Tel. 91731.
2 Kenilworth Square
Rathgar,
Dublin.
4th Feb 1944
Dear Austin Clarke
I can hardly think or talk of anything today except your beautiful production of the poems and sketches of the Dublin Magazine Programme last night. I cannot tell you how much we enjoyed all of it, and as for Cain – your production of it filled the little play with such life and body that it was a revelation to me.
We listened in at Mrs Le Brocquy’s house, across the square, and the Le Brocquy’s themselves were full of enthusiasm. We got a perfect reception – every work full and clear.
Our most hearty congratulations. I hope you and Mrs Clarke are both very well. Every good wish to both of you from both of us.
Yours Sincerely,
Mary Devenport O’Neill
Tel. 91731.
2 Kenilworth Square
Rathgar,
Dublin.
Friday Morning 11th May [1944?]
Dear Mrs Clarke,
I was awfully sorry to have missed you yesterday. On Wednesday for the first time, I felt like going out, so I took the tram to town, picked up two books in the library in Sth Anne Street and came home again feeling only slightly shaky. Yesterday I thought I’d try a repeat performance. I got off at Grafton Street and just ran into Mrs Le Brocquy. We had coffee together and a short talk, and I got back to find you had just been on the phone. I’ve had enough outing now, so I’ll stay put till Monday when I’m bringing in the stuff for Christine’s dress and leaving it with E. Burchill. E.B. rang up yesterday too. She said that Cain etc were coming in on Monday evening next to her studio, that if B. Boydell let her have the music on Saturday that would suit excellently, she would spend Sunday studying the music and arranging the dances on it, but if she didn’t get the music on Saturday their coming in on Monday would be time wasted – work done without the music would be inaccurate and probably have to be changed again. In that case she thought it would be better for them to come some evening later. She asked me how she could get into touch with you quickly to make or change arrangements. I said if she phoned Mrs Pye – she knows Mrs Pye slightly – I thought you would get the message as soon as possible.
Brian Boydell was in to see E.B. on [sic] day last week. He played the music on her piano, and she thought it very good and suitable, but it was only scribbled on very small scraps of paper and was to be written out properly by tomorrow, Saturday.
I think that’s all I have to say. Best regards to you both.
Yours sincerely,
M. Devenport O’Neill
Tel. 91731.
2 Kenilworth Square
Rathgar,
Dublin.
Sunday 11th June 1944
Dear Austin Clarke,
You must have received hundreds of congratulations on last Sunday and Monday nights’ wonderful performances, but I can’t help adding mine to the rest. I was there both nights and I got so stimulated that I’ve been in a state of excitement ever since.
The whole thing was marvellously successful. The production, speaking and acting of both plays were perfect. I was delighted with the way in which both the beauty and the tension in “The Countess Cathleen” were gradually heightened in preparation for the final words.
“The Kiss” was quite exquisite – so finished and shapely, with all those little whimsical turns. I haven’t read the French version, but I feel inclined to give only a small fraction of the credit to De Banville even if he did begin it. In this case it wasn’t the first step, but all the later steps that counted.
Every one I spoke to about the performance was delighted and unusually impressed.
I’ve been reading “As The Crow Flies” again and I’m getting a clear picture of it on the stage. I hope you will do it next time.
Heartiest congratulations and best wishes to you and your wife from both of us.
Yours sincerely,
Mary Devenport O’Neill.
Tel. 91731.
2 Kenilworth Square
Rathgar,
Dublin.
Wednesday 9th August ‘44
Dear Austin Clarke,
I’ve been thinking closely and hard about Cain for some days past, and I’ve come to realize — I don’t know why I didn’t realize it before – that there is really only one necessary dancing part in the play, that is Death. Death must dance on the stage, or appear to dance off stage, but there is no reason why Cain or Abel should dance.
I feel that it would clear up the situation very much, and make the play more intelligible to the audience, the human mortals, if Adam, Eve, Cain and Abel were simply to act, and the supernatural apparition, Death, were alone to dance.
I know that I suggested the other night that George Begley should dance Cain. Technically he could. He’s an excellent dancer, and his appearance would fit the part. It was only when I set myself to visualize him in the part that I became absolutely certain that he would never create an illusion that he was Cain craving to see the face of death. He would simply remain George Begley “doing his stuff.” That indefinable something which makes George Green so right would not alone be absent in George Begley, but would be heavy on the minus side.
There is another reason, a practical one, why I believe Cain should not dance. A man ballet dancer requires a very large stage. His leaps and springs and elevations cover a large space. For that reason Ninette de Valois would not let Bluebeard dance on the Abbey stage, though she, herself, as Ilina danced right through the play.
If Cain was being done by a Ballet Co. With a large stage and with weird lighting effects making Death seem only half materialized it would be primarily a ballet and Cain + Abel would naturally dance. Even Adam and Eve would come in doing a sort of dance and all their gestures would be rhythmical and to music. Being done by a verse Speaking Co. Cain would be primarily a verse play, the dancing would be merely illustrative and reduced to a minimum, and Death only would move to music.
Christine Kane, I still feel, could dance the part of Death, her dancing being, of course, subject to the approval of the producer. She is wonderfully easy to deal with, she’s pliable, with a sort of feeling intelligence that senses things without much explanation. If she is not available for any reason, there’s a girl called Helen Broughal, slim and dark, who would look very right in the part and who, I believe could do it.
I’ll see Eveline Burchill next week when she’s back from holidays, and I’ll “tactfully” get some information from her.
I wonder what you would think of having the words of Death’s part spoken off stage. Would it not give a sort of suitable non-human aloofness? Different voices might be used, perhaps, for her different moods as she changes from being illusive to being interested and to being greedy and violent.
There is no reason why Cain, if he doesn’t dance, should not speak his own part. The echoes would only be needed in that case for that chorus or “more, more of this, more more” which could be spoken either on the stage or off as the producer thought fit.
All this is mere suggestion. As it came to me I thought I had better send it on to you. I’ll be interested to know what you think of it.
Every good wish from both of us to you and your wife.
Yours sincerely,
Mary Devenport O’Neill.
Tel. 91731.
2 Kenilworth Square
Rathgar,
Dublin.
18th August 1944
Dear Austin Clarke,
I saw Eveline Burchill yesterday. I told her that there was some talk of my verse play, Cain, being performed by the Verse Speaking Company, that while the men characters, Cain and Abel, might or might not dance, a young woman dancer to take the part of Death was absolutely necessary.
I told her that the dancing should be merely illustrative without any dancing effects for their own sake, She said that she understood perfectly, as she had worked at interpretative dancing in London she had, she said, half a dozen highly trained girls on her staff, any one of whom from the point of view of dancing alone could take the part, but the description of Death in the beginning of the play suggested Christine Kane, subtle and elusive, while towards the end of the play, where character and dancing grow strenuous and defined, one was inclined to think Helen Broughal more suitable. She thought it depended on which side of Death’s personality the producer wished to emphasize.
She was quite sure that a man dancer could not deploy on the Peacock stage. It could be done on the Abbey Stage, but would call for caution,
Even if Adam, Eve and Cain, she said, do not speak and move to the beat of the music, their movements and speeches would have to be timed, so as to correspond exactly to certain phrases or lengths of music, so that the dancing could synchronise with both music and speech. The smallest lack of exactitude in this synchronization would cause the three strands, verse, music and dancing to slip an d become uncoordinated. That of course, was what happened in Lara Payne’s production of Bluebeard.
Miss Burchill wanted to know if music had been chosen for Cain. I said I did not know, that I liked the music which accompanied the broadcast of Cain last February, but I didn’t know what it was.
She asked me when I thought Cain was likely to be performed. I told her I didn’t know that either – which is quite true.
I also told her that I didn’t know whom the Verse Speaking Co, were likely to choose to dance in Cain, but that, if I were asked, I would say that Mrs Burchill would be delighted to do the choreography and to train any of her staff who might be found suitable.
I think that whoever you finally choose to dance in Cain, whether from the Burchill staff or otherwise, the cost of the dancing should be my responsibility. If it weren’t for my perversity in knitting dancing so closely with the verse, Cain could be done as a straight play. I will be very pleased if I am allowed to guarantee the cost of the dancers, or any extra expense due to the dancing.
All good wishes to you and your wife.
Yours sincerely,
Mary Devenport O’Neill
Tel. 91731.
2 Kenilworth Square
Rathgar,
Dublin.
Thursday 24th October [1944?]
Dear Austin Clarke,
I think it is quite certain that the rather hazy transmission of my play which we got at your place was due to some local disturbance.
My maid who listened in with some friends of hers in a house in Rathmines got what would seem to be a perfect transmission. The girl knew nothing about the play beforehand. But from the remarks she made about it next morning and the questions she asked, I could see that she had got the story – which was all a girl like that could get – quite clear in her head. She said that there was a sound in the beginning like big waves breaking but that it didn’t prevent one from hearing the words.
I myself was able to follow the play after the very beginning was over, but the I knew the lines so well. Mrs Pye seemed to get very little except the music.
I don’t think we need trouble about it anymore. There was evidently a local something in Templeogue which acted against wireless reception. I don’t know the terms for those local somethings but they seem to happen at times, especially at wrong times.
Kind regards to you and your wife.
Yours sincerely,
Mary Devenport O’Neill
Tel. 91731.
2 Kenilworth Square
Rathgar,
Dublin.
Thursday 7th Dec. 1944
Dear Austin Clarke,
I got a delightful surprise this morning at breakfast when the post brought me your book containing your three beautiful plays with a most kind inscription on the flyleaf. Thank you very much indeed.
I’ve been reading the plays off and on during the day, and I’m getting as much pleasure as I did on Sunday evening – and that was a great deal. The pleasure I’m getting today is somehow different, for I can delay over the lines and repeat over to myself some special happy phrase.
I had been going to write to you about Sunday evening, and was wondering whether I would write this week, or wait until I had deepened my impressions on Sunday evening next, when I expect to be there with a little party.
I went to see Irina Brady dance two or three Saturday’s ago. I won’t bother you now with my reactions.
We are expecting you and your wife for dinner and talk on Saturday week, the 16th of this month, at 7 o’clock and we can include Irina Brady in our discussion.
Every good wish to you and Mrs Clarke from both of us, and very many thanks again for your book.
Yours sincerely,
Mary Devenport O’Neill.
Tel. 91731.
2 Kenilworth Square
Rathgar,
Dublin.
Wednesday 20th Dec ‘44
Dear Austin Clarke,
I want to thank you very much for the most generous appreciation of my work which you gave on the wireless last night. It has given me great comfort and encouragement. The verse was beautifully spoken and I was intensely interested when listening to it. One gets a sort of new slant on the familiar lines. It’s something like suddenly catching a glimpse of oneself in a mirror.
I was talking to E. Burchill this afternoon. She will be delighted to arrange the dancers for Cain, and Christine, she says, will be thrilled. E. Burchill is going away for a fortnight – giving a course of holiday lectures and demonstrations in Belfast. Towards the end of the first week of January she will come here, and she and Christine and I will work out the dances most minutely. Any time after that they would be glad to meet you and see if you approve and arrange other things. We were very worried on Saturday night on account of your having to go home in that dreadful rain, and felt so sorry that we hadn’t a spare room.
Many thanks again and every good wish to you and Mrs Clarke.
Yours sincerely,
Mary Devenport O’Neill
