No More Learning

His _Tincear agus Sidheog_, acted in Mr.
Moore's garden, at the time of the Oireachtas, is a very good play,
but is, I think, the least interesting of his plays as literature. His
imagination, which is essentially the folk-imagination, needs a looser
construction, and probably a more crowded stage. A play that gets its
effect by keeping close to one idea reminds one, when it comes from
the hands of a folk-poet, of Blake's saying, that 'Improvement makes
straight roads, but the crooked roads are the roads of genius. ' The
idea loses the richness of its own life, while it destroys the wayward
life of his mind by bringing it under too stern a law. Nor could
charming verses make amends for that second kiss in which there was
profanation, and for that abounding black bottle. Did not M. Trebulet
Bonhommie discover that one spot of ink would kill a swan?

Among the other plays in Irish acted during the year Father Dineen's
_Tobar Draoidheachta_ is probably the best. He has given up the many
scenes of his _Creadeamh agus Gorta_, and has written a play in one
scene, which, as it can be staged without much trouble, has already
been played in several places. One admires its _naivete_ as much as
anything else. Father Dineen, who, no doubt, remembers how Finn mac
Cumhal when a child was put in a field to catch hares and keep him out
of mischief, has sent the rival lovers of his play when he wanted
them off the scene for a moment, to catch a hare that has crossed the
stage. When they return the good lover is carrying it by the heels, and
modestly compares it to a lame jackass. One rather likes this bit of
nonsense when one comes to it, for in that world of folk-imagination
one thing seems as possible as another. On the other hand, there is
a moment of beautiful dramatic tact.
The lover gets a letter telling
of the death of a relative in America, for whom he has no particular
affection, and who has left him a fortune. He cannot lament, for that
would be insincere, and his first words must not be rejoicing. Father
Dineen has found for him the one beautiful thing he could say, 'It's a
lonesome thing death is. ' With, perhaps, less beauty than there is in
the closing scene of _Creadeamh agus Gorta_, the play has more fancy
and a more sustained energy.

Father Peter O'Leary has written a play in his usual number of scenes
which has not been published, but has been acted amid much Munster
enthusiasm. But neither that or _La an Amadan_, which has also been
acted, are likely to have any long life on our country stages. A short
play, with many changes of scene, is a nuisance in any theatre, and
often an impossibility on our poor little stages. Some kind of play,
in English, by Mr. Standish O'Grady, has been acted in the open air
in Kilkenny. I have not seen it, and I cannot understand anything
by the accounts of it, except that there were magic lantern slides
and actors on horseback, and Mr. Standish O'Grady as an Elizabethan
night-watchman, speaking prologues, and a contented audience of two or
three thousand people.

As we do not think that a play can be worth acting and not worth
reading, all our plays will be published in time. Some have been
printed in _The United Irishman_ and _The All Ireland Review_. I have
put my _Cathleen ni Houlihan_ and a little play by Dr. Hyde into this
_Samhain_. Once already this year I have had what somebody has called
the noble pleasure of praising, and I can praise this _Lost Saint_
with as good a conscience as I had when I wrote of _Cuchulain of
Muirthemne_.