Seán O'Casey | |
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.png) O'Casey,c. 1910s | |
| Born | John Casey (1880-03-30)30 March 1880 Dublin,County Dublin, Ireland |
| Died | 18 September 1964(1964-09-18) (aged 84) |
| Pen name | Seán Ó Cathasaigh |
| Occupation | Dramatist |
| Language | English |
| Spouse | |
| Children | Breon O'Casey, Niall, Shivaun |
| Signature | |
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Seán O'Casey (Irish:Seán Ó Cathasaigh[ˈʃaːn̪ˠoːˈkahəsˠiː]; bornJohn Casey; 30 March 1880 – 18 September 1964) was an Irish dramatist and memoirist. A committed socialist, he was the first Irish playwright of note to write about theDublin working classes.
O'Casey was born at 85 UpperDorset Street,Dublin, as John Casey, the son of Michael Casey, a mercantile clerk (who worked for theIrish Church Missions), and Susan Archer.[1] His parents were Protestants and he was a member of theChurch of Ireland, baptised on 28 July 1880 in St. Mary's parish,[2] confirmed atSt John the Baptist Church inClontarf,[3] and an active member ofSt. Barnabas' Church on Sheriff Street[4] until his mid-20s,[3] when he drifted away from the church. There is a church called 'Saint Burnupus' in his playRed Roses For Me.
O'Casey's father died when Seán was just six years of age, leaving a family of thirteen.[3] The family lived a peripatetic life thereafter, moving from house to house around north Dublin. As a child, he suffered from poor eyesight, which interfered somewhat with his early education, but O'Casey taught himself to read and write by the age of thirteen.
He left school at fourteen and worked at a variety of jobs, including a nine-year period as a railwayman on theGNR. O'Casey worked inEason's for a short while, in the newspaper distribution business, but was sacked for not taking off his cap when collecting his wage packet.[5]
From the early 1890s, O'Casey and his elder brother, Archie, put on performances of plays byDion Boucicault andWilliam Shakespeare in the family home. He also got a small part in Boucicault'sThe Shaughraun in theMechanics' Theatre, which stood on the site of what was to be theAbbey Theatre.
As his interest inIrish nationalism grew, O'Casey joined theGaelic League in 1906 and learned theIrish language. At this time, he Gaelicised his name from John Casey to Seán Ó Cathasaigh. He also learned to play theUilleann pipes and was a founder and secretary of theSt. Laurence O'Toole Pipe Band. He joined theIrish Republican Brotherhood,[6] and became involved in theIrish Transport and General Workers Union, which had been established byJim Larkin to represent the interests of the unskilled labourers who inhabited the Dublin tenements. He participated in theDublin lock-out but was blacklisted and could not find steady work for some time.
In 1912 Casey joinedJames Connolly'sSocialist Party of Ireland. In March 1914, he became General Secretary of Larkin'sIrish Citizen Army, which would soon be run by James Connolly. On 24 July 1914 he resigned from the ICA, after his proposal to ban dual membership in both the ICA and theIrish Volunteers was rejected.
One of his first satirical ballads, "The Grand Oul' Dame Britannia", was published inThe Workers' Republic on 15 January 1916 under his penname An Gall Fada.[7]
"Ah, what is all the fuss about?", says the grand old dame Britannia,
"Is it us you are trying to live without?", Says the grand old dame Britannia.
"Shut your ears to theSinn Féin lies, you know everyGael for England dies,"
"And you'll have Home Rule 'neath the clear blue skies." Says the grand old dame Britannia.
— Seán Ó Cathasaigh, "Grand Ould Dame Britannia", 1916
From the 1920s onwards, Casey focused on his literary career and was not directly involved in a political movement but remained supportive of socialist causes and was especially enthusiastic about theSoviet Union.[8] Writing in 1958, Casey affirmed his politics:[9]
“I am still a Republican, a Communist, and, in a way, a member of the Gaelic League.”
In 1917, his friendThomas Ashe died in ahunger strike and it inspired him to write. He wrote two laments: one in verse and a longer one in prose.[10] Ballads authored around this time by O'Casey featured in the two editions ofSongs of the Wren, published byFergus O'Connor in 1918; these included "The Man from the Daily Mail", which, along with "The Grand Oul' Dame Britannia", becameIrish rebel music staples. A common theme was opposition to the possible introduction ofconscription in Ireland by the British government duringWorld War I.
He spent the next five years writing plays. In 1918, when both his sister and mother died (in January and September, respectively), the St Laurence O'Toole National Club commissioned him to write the playThe Frost in the Flower. He had been in the St Laurence O'Toole Pipe Band and played on thehurling team. The club declined to put the play on out of fear that its satirical treatment of several parishioners would cause resentment. O'Casey then submitted the play to the Abbey Theatre, which also rejected it but encouraged him to continue writing. Eventually, O'Casey expanded the play to three acts and retitled itThe Harvest Festival.
O'Casey's first accepted play,The Shadow of a Gunman, was performed at theAbbey Theatre in 1923. This was the beginning of a relationship that was to be fruitful for both theatre and dramatist but which ended in some bitterness.
The play deals with the impact of revolutionary politics onDublin's slums and their inhabitants, and is understood to be set inMountjoy Square, where he lived during the 1916Easter Rising. It was followed byJuno and the Paycock (1924) andThe Plough and the Stars (1926). The former deals with the effect of theIrish Civil War on the working class poor of the city, while the latter is set in Dublin in 1916 around theEaster Rising. Both plays deal realistically with the rhetoric and dangers of Irish patriotism, with tenement life, self-deception, and survival; they are tragi-comedies in which violent death throws into relief the blustering masculine bravado of characters such as Jack Boyle and Joxer Daly inJuno and the Paycock and the heroic resilience of Juno herself or of Bessie Burgess inThe Plough and the Stars.[11]Juno and the Paycock becamea film directed byAlfred Hitchcock.
The Plough and the Stars was not well received by the Abbey audience and resulted in scenes reminiscent of the riots that greetedJ. M. Synge'sThe Playboy of the Western World in 1907. There was a riot reported on the fourth night of the show. His depiction of sex and religion offended even some of the actors, who refused to speak their lines. The full-scale riot occurred partly because the play was thought to be an attack on the men in the rising and partly in protest in opposition to the animated appearance of a prostitute in Act 2.[12]W. B. Yeats got onto the stage and roared at the audience: "You have disgraced yourselves again."[13] The takings of the play were substantial compared with the previous week. O'Casey gave up his job and became a full-time writer.
After the incident, even though the play was well liked by most of the Abbey goers,Liam O'Flaherty,Austin Clarke andF. R. Higgins launched an attack against it in the press. O'Casey believed it was an attack on Yeats, that they were using O'Casey's play to berate Yeats.
In 1952 he appeared in a play by Irish playwrightTeresa Deevy,The Wild Goose,[14] in which he played the part of Father Ryan. O'Casey was involved in numerous productions with the Abbey; these can be found in the Abbey Archives.[15]
While in London to receive the Hawthornden Prize and supervise the West End production ofJuno and the Paycock, O'Casey fell in love withEileen Carey. The couple were married in 1927 and remained in London until 1938,[16] when they moved toTotnes.
In 1928, W. B. Yeats rejected O'Casey's fourth play,The Silver Tassie for the Abbey.[17] It was an attack on imperialist wars and the suffering they cause. The Abbey refused to perform it. The premier production was funded byCharles B. Cochran, who took only eighteen months to put it on stage. It was put on at theApollo Theatre but lasted for only twenty-six performances. It was directed byRaymond Massey, starredCharles Laughton and with an Act II set design byAugustus John.George Bernard Shaw andLady Gregory had a favourable opinion of the show.
Denis Johnston, who knew O'Casey and spent time with him in London in the 1920s, is certain that the Abbey was right not to stageThe Silver Tassie: "Its expressionist second act was at that time far beyond the scope of the Abbey Theatre."[18] A year later Johnston's ownThe Old Lady Says "No!" was similarly rejected, for the same reason. Nevertheless O'Casey's resentment over this persisted for many years.
The plays O'Casey wrote after this included the darkly allegoricalWithin the Gates (1934), which is set within the gates of a busy city park based on London'sHyde Park. Although it was highly controversial,Eugene O'Neill responded positively to it. The play was originally going to be a film script forAlfred Hitchcock. O'Casey's widow described it in her memoir,Sean (1971):
Originally he had imagined it as a film in which everything, from flower-beds to uniforms, would be stylised. Beginning at dawn and ending at midnight, to the soft chime ofBig Ben in the distance, it would be "geometrical and emotional, the emotions of the living characters to be shown against their own patterns and the patterns of the Park." Having got so far, he wrote to Alfred Hitchcock, and when Hitchcock and his wife dined with us Sean explained his ideas to an apparently responsive hearer. Hitchcock and he talked excitedly. They parted on the same terms, with the prospect of another immediate meeting, and Sean never heard again.[10]
The play was unsuccessful in Northern Ireland and was not produced in the south until 2010.[19] In the autumn of 1934, O'Casey went to the United States to visit the New York City production ofWithin the Gates, which he admired greatly. It was directed by actorMelvyn Douglas and starredLillian Gish. This is when he befriendedEugene O'Neill,Sherwood Anderson andGeorge Jean Nathan.[10][20]
The Star Turns Red (1940) is a four-act political allegory in which theStar of Bethlehem turns red. The story follows Big Red (who was based on O'Casey's friend,James Larkin) who is a trade-union leader. The union takes over the unnamed country despite the ruthless efforts of the Saffron Shirts, a fascist organisation openly supported by the Roman Catholic hierarchy of the country. It was staged by theUnity Theatre in London during 1940 (later, in 1978 by the Abbey in Dublin).
Purple Dust (1943) follows two wealthy, materialistic English stockbrokers who buy an ancient Irish mansion and attempt to restore it with their wrong notions ofTudor customs and taste. They try to impose upon a community with vastly different customs and lifestyles that are much closer to ancient Gaelic ways and are against such false values.
The Englishmen set their opposing standards against those represented by the men employed to renovate the house. In the resulting confrontation the English are satirised and in the end disappointed when a symbolic storm destroys their dream of resettling the old into the present. The hint that is enforced by the conclusion is that the little heap of purple dust that remains will be swept away by the rising winds of change, like the residue of pompous imperialism that abides in Ireland. The show has been compared to Shaw'sJohn Bull's Other Island, which was one of O'Casey's favourites, but aside from a few similarities, there are no real grounds for comparison.[10]
He also wroteRed Roses for Me (1943), which saw him move away from his early style in favour of moreexpressionistic means and overtly socialist content to his writing. It went up at Dublin'sOlympia Theatre (which was the first one produced in Ireland in seventeen years). It would move on to London in 1946, where O'Casey himself was able to see it. This was the first show of his own he saw sinceWithin The Gates in 1934.[10]
Oak Leaves and Lavender (1945) is a propaganda play commemorating theBattle of Britain andBritain's heroism in the anti-Nazi crusade. It takes place in a manor with shadowy 18th-century figures commenting on the present.[10]
These plays have never had the same critical or popular success as the early trilogy. After the Second World War he wroteCock-a-Doodle Dandy (1949), which is perhaps his most beautiful and exciting work.[original research?] FromThe Bishop's Bonfire (1955) O'Casey's late plays are studies on the common life in Ireland, "Irish microcosmos", likeThe Drums of Father Ned (1958).
His playThe Drums of Father Ned was supposed to go up at the 1958Dublin Theatre Festival, but theCatholic Archbishop of Dublin,John Charles McQuaid, refused to give his blessing (it has been assumed because works of bothJames Joyce and O'Casey were in the festival). After Joyce's play was quietly dropped, massive changes were required forThe Drums of Father Ned, a devious way to get O'Casey to drop. After this,Samuel Beckett withdrew hismime piece in protest.[10]
In 1959, O'Casey gave his blessing to a musical adaptation ofJuno and the Paycock by American composerMarc Blitzstein. The musical, retitledJuno, was a commercial failure, closing after only 16Broadway performances. It was also panned by some critics as being too "dark" to be an appropriate musical, a genre then almost invariably associated with light comedy. However, the music, which survives in a cast album made before the show opened, has since been regarded as some of Blitzstein's best work. Although endorsed by the then 79-year-old O'Casey, he did not contribute to the production or even see it during its brief run. Despite general agreement on the brilliance of the underlying material, the musical has defied all efforts to mount any successfulrevival.
Also in 1959,George Devine producedCock-a-Doodle Dandy at theRoyal Court Theatre and it was also successful at theEdinburgh International Festival and had a West End run.
His eightieth birthday occurred in 1960, and to celebrate, David Krause and Robert Hogan wrote full-length studies. TheMermaid Theatre in London launched the "O'Casey Festival" in 1962, which in turn made more theatre establishments put on his works, mostly in Britain and Germany.[10] It is in the late years that O'Casey put his creative energy into his six-volumeAutobiography.
On 18 September 1964 at the age of 84, O'Casey died of a heart attack, inTorquay,Devon.[21] He was cremated at theGolders Green Crematorium.
In 1965, his autobiographyMirror in My House (the umbrella title under which the six autobiographies he published from 1939 to 1956 were republished, in two large volumes, in 1956) was turned into a film based on his life calledYoung Cassidy. The film was directed byJack Cardiff (andJohn Ford) featuringRod Taylor (as O'Casey),Flora Robson,Maggie Smith,Julie Christie,Edith Evans andMichael Redgrave.
O'Casey was married to Irish actressEileen Carey Reynolds (1903–1995)[22] from 1927 to his death. The couple had three children: two sons,Breon and Níall (who died in 1957 ofleukaemia), and a daughter, Shivaun.[10][23]
In 2005,David H. Greene donated a collection of letters he received from O'Casey from 1944 to 1962 to theFales Library atNew York University. Also in the collection are two letters written by Eileen O'Casey and one letter addressed to Catherine Greene, David Greene's spouse.
O'Casey's papers are held in theNew York Public Library, theCornell University Library, theUniversity of California, Los Angeles Library System, theUniversity of London Library, theNational Library of Ireland,Colby College,Boston College and theFales Library.
In Dublin,a foot bridge on theLiffey is named after him, as is Sean O'Casey Avenue inSummerhill[24] and 'Sean O'Casey Community Centre' inEast Wall.[25]
There is a plaque dedicated to O'Casey at the site of his former house onDorset Street, Dublin[26] and also at the building where he stayed in a flat inWandsworth,London in England.[27]
Media related toSean O'Casey at Wikimedia Commons
Quotations related toSeán O'Casey at Wikiquote
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