John Bull's Other Island/How He Lied to Her Husband/Major Barbara [antikvár]

PREFACE FOR POLITICIANS John Bull's Other Island was written in 1904 at the request of Mr. William Butler Yeats, as a patriotic contribution to the repertory of the Irish Literary Theatre. Like most people who have asked me to write plays, Mr. Yeats got rather more than he bargained for. The play was at that time beyond the resources of the new Abbey Theatre, which the Irish enterprise owed to the public spint of Miss A. E. F. Horniman (an Englishwoman, of course), who, twelve years ago, played an important part in the history of the modern English stage as well as in my own personal destiny by providing the necessary capital for that memorable season at the Avenue Theatre which forced my Arms and The Maii and Mr. Yeats's Land of Heart's Desire on the recalcitrant London playgoer, and gave a third Irish playwright, Dr. John Todhunter, an opportunity which the commercial theatres could not have aíForded him. There was another reason for changing the destination of John Bull's Other Island. It was uncongenial to the whole spirit of the neo-Gaelic movement, which is bent on creating a new Ireland after its own ideál, whereas my play is a very uncompromising presentment of the real old Ireland. The next thing that happened was the production of the play in London at the Court Theatre by Messrs. Vedrenne and Barker, and its immediate and enormous popularity with delighted and flattered English audiences. This constituted it a successful commercial play, and made it unnecessary to resort to the special machinery or tax the special resources of the Irish Literary Theatre for its production. How Tom Broadbent took it Now I have a good deal more to say about the relations between the Irish and the English than will be found in my play. Writing the play for an Irish audience, I thought it would be good for them to be shewn very clearly that the loudest laugh they could raise at the expense of the absurdest Engiishman was not reaily a laugh on their side; that he would succeed where they would fail; that he could inspire fctrong affection and loyalty in an Irishman who knew the world m&