Ernest A. Boyd, “The Dramatic Movement: First Phase”, in Ireland’s Literary Renaissance (1916)

Bibliographical details: Ernest A. Boyd, Ireland’s Literary Renaissance (Dublin: Maunsel 1916), Chap. XII: “The Dramatic Movement: The First Phases”, pp.289-308; see full copy in Library > “Critical Classics” as .pdf - attached.

[Here Boyd advances his view that the original intentions of the Irish Literary Theatre harboured a split between the modernism of Moore and Martin and the drama of legend - leading inevitably to folk-lore and onwards to peasant drama - identified with Yeats. If Yeat became the more successfully in the eyes of the Irish public, the others were more faithful to the original intention and should be so regarded. ]
 
CHAPTER XII—THE DRAMATIC MOVEMENT: FIRST PHASE
THE  IRISH  LITERARY THEATRE:  EDWARD  MARTYN AND GEORGE MOORE
The story of the Dramatic Movement in Ireland has been so frequently told, its protagonists and their works have been the subject of so much commentary, that a certain hesitation is natural in adding to the criticism which has accumulated about the subject. The creation of an Irish National Theatre is the most familiar and most popular achievement of the Revival. The dramatists have, consequently, obtained a degree of attention denied to the poets and novelists. A critical bibliography of Anglo-Irish literature will show dozens of books and articles dealing with the drama, for one relative to poetry or fiction. Yet, in all that has been written, there has been a failure to bring out the important fact that the Dramatic Movement falls into two distinct phases, and that those now most conspicuously associated with its later developments were not the originators of the enterprise to which it owes its greatest success. Reserving this latter point until we come to discuss the Irish National Theatre, to whose history it belongs, we shall consider the first phase of the dramatic renascence. With the objects and results of the Irish Literary Theatre before us, the [290] divergence between the original and the subsequent undertaking will be evident.
The production of W. B. Yeats’s Land of the Heart’s Desire at the Avenue Theatre, London, in 1894 doubtless awakened in him the definite ambition of giving Ireland a theatre where uncommercial drama might be fostered. He knew that for such plays as he could write there was no opening in London, except the Independent Theatre. Naturally it occurred to him that the intellectual awakening which was part of the Literary Revival in Ireland should render possible in Dublin a small theatrical enterprise modelled, like The Independent Theatre, upon the Theatre Libre and the Freie Bükne. In this belief he was encouraged by his friend, Edward Martyn, who, as a devoted Ibsenite, was necessarily obliged to put his faith in such theatres, there being at that time not the slightest hope of seeing intelligent plays in the ordinary profiteering playhouses. Martyn and Yeats succeeded in interesting George Moore in their project, for he, too, was convinced that commercialism had made drama a literary impossibility in London. He was all the more disposed to support a theatre in Dublin as his confidence in the Independent Theatre had been lost. He felt that perhaps nowhere could the circumstances be more favourable to a repetition of Antoine’s experiment than in Dublin, which had developed an artistic conscience, as a result of the propaganda of the Revival. In due course Lady Gregory, A.E., John Eglinton and other writers were secured as active supporters, a list of guarantors was published, and, under the auspices of the National Literary Society, the Irish Literary Theatre was established in the year 1899.
From the nature of the conditions which brought [291] Yeats, Martyn and Moore together for the execution of this purpose it is evident that folk-drama was not one of their preoccupations. They were united primarily in a revolt against theatrical conditions in London, which rendered impossible the production of plays whose character did not ensure immediate commercial success. As all their utterances showed, - the prefaces of Moore to his own and Martyn’s plays, the articles in Beltaine, the organ of the Literary Theatre, - they were consciously inspired by the example of the Theatre Libre and its German analogue. They thought of Ibsen as their master, and it was their avowed intention to do for Ireland what he had done for Norway. They certainly contemplated the creation of a national theatre, Yeats, particularly, showing himself anxious that this dramatic association in Ireland should distinguish itself from its kindred in London, by its use of national legend as the material of poetic drama. Martyn and Moore were more interested in social and psychological drama, as was natural, seeing that the one was an admirer of the Scandinavian dramatists, and the other was the author of The Strike at Arlingford, performed by The Independent Theatre in 1893. Although Moore and Yeats collaborated in Diarmuid and Grania, the last production of the Irish Literary Theatre, in 1901, we may notice in that difference of emphasis the fundamental cause of the ultimate scission in the Movement. It is significant that this play, which might have appeared to symbolise a reconciliation of literary ideals, marked, in reality, the disruption of the association. Yeats’s desire for poetic drama drawn from Irish sources did not necessarily conflict with the more cosmopolitan ideas of Moore and Martyn. At the [292] first performance of the Irish Literary Theatre The Countess Kathleen wholly occupied the programme which it shared, at subsequent performances, with Martyn’s Heather Field. Later on Alice Milligan’s heroic play. The Last Feast of the Fianna, was produced with some success. But from legend to folklore was but a step with Yeats, and once that step was taken the peasant play became a mere question of time. Consequently there could be no continuity of ideas between the originators of the Movement. Their purpose was identical, but the bias of Martyn was away from folk-plays, while that of Yeats was inevitably in their direction. As the tone of the Irish Literary Theatre was that given by Edward Martyn and George Moore, they are the dramatists we must identify with it. Whatever be the merits of their work, it was, at least, consistent with the conception of national drama to which they professed at the beginning. Yeats, on the other hand, found elsewhere in embryo an enterprise more suitable for the realisation of the ideal he cherished, when he dreamed of the creation of an Irish National Theatre. If his efforts have resulted in a practical triumph denied to Edward Martyn, it must not be assumed that the latter has been less faithful to the original intention of their co-operation. We may find, indeed, that while Martyn’s is a case of constancy unrewarded, Yeats has had to sacrifice much that is essential in the inevitable compromise whereby theory and practise are united in success.
pp.289-308; here pp.289-92; see full copy in Library > “Critical Classics” - as attached.

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