Which Fiddler Calls the Tune? The Playboy Riots and the Politics of Nationalist Theatre Spectatorship

Abstract

In October of 1903, The United Irishman , a leading newspaper of the Irish nationalist movement, published an essay by William Butler Yeats entitled “The Irish National Theatre and Three Sorts of Ignorance.” Yeats wrote this essay after an infuriated nationalist community protested the Irish National Theatre Society's production of John Millington Synge's play, In the Shadow of the Glen . In response to Yeats's admonishment of the nationalist movement for putting politics over aesthetics in their creation and judgment of Irish drama, Arthur Griffith, the editor of the newspaper, added some remarks of his own: Mr. Yeats does not give any reason why if the Irish National Theatre has no propaganda save that of good art it should continue to call itself either Irish or National. If the Theatre be solely an Art Theatre, then its plays can be fairly criticized from the standpoint of art. But whilst it calls itself Irish National its productions must be considered and criticised as Irish National productions.

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