1.3 Sean o' Casey

O'Casey, Sean (1880-1964) original name John Casey, Irish playwright famous for realistic dramas of the Dublin slums in war and revolution, in which tragedy and comedy are combined in a way new to the theatre of his time.

He was born in Dublin's inner city, one of the worst slums in Europe at the time, and his father died in 1886. His mother then supported the large family, and she later became the model for O'Casey's tenement heroines. O'Casey suffered from a painful eye condition that afflicted him all his life, but he read voraciously to make up for missed schooling. He began working at age 14, primarily for the railroads, and was active for several years in the labor movement and in the nationalist struggle against Britain’s rule of Ireland.

O'Casey's three unquestionably great plays are The Shadow of a Gunman, Juno and the Paycock, and The Plough and the Stars. All are tragicomedies set in the slums of Dublin during times of war and revolution. Violent death and the everyday realities of tenement life throw into relief the riotous rhetoric and patriotic familiarity of men caught up in the struggle for Irish independence. The resulting ironic combinations of the comic and tragic reveal the waste of war and the corrosive effects of poverty. O'Casey's gifts were for vivid characterization and working-class language, and, though he portrayed war and poverty, he wrote some of the funniest scenes in modern drama.

The Shadow of a Gunman, the first play of O'Casey's Dublin trilogy. The play is based on his experience living in a house that was raided by British forces. It contrasts Donal Davoren, who pretends to be a gunman and is the prototype for O'Casey's romantic heroes, with the true hero of the story, Minnie Powell. The Shadow of a Gunman introduced a gallery of characters from the slums whose rich, witty conversation enabled them to break the borders of their impoverished lives. It was an instant success.

Juno and the Paycock (1924), second in the trilogy, followed a similar formula, depicting a braggart (a boaster) (the Captain), a heroic woman (Juno), tenement characters, and Dublin during Ireland’s "troubles" (its fight for independence during the early 20th century). Juno and the Paycock concerns the Boyle family, who live in the Dublin tenements. The father, "Captain" Jack Boyle constantly tries to evade work by pretending to have pains in his legs, and spends all his money at the pub with his "butty", Joxer Daly. The mother, Juno, is the only member of the family working, as the daughter Mary is on strike, and the son, Johnny, lost his arm in the Irish War of Independence. Johnny betrayed a comrade in the IRA, and is afraid that he will be executed as punishment. A distant relative dies, and a solicitor, Mr Bentham, brings news that the family has come into money. The family buys goods on credit, and borrows money from neighbours with the intent of paying them back when the fortune arrives.

In the third act tragedy befalls the Boyle family. Mr Bentham, who had been courting Mary, stops all contact with the family, and it becomes apparent that no money will be coming. As the goods bought with the borrowed money are being taken back, Mr and Mrs Boyle learn that Mary has been impregnated by Mr Bentham. "Captain" Boyle goes with Joxer to a pub to spend the last of his money and take his mind off of the situation. While he is gone, Mrs Boyle learns that her son, Johnny, has been killed, presumably by the IRA. Juno gathers her daughter, who has been seduced and abandoned, and leaves to start a new life. Captain Boyle returns to the stage drunk, unaware of his son's death. Juno and the Paycock, like The Shadow of a Gunman, was enormously successful.

The final play of O’Casey’s trilogy, The Plough and the Stars (1926), is set in a Dublin tenement during the 1916 Easter Rebellion (an Irish uprising against the British). Again there is a contrast between romantic idealism, embodied here by Irish Citizen Army officer Jack Clitheroe, and the real heroism and suffering of the poor civilians of the city. Written just ten years after the Rebellion, and being an anti-war play, it was misinterpreted by the audience as being anti-nationalist and resulted in a riot.

O'Casey's later plays are not considered as powerful or moving as his earlier realistic plays. In his later plays he tended to abandon vigorous characterization in favour of expressionism and symbolism, and sometimes the drama is marred by didacticism.

O'Casey went to England in 1926, met the Irish actress Eileen Carey Reynolds, married her, and made England his home. His decision to live outside Ireland was motivated in part by the Abbey's rejection of The Silver Tassie, a partly Expressionist antiwar drama produced in England in 1929. Another Expressionist play, Within the Gates (1934), followed, in which the modern world is symbolized by the happenings in a public park. The Star Turns Red (1940) is an antifascist play, and the semiautobiographical Red Roses for Me (1946) is set in Dublin at the time of the Irish railways strike of 1911.