ABSTRACT
WE have carried on the dramatic movement in Ireland for ten years, and since 1902 with an Irish Company, trained in the expression of Irish character and emotion. Since Christmas, 1904, this Company has played in the Abbey Theatre, where an audience has been gradually drawn together. During the first two or three years this audience grew very slowly, but during the last year it has grown rapidly, and we seem to be on the edge of prosperity. During the twelve months ending with August 31st, the close of our financial year, our receipts from performances in Dublin have much more than doubled, and our receipts from English tours more than trebled what they were in the previous year, whilst our Irish tours, on which we lost money at the first, bring now a considerable portion of our income. We are almost independent of Miss Horniman’s subsidy, which is £800 a year and the free use of the Abbey Theatre, for we have saved more than £800 during the last twelve months, and should, during the next twelve months, earn enough to cover also what Miss Horniman spends on the theatre’s upkeep. In fact, all the laborious building up, the slow amassing of a large repertory of Irish plays, the training of actors, the making of a reputation with the general public, has been accomplished, or all but accomplished, and without taking longer than is necessary in a work of our kind; and there is little needed to make the Abbey Theatre a permanent part of Irish life, and a powerful educational influence for those that are to come after us.
