Taking his subtitle from Hamlet's advice to the players that their work must "give the very age and body of the time his form and pressure", Robert Welch, Professor of English at the University of Ulster at Coleraine, tells the history of our National Theatre in relation to the social and political changes throughout the century. His recognition in his prologue that this will be a limited story is a wise disclaimer for a study that focuses so completely on the plays, to the almost complete exclusion of the internal politics and personalities that have so shaped the institution throughout its history.
It became very clear from the earliest years that the work the public favoured was not always that promoted by the founders. What Yeats and Lady Gregory wanted was a theatre to reflect the nobility of the Celtic heritage, a forum where eloquent language, oratory, and poetic dramas would find an appreciative audience. Very quickly, what attracted audiences was work of a more mundane kind that presented a reality of Irish life rather than noble aspirations of a mythical past.
Even the two great dramatists of the Abbey's early years, Synge and O'Casey, created an image of a brutalised and degraded peasantry whose instincts for violence combined with their poetic eloquence to create a new self-image for the Irish people. Yeats fully understood that his own symbolic and poetic drama would always be a minority taste and that more realistic writing would always attract a wider audience.
Welch dates the shift to realism from the arrival of Lennox Robinson in 1910 when "the Cork realists" came to the fore, but it was evident from the beginning that the theatre would only survive if audiences identified with the themes of the play. One of the earliest successes of the Irish Literary Theatre, the forerunner of the Abbey, was Edward Martyn's The Heather Field, which dealt with the obsession with land that was such a feature of the social reality of the early years of the century.
Welch is persuasive in his detailed analysis of the major playwrights of Abbey history. He superbly charts Yeats's theatrical explorations from the crudely nationalistic Caitlin Ni Houlihan to the profound experience of his final play Purgatory, a bleak and brilliant work that foreshadowed the work of Samuel Beckett. His insights on the work and its relationship to the evolution of Irish society are perceptive and illuminating. It is also good to see the praise for Waterford playwright, Teresa Deevey, whose powerful plays analysing the role of women in mid-century are often ignored.
He also makes a convincing case for the failure of the Abbey to fully embrace the Irish language, and he recognises the unique genius of Sean O Tuama's Gunna Cam Agus Slabhra Oir. He is less compelling in retelling the plots and themes of long-forgotten and justly ignored plays. This leads to a tedium that can exhaust all but the most dedicated scholar of minor playwrights.
The major flaw in this frustrating book is a complete failure to deal with the second half of the Abbey century. Where the historical documentation is available and complete, Welch is a faithful recorder and a perceptive critic. More recent history, which would have required a different level of research and analysis, is treated with less care and with an inaccurate grasp of facts. The major leadership upheavals of the mid-1980s that confronted the fundamental issues of control and direction of the theatre are dealt with in a few badly-researched paragraphs. One of the most formative and important figures of recent Abbey history, Lelia Doolan, is dismissed in a brief (mis-spelt) reference, as is the only other woman leader of the theatre, Garry Hynes. Events of the years that I am very familiar with are either ignored, misrepresented or just plain wrong.
Welch focuses his full attention on the work of the playwrights, and there is academic validity in that. They have always been the primary artists of a theatre devoted to new work. However, many others have been a part of the creation of a national theatre and, in particular, the actors have been central to the story. With the exception of the contribution of the Fay brothers and their early company, the progress, development and decline of a permanent Abbey ensemble and its unique contribution to the reputation of Irish acting is ignored.
Welch is effusive about the legacy of Patrick Mason, whom he accurately sees as a healing force after the trauma of the previous decade of change and dissension. Mason leaves the Abbey in a much stronger position than the one he inherited - and it is in the interest of all who care about the health of Irish theatre that his successor, Ben Barnes, is given every chance to build on the success of recent years. It is also essential that those of us who have been a part of its history begin to create an accurate record of the extraordinary events that have shaped an enduring and creative national institution. In spite of its many virtues, this is not that book.
Joe Dowling is Artistic Director of the Guthrie Theater, Minneapolis and is the founder of the Gaiety School of Acting. He was Artistic Director of the Abbey Theatre from 1978-85.