An Open National Identity: Rutherford Mayne, Gerald McNamara, and the Plays of the Ulster Literary Theatre

Abstract

During the early decades of the twentieth century, while Ireland's Abbey Theatre tried hard to create a unified image of nationhood in the figure of a West-of-Ireland peasant, a little theatre company in the North of Ireland addressed issues of national representation by very different means. The Ulster Branch of the Irish Literary Theatre, set up in 1902, brought plays from the Dublin-based dramatic revival on tour to Belfast. However, when William Butler Yeats, one of the leading forces behind the foundation of both the Irish Literary Theatre (1899-1901) and the Irish National Theatre Society (1903), heard about the Ulstermen's artistic project, he would not allow them to use one of his companies' names and forbade them from staging dramas he was in the process of copyrighting. (1) Bulmer Hobson and David Parkhill, the founders of the Ulster theatre, promptly changed the company's name well its creative focus. Damn Yeats, we'll write our own plays, was Hobson's response to Yeats's protective attitude. (2) The break with Dublin marked the start of the Ulster Literary Theatre. Ironically, the Belfast company's inaugural production in December 1904 took place during the same month when the Irish National Theatre Society moved into the Abbey Theatre. Between 1904 and 1915, the Ulster Literary Theatre staged twenty new plays and numerous revivals. (3) A number of these were dramatic failures, some of the dramas stood out, but most significant was this group's capacity to navigate between a range of conflicting identities: Ulster unionism and Irish nationalism, Catholicism and Protestantism, a northern versus southern identity. What I intend to argue in this article is that the Ulster Literary Theatre found its own surprisingly simple solution to negotiate such diverse political and cultural tensions. In particular the work of two playwrights, Rutherford Mayne and Gerald MacNamara, illustrates that the Ulster Literary Theatre explored Irish nationalism and Ulster unionism not political concepts but defining parameters of social and cultural identity. Their conclusion was not a separatist one. Identities are complex and ambiguous, Mayne's and MacNamara's plays suggest. Particular features and interests are never the sole property of one political, cultural, or religious faction, but are shared by a number of identifiable groups. The same applied to sectarian extremism: bigotry was a feature of nationalist militants well of unionist activists. MacNamara satirized such weaknesses in order to promote open-mindedness; Mayne fostered tolerance with his fair-minded portrayals of County Down life. For the formation of the new company in 1904, Parkhill and Hobson were joined by writers such Joseph Campbell and Rutherford Mayne, and by enthusiastic artists from the Belfast School of Art. The school's Sketching Club had already staged dramatic entertainments and showed a specific interest in elaborate stage design. (4) Much of this stemmed from the active involvement of Harry Morrow and his family. Morrow, who ran an interior design business that specialized in decorating, painting, and renovation, also lectured at the Belfast School of Art. His sons, Harry, Fred, Jack, Edwin and Norman Morrow, participated in the school's productions. (5) All had a talent for painting and sketching, but Harry and Fred would become major contributors to the Ulster Literary Theatre's stage design, repertoire and production standard. Delving into conflicting political identities in an objective manner would not be easy for any of them: Hobson, Parkhill and the Morrow family all shared a nationalist bias. The first two belonged to the Protestant National Association in Belfast and were interested in using Irish drama as a vehicle of propaganda. (6) Hobson was also a member of the Dungannon Clubs. The Morrow family produced anti-loyalist sketches at entertainments in their own home, and Jack and George would later draw anti-British cartoons for Hobson's paper The Republic. …