England, the US and Canada and formed a strong collaborative relationship with Tyrone Guthrie and made a huge impact on interpretations of Shakespeare’s work.
Theatre happens when people come together. Every line, laugh, kiss has been witnessed by you. Help us reel in the lived history of the Abbey Theatre. Share your moments and memories with us.
Share your momentHarry Brogan was famous for his comedic roles. He could get a laugh out of any audience and taught many of the actors who came along after him how to ‘milk a line’. He first appeared at the Abbey Theatre in 1939 as Maurteen Bruin in The Land of Heart’s Desire by W.B. Yeats.
To learn more about Harry Brogan visit Memories of Harry Brogan, as part of our Oral History Project where playwright Bernard Farrell recalls seeing Harry Brogan at The Queen’s Theatre on Pearse Street.
Theatre happens when people come together. Every line, laugh, kiss has been witnessed by you. Help us reel in the lived history of the Abbey Theatre. Share your moments and memories with us.
Share your momentKathleen Barrington joined the Abbey Theatre Company in April 1958 playing one of ‘Na Daoine’ in Iosagan byPadraig Mac Piarais. Besides having a long and illustrious acting career at the Abbey theatre, Kathleen acted as the first actor representative on the Board of Directors from 1972 to 1974, indeed the next female on the Board after Lady Gregory. In her first production Kathleen Barrington was directed by Tomás Mac Anna. She recalls how ‘very often the design sparked off the magic of the work’ in an interview as part of our Oral History Project. Visit Memories of Tomás Mac Anna for more.
Incidentally, Iosagan was performed on the same night as Cafflin’ Johnny by Louis D’Alton. It was noted in this programme that the children in the play were from Class V, Christian Brothers College, Monkstown Park, Co. Dublin. Tomás MacAnna directed productions at the school influencing others including Bernard Farrell and Des Cave who were pupils there.
Theatre happens when people come together. Every line, laugh, kiss has been witnessed by you. Help us reel in the lived history of the Abbey Theatre. Share your moments and memories with us.
Share your momentLong Day’s Journey into Night by Eugene O’Neill starring as T.P. Mc Kenna James Tyrone, Jnr. and Vincent Dowling as Edmund Tyrone premiered at the Abbey Theatre in 1959, just three years after it was published.
There is a long-held association between the Abbey Theatre and Eugene O’Neill. Famously he attended the Abbey Players in New York. The Abbey plays, he later recalled, came as a revelation:
‘It was seeing the Irish players that gave me a glimpse of my opportunity. I went to see everything they did. I thought then and I still think that they demonstrate the possibilities of naturalistic acting better than any other company.’
Over the years the Abbey Theatre has produced In the Zone, Emperor Jones, Hughie, The Iceman Cometh, All My Sons, Desire under the Elms, Days Without End, Before Breakfast, Ah Wilderness! and A Moon for the Misbegotten on tour in America.
Theatre happens when people come together. Every line, laugh, kiss has been witnessed by you. Help us reel in the lived history of the Abbey Theatre. Share your moments and memories with us.
Share your momentThe Abbey Theatre rejected The Death and Resurrection of Mr. Roche by Thomas Kilroy in 1968. It went on to be produced at The Olympia in a production directed by Jim Fitzgerald. It became a hit of the Dublin Theatre Festival and went on to be revived twice at the Abbey, in 1973 and in 1989. In the Abbey’s 1973 production Peader Lamb played the medical student, Eamon Kelly (pictured on the table, was Mr. Roche) and Micheal O hAonghusa played Kelly.
The play will be remembered for painting an unsettling portrait of Irish masculinity in a state of utter stasis, and was unique in exploring homosexuality in a chauvinistic culture without a hint of exoticism or sensationalism.
This play is one of Brian Friel’s favourite plays, he selected it to be read for his 80th birthday celebration. He once said of the play – “I have such respect for this play; as perfectly shaped as a Brancusi; a sympathetic exploration of a spiritual journey from DEATH to RESURRECTION. A very cool play of whispered affections. Respect sounds grudging. Envy is closer.”
Theatre happens when people come together. Every line, laugh, kiss has been witnessed by you. Help us reel in the lived history of the Abbey Theatre. Share your moments and memories with us.
Share your momentTom Murphy’s 8th play at the Abbey Theatre, The Sanctuary Lamp was controversial in 1975 when the notion of waifs and strays convening in a church was at odds with the principles of 1970s Catholic Ireland. Three lost souls, Harry, Francisco and Maudie, take refuge in a city church at night where they rage against God. Harry is tasked with keeping the sanctuary lamp alight for the spirit of Christ. The play went on to be performed again three times, in 1976, 1985 and 2001 proving the enduring resonance of Tom Murphy’s work.
The Abbey Theatre posters chart a journey through Irish theatre and vary in style over the decades. This is a poster from the second production. The use of three colours is very effective and as is the case still today, the type-face and play title is strong and distinctive.
The Abbey Theatre has a long association with Tom Murphy. His first play Famine premiered on the Peacock stage in 1968. A six play season celebrating Tom Murphy was presented at the Abbey Theatre in 2001.
Theatre happens when people come together. Every line, laugh, kiss has been witnessed by you. Help us reel in the lived history of the Abbey Theatre. Share your moments and memories with us.
Share your momentAristocrats by Brian Friel first premiered at the Abbey Theatre in 1979, in a production directed by Joe Dowling, former Artistic Director of the Abbey Theatre. On the occasion of the 2014 production of Aristocrats, Christopher Murray, Emeritus Professor of English and Drama at University College, Dublin and author of The Theatre of Brian Friel, looks at the importance of the year 1979 in Brian Friel’s journey as a playwright.
“Aristocrats shows Brian Friel making a major artistic breakthrough. All through the 1970s he had been searching for a dramatic form that would at once allow the exploration of ‘the way we live now’ and provide a thing of beauty, reconcile the social with the aesthetic. The Gentle Island at the start of the decade more or less indicated where he wanted to go, away from the playfulness of the later 1960s and the farce which in The Mundy Scheme constituted Ireland as a commercial graveyard. At that point the political situation in the North made importunate claims on Friel as writer. The Freedom of the City (1973) and Volunteers (1975) followed in quick succession, respectively angry and bitter public responses to terrible injustice and hypocrisy. Then Living Quarters (1977) marked a step forward, a concentration on a theme out of Euripides given a modern Irish setting and a dizzying theatricality. This transitional play, while a box-office failure at the Abbey, liberated Friel to create Faith Healer and Aristocrats, two of his finest works, which premiered in the same annus mirabilis, 1979.”
Theatre happens when people come together. Every line, laugh, kiss has been witnessed by you. Help us reel in the lived history of the Abbey Theatre. Share your moments and memories with us.
Share your moment2014 marked the centenary of the birth of Eamon Kelly. Eamon performed in many Abbey Theatre productions such as Borstal Boy, The Playboy of the Western World and A Crucial week in the Life of a Grocer’s Assistant. His performance as the Tailor in The Tailor and Ansty was performed both at the Peacock Theatre and in practically every village hall in rural Ireland. This photograph depicts Eamon Kelly in the 1982 production of Stone Mad by Seamus Murphy adapted for stage by Fergus Linehan. Ever the professional, for this production Eamon acquired stone masonry skills and whilst able to draw on his former life as a master carpenter many audience were amazed by the skills he displayed lending authenticity to the part. Eamon Morrissey recalls how for many years both he and Eamon Kelly performed in their own one man shows in the Peacock Theatre when the Abbey Theatre Company were on their summer holidays. Hear Eamon Morrissey recount this story in The Peacock Theatre a podcast from our Oral History Project here.
Theatre happens when people come together. Every line, laugh, kiss has been witnessed by you. Help us reel in the lived history of the Abbey Theatre. Share your moments and memories with us.
Share your momentIn 1982, Mary Makebelieve a musical by Fergus and Rosaleen Linehan with original score by Jim Doherty premiered on the Peacock stage. Mary Makebelieve based on James Stephens’ The Charwoman’s Daughter, later that year transferred to the Abbey stage and toured the following year. Here we see Bríd Ní Neachtain stepping out in style.
To learn more about Bríd’s early days at the Abbey Theatre visit Starting Out, a podcast from our Oral History Project.
Theatre happens when people come together. Every line, laugh, kiss has been witnessed by you. Help us reel in the lived history of the Abbey Theatre. Share your moments and memories with us.
Share your momentIn this our 110th year we recall the inspirational founders of the Abbey Theatre. In this photograph from 1988 Bosco Hogan portrays W.B. Yeats in the one man show by Edward Callan I am of Ireland. First produced by the Abbey on the Peacock stage in 1988, it was directed by Kathleen Barrington.
Theatre happens when people come together. Every line, laugh, kiss has been witnessed by you. Help us reel in the lived history of the Abbey Theatre. Share your moments and memories with us.
Share your momentPortia Coughlan was Marina Carr’s fifth play at the Abbey Theatre. At once sinister and harrowingly moving, Portia Coughlan witnesses the struggle to reconcile all engulfing loss with life’s petty inconsequence.
“For me, watching Portia Coughlan was like crossing a rough sound, clinging to the prow of a small boat – I was exhilarated, laughing in fright, terrified, but energised. Reading it, I’m in awe of Carr’s daring, her ability to write what a person might actually say, but to make it amazing, her imaginative power. Reading it aloud with students, the language and the people come alive with physical energy. Portia Coughlan is a dynamo that makes light out of darkness.”
Cathy Leeney, Lecturer, Drama Studies Centre, UCD
Theatre happens when people come together. Every line, laugh, kiss has been witnessed by you. Help us reel in the lived history of the Abbey Theatre. Share your moments and memories with us.
Share your momentTarry Flynn, the novel by Patrick Kavanagh has been described as the countryman’s Hamlet. Set in Cavan in the 1930s, it tells the story of Tarry, a farmer poet, and his quest for bog fields, young women and the meaning of life. His sensibility is torn between two impulses; the poetic and the libidinous. He has to decide between staying on, close to his beloved patchwork fields or striking out into the wider world.
The 1997 production adapted and directed by Conal Morrison will be remembered by audience members who witnessed the transformative power of the actors who morphed from people into chickens and other farm animals before their eyes in what was a visceral and vibrant production involving much choreography and dance. This was post Riverdance Ireland!
PJ O’Connor also adapted the novel for the Abbey stage back in 1966.
The image depicts James Kennedy as Tarry being held aloft by Eugene O’Brien and Vincent McCabe amongst others.
Theatre happens when people come together. Every line, laugh, kiss has been witnessed by you. Help us reel in the lived history of the Abbey Theatre. Share your moments and memories with us.
Share your momentThe Burial at Thebes, a translation of Sophocles’ Antigone by Nobel Laureate Seamus Heaney premiered on 5 April 2004. Recalling the experience of translating Antigone he wrote “Greek tragedy is as much musical score as it is dramatic script. I wanted to do a translation that actors could speak as plainly or intensely as the occasion demanded, but one that still kept faith with the ritual formality of the original. I was glad, therefore, to find corroboration for this effort in Yeats’s sonnet ‘At the Abbey Theatre’, where he expressed the conflicting demands placed upon his theatre as follows:
“When we are high and airy hundreds say
That if we hold that flight they’ll leave the place,
While those same hundreds mock another day
Because we have made our art of common things.”
Seamus Heaney and Brian Friel pictured at the Opening Night of the 2008 revival of The Burial at Thebes on the Peacock stage.
Theatre happens when people come together. Every line, laugh, kiss has been witnessed by you. Help us reel in the lived history of the Abbey Theatre. Share your moments and memories with us.
Share your momentWe recall the world premiere of An Appointment with Mr. Yeats in 2010. Since setting The Stolen Child to music on their classic Fisherman’s Blues album, Waterboys’ singer Mike Scott had been quietly crafting a rich collection of songs utilising Yeats’ poems as lyrics. A few were performed solo by Scott during the Yeats International Festival at the Abbey Theatre in the 1990s, but most remained unheard, waiting for the moment when, in Scott’s words, “I had enough songs to create a full programme and present it in a potent, radical fashion, worthy of the Abbey Theatre which Yeats himself founded.”
An Appointment with Mr. Yeats was performed by a unique extended line-up of The Waterboys featuring Mike Scott and Irish fiddler extraordinaire Steve Wickham. Audience member Patricia Reid shared this experience on the Abbey Theatre website at the time.
“When we heard that Mike Scott and The Waterboys were putting music to 20 poems by Mr. Yeats, we rushed to get tickets and flights over to Dublin from Winnipeg. We were so fortunate and a real honour to be there for opening night at The Abbey! It was an inspired and inspiring experience and we’re grateful to have been there to share such a spirited and wonderful interpretation of the poems. Bravo, Mr. Scott & the brilliant musicians in the Waterboys. Thank you, Mr. Yeats, for enriching our world.”
Patricia Reid Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada.
23 Mar 2010, 22:48
Theatre happens when people come together. Every line, laugh, kiss has been witnessed by you. Help us reel in the lived history of the Abbey Theatre. Share your moments and memories with us.
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