First published in 2004. In the stormy years before Ireland at last gained her independence a brilliant revival of Irish drama took place and culminated in the foundation of the Abbey Theatre in 1904. Of those who helped to create it—W.B.Yeats, Lady Gregory, the Fay brothers, and Miss Horniman—it was J.M. Synge as much as anyone who made the new Irish drama the force it quickly became in the theatres of the world. In his plays, as in his rich, tumbling comedy, The Playboy of the Western World, or in the tragedy of classic simplicity, Riders to the Sea, he succeeds more than any other dramatist in miraculously distilling the Irish spirit
The Playboy of the Western World, Riders to the Sea
Biography
John Millington Synge (1871–1909) was probably the greatest of the dramatists associated with the Abbey Theatre, Dublin, during its heyday in the early years of this century. He was born near Dublin, the son of a barrister, and educated at Trinity College, Dublin. He first studied music, in Ireland and in Germany, and then turned to literary criticism in Paris. There he was discovered by W.B.Yeats, who persuaded him to write about Ireland and take part in the ‘Celtic renaissance’ movement. By living amongst the fishermen of the Aran Islands, and in other parts of Ireland, he absorbed Irish folklore, and gave it dramatic form and a rich verbal expression. The Playboy of the Western World and Riders to the Sea are his best-known plays, the first a three-act comedy of Irish character, the second a tragedy in one act. When the Playboy was first produced in Dublin it caused an uproar and the police had to be called in more than once. Patriots considered it ‘a slander on the fair name of Ireland’. But Synge was too truthful a dramatist to care about national feelings. His plays were drawn from life, and his own poetic imagination.
