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MS. CUSACK 19 AUGUST 1955

Dear Cyril,

Forgot to say in last letter that there would be no chance of a play, a new one, that is, by the time the Gaiety re-opens. Thought it well to mention this for fear you might get thinking things. If my memory serves, I think I remember you mentioning a play you had from Donagh MacDonagh, when you first wrote to ask me if I had a play I could let you read. So with one, too, from D[enis]. Johnson, you're well-armed; & I do hope they may be successful whenever they are put on the stage.

George Devine is coming down here on Sunday to talk about the plans Oscar Lewenstein has for the Kingsway Theatre. I see Siobhan [McKenna] has joined up with Gladys Cooper and Enid Bagnold. I hope this is a wise move, tho' I doubt it. I see, too, a Gaelic Column in I. Press bewilders the poverty of Gaelic plays; one Gael saying if they don't improve, Gaelic drama is doomed. But G. plays are no worse than those in Béarla. Look back thro' the years, & how many good ones graced the Abbey? Good playwriting, no more than good acting, doesn't come easy.

I hope Maureen & her little flock have managed to settle in somewhere comfortably. It will be a big change for the children.

Seamus Scully wrote & said he had been talking to you. I'm glad he's going back to Dub: he isn't one who could satisfy himself in England. And odd chap; but a very good-natured one.

All the best. As ever, Sean

— Sean O’Casey in a letter to Cyril Cusack, from ‘The Letters of Sean O’Casey’ (published 1975). In February 1955, Cyril and Maureen Cusack opened O’Casey’s play The Bishop’s Bonfire at the Gaiety Theatre, Dublin.

#cyril cusack #maureen cusack #sean o'casey #theatre #irish theatre #abbey theatre #the bishop's bonfire #it's always fascinating to read this kind of letters #'maureen & her little flock' <3 #gaiety theatre #siobhan mckenna #the letters of sean o'casey #the cusacks

The first theatre person to display an interest in The Bishop's Bonfire was actor Cyril Cusack. Having recently formed Cyril Cusack Production he had staged Arms and the Man and The Playboy of the Western World at the Gaiety, Dublin, and had brought Playboy to Paris in June 1954. He had a good company, which included Walter Macken, better known as playwright and novelist, Siobhán McKenna, and Cusack's wife Maureen, an actress of considerable power and versatility. Just before the Paris trip Cyril wrote requesting the script of the new play.

[...] Cusack was a man of amazing courage and artistic commitment. He was anything but a prude. He knew from the first reading that the Bonfire was in every sense hot stuff, and yet he never flinched from the flames.

[...] On Monday [28th February 1955], opening day, one of the visiting critics stirred the pot with the headline, 'Police called to stand by at O'Casey's new play'. The rumour circulated that O'Casey was afraid to come to Dublin. From 2 p.m. a queue formed outside the Gaiety for the 300 unbookable seats in the 'gods'; by 7 p.m. close to 2000 people jammed South King Street and around the corner to Mercer's Hospital. Clearly, for most of these no seats were to be had, for even members of the diplomatic corps could not get tickets. The gardaí were called to maintain order. [...] Inside of the packed house there was tension, there was noise [...] Cusack later described the disruption:

Came a clattering of up-turned seats and shouting voices — 'This is blasphemy!'... 'This is sacrilege!' and other cries of protest. In the tradition of the stage the play went on, while the demonstrators, a small right-wing Roman Catholic group, waving programmes and showering pamphlets on the stunned audience, made for the exit-door, at which point, out of the bewildered silence, from the gallery the little Dublin voice was heard — 'Get out, ye dirty Protestants!'

[...] There was certainly more widespread abuse hurled at Cusack when he made his curtain speech in his best histrionic style, mock innocence combined with arch humour. He first arranged a pause while he laced his boot to collect his thoughts. Then he began in Irish and as cries of 'speak English!' drowned his words he turned to English. In ever-so-polite tones, punctuated by ambiguous sniffs, he thanked the audience for holding their 'heretical hisses' to the end.

— Sean O’Casey’s Biography, by Christopher Murray