Abstract
Dion Boucicault’s three Irish plays: The Colleen Bawn (1860), Arrah-na-Pogue (1864) and The Shaughraun (1874), while not critically significant, owe their perennial popularity to their appeal to Irish romantic nationalism and to their memorable character types. While Boucicault’s character Myles Murphy or Myles na gCopaleen (Myles of the Ponies), an example of his native Irish hero, was the first of a series of rogue heroes that John Millington Synge developed in his character of Christy Mahon, Boucicault also owes the character of Myles to American native heroes like Sam Patch, Davy Crockett and Mose the Bowery B’hoy. While the plays are not great drama, they are good theatre and a less self-conscious national theatre has found room for both Boucicault and Synge.
Highlights
Dion Boucicault’s plays dominated the popular English-speaking stage for a half century, there are mysteries about his life and unsettled judgements about his work
He was a popular actor who appeared first, under the stage name of Lee Moreton, as Teddy Rodent, an Irish rat catcher in A Legend of Devil Dyke (1838). He performed under his own name in a London production of The Vampire (1852) where he played the part of the monster with a broad Irish brogue (Hogan 34). Despite this rather unprepossessing start, Boucicault became one of the most accomplished actors of his time playing a series of rogue heroes that he himself created
Boucicault could offer a romance between Hardress Cregan and the heroine Eily O’Connor in The Colleen Bawn, and could create the rebel heroes Beamish Mac Coul (Arrah-na-Pogue) and Robert Ffolliott (The Shaughraun)
Summary
Dion Boucicault’s plays dominated the popular English-speaking stage for a half century, there are mysteries about his life and unsettled judgements about his work. Boucicault’s plays continue to be revived with success, his Irish plays: The Colleen Bawn (1860), Arrah-na-Pogue (1864) and The Shaughraun (1874).
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