One-Act Plays Part 48

[_BLANCHE joins them, singing as they cross._]

[THE CURTAIN.]

SPREADING THE NEWS[37]

By AUGUSTA GREGORY

[Footnote 37: Copyright, in United States, 1909, by Augusta Gregory. Reprinted by permission of G. P. Putnam's Sons, New York and London.

This play has been copyrighted and published simultaneously in the United States and Great Britain.

All rights reserved, including that of translation into foreign languages.

All acting rights, both professional and amateur, are reserved in the United States, Great Britain, and all countries of the Copyright Union, by the author. Performances forbidden and right of presentation reserved.

Application for the right of performing this play or reading it in public should be made to Samuel French, 28 West 38 St., New York City.]

Isabella Augusta Persse, later Lady Gregory, was born at Roxborough, County Galway, Ireland, in 1859. One who saw her in the early years of her married life describes her thus: "She was then a young woman, very earnest, who divided her hair in the middle and wore it smooth on either side of a broad and handsome brow. Her eyes were always full of questions. ... In her drawing-room were to be met men of a.s.sured reputation in literature and politics and there was always the best reading of the times upon her tables."

Two closely related interests have always divided Lady Gregory's attention. Her occupation with the Irish Players has been constant, and she has from the beginning been a director of the Abbey Theatre, where _Spreading the News_ was first performed on December 27, 1904.

This play was also included in the American repertory of the Players, whom Lady Gregory accompanied on their visit to the United States in 1911. The spirit that she puts into her work with them is well ill.u.s.trated by those lines of Blake which she quoted in a speech made at a dinner given her by _The Outlook_ when she was in New York. Her hard work having been commented on, she replied:

"I will not cease from mental strife Or let the sword fall from my hand Till we have built Jerusalem In--Ireland's--fair and lovely land."

In her book on _Our Irish Theatre, A Chapter of Autobiography_, she relates the story of how one day when she a.s.sembled the company for rehearsal in Was.h.i.+ngton, D. C., she invited them to leave their work and come with her to Mount Vernon for a holiday and picnic. "I told them," she writes, "the holiday was not a precedent, for we might go to a great many countries before finding so great a man to honor."

Was.h.i.+ngton, it seems, had been a friend of her grandfather's who had been in America with his regiment.

Her other great interest has been the folklore of Ireland. She has been called the Irish Malory, because through her retelling of the Irish sagas, she has popularized and made accessible the great cycles of heroic legends. She has employed for the vernacular of these romances and folk tales what she calls Kiltartan English, Kiltartan being the village near her home, the dialect of which she has a.s.similated and utilized. Lady Gregory has also used her historical and legendary knowledge for the background of some of her plays.

It is said that the original impulse that influenced Lady Gregory to interest herself in these old Irish stories came from Yeats, her friend and a.s.sociate in the project of the Irish National Theatre. It was his suggestion in the first place that led to her writing _Cuchulain of Muirthemne_. "He could not have been long at Coole,"

writes George Moore of Yeats, "before he began to draw her attention to the beauty of the literature that rises among the hills and bubbles irresponsibly, and set her going from cabin to cabin taking down stories, and encouraging her to learn the original language of the country, so that they might add to the Irish idiom which the peasant had already translated into English, making in this way a language for themselves." The influence continues, for her latest book, _Visions and Beliefs in the West of Ireland_, contains two essays and notes from the pen of Yeats.

The literary a.s.sociation of Yeats and Lady Gregory has been a fruitful one for Ireland. Not only has Yeats encouraged Lady Gregory's researches into the past, but she has been of the greatest a.s.sistance to him in his work. When he is at Coole, she writes from his dictation, arranges his ma.n.u.script, reads to him and serves him as literary counselor.

Lady Gregory's life touches the life of Ireland at many points. In addition to her literary occupations, she lectures and co-operates actively with a number of societies that have as their aim social or political betterment.

SPREADING THE NEWS

CHARACTERS

BARTLEY FALLON.

MRS. FALLON.

JACK SMITH.

SHAWN EARLY.

TIM CASEY.

JAMES RYAN.

MRS. TARPEY.

MRS. TULLY.

JO MULDOON, _a policeman_.

A REMOVABLE MAGISTRATE.

_SCENE._--_The outskirts of a Fair. An Apple Stall. MRS. TARPEY sitting at it. MAGISTRATE and POLICEMAN enter._

MAGISTRATE. So that is the Fair Green. Cattle and sheep and mud. No system. What a repulsive sight!

POLICEMAN. That is so, indeed.

MAGISTRATE. I suppose there is a good deal of disorder in this place?

POLICEMAN. There is.

MAGISTRATE. Common a.s.sault?

POLICEMAN. It's common enough.

MAGISTRATE. Agrarian crime, no doubt?

POLICEMAN. That is so.

MAGISTRATE. Boycotting? Maiming of cattle? Firing into houses?

POLICEMAN. There was one time, and there might be again.

MAGISTRATE. That is bad. Does it go any farther than that?

POLICEMAN. Far enough, indeed.

MAGISTRATE. Homicide, then! This district has been shamefully neglected! I will change all that. When I was in the Andaman Islands, my system never failed. Yes, yes, I will change all that. What has that woman on her stall?

POLICEMAN. Apples mostly--and sweets.

MAGISTRATE. Just see if there are any unlicensed goods underneath--spirits or the like. We had evasions of the salt tax in the Andaman Islands.

POLICEMAN [_sniffing cautiously and upsetting a heap of apples_]. I see no spirits here--or salt.

MAGISTRATE [_to MRS. TARPEY_]. Do you know this town well, my good woman?