Beschreibung:

O'CASEY, Sean. Eighteen autograph letters signed and six typed letters signed to Anthony Harvey; virtually all written from O'Casey's home in Torquay, Devon, 12 March 1954-11 June 1964. Together 36 pages, mostly 4to, four signed "Sean O'Casey," the rest just "Sean," twelve of the autograph letters on blue Air Mail stationery, the typed letters single-spaced, usual fold creases, with ten of the original envelopes and a few related ephemeral items . "GOD...CREATED SHAKESPEARE, BUT SHAKESPEARE CREATED FALSTAFF" Anthony Harvey first wrote to Sean O'Casey in March 1954 while a student at Randolph-Macon College in Virginia. He was doing his Senior Project on the playwright and requested information in regard to the blending of the tragic and comic in his work. O'Casey answered (see his first letter of 12 March 1954) and a very friendly correspondence developed, ending at the dramatist's death in 1964 (at age 80). After graduating from college in 1954 Harvey attended Yale Divinity School (the majority of O'Casey's letters date from that period); but Harvey continued with his interest in the theatre and eventually took up a post at the University of North Carolina. In this excellent series of letters , O'Casey talks of himself and his family and gives fatherly advice to the young man, but the focus is primarily on literature, playwriting, the theatre, and his own works. In a few letters O'Casey discourses at length on religion, the Catholic Church, and "religious drama." Among writers he comments on are Shakespeare, Graham Greene Tennessee Williams, Arthur Miller, T.S. Eliot, Thornton Wilder, G.B. Shaw, and Jean Giraudoux and Jean Anouilh. The first seven letters were published in an article Harvey wrote for the Randolph-Macon Bulletin , September 1954; the remainder is presumably unpublished. 12 March 1954 (O'Casey's first letter): "...As for blending 'Comedy with Tragedy,' [Harvey had asked for information on this topic] it's no new practice -- hundreds have done it, including Shakespeare up to Dion Boucicault...And, indeed, Life is always doing it, doing it, doing it. Even when one lies dead, laughter is often heard in the next room. There's no tragedy that isn't tinged with humour; no comedy that hasn't its share of tragedy...Sorrow & Joy are sisters, though Joy isn't always Joy or Sorrow Sorrow; they change appearances often and rapidly..." 26 March 1954: "...Your questions are terrific! Would Amer. aud[iences] react same as Irish? I hope not, in a lot of ways. You can read how many re-acted to The Plough [and the Stars] and The [Silver] Tassie , just as Boston did to Within the Gates ...American audiences differ -- I'd say they enter into the humour and sorrow if the audiences have a liking for drama, & weren't afraid to realise that Drama (as well as life) shouldn't be all cakes & ale...By the way, I never labour to mix grief with laughter: they just grow into the play, without any striving, just as I see them arm-in-arm in life. Which of the plays is the best example, I can't say. I think myself that, technically, (the form) Cock-A-Doodle Dandy is the best example of workmanship; &, in humour & pathos, no less than any of the others. My favourite play is always the one I happen to be working at. A weakness of mine is that I lose interest in what has been done, &, if the chance comes, I have to force myself to take an interest in rehearsals..." 14 April 1954: "...The play [ Cock-A-Doodle Dandy ], first of all is a play, irrespective of the theme; & if it fails as a play, it fails altogether. Broadly, it stands against anything interfering with, or hindering, the natural joys of life, applicable to all men, but cast in a gay, Irish mold. It shows, or tries to show -- regarded this way -- that Ireland is the world; just as Ibsen made Norway a world, & Strindberg made a world of Sweden. Of course, I'm familiar with [Eugene] O'Neill's work; but couldn't say for certain what all the various symbols in the play [ The Great God Br