ABSTRACT
When The Playboy of the Western World premiered in 1907, the relationship between the Irish National Theatre and the Gaelic nationalist community was already reaching its breaking point, and Synge’s play proved to be the fi nal straw this confl ict. Besides the infamous “riots” which erupted during its opening run, Playboy sparked a fi restorm of controversy in the nationalist press.1 The Freeman’s Journal called the play an “unmitigated, protracted libel upon Irish peasant men and, worse still, upon Irish peasant girlhood,” while The Irish Independent declared that “it was a tribute to the good taste and common sense of the audience that hissing and booing mingled with the cheers which greeted the fi nal development of the character” (Hogan and Kilroy, The Abbey Theatre: the Years of Synge 125). These criticisms quickly followed the same pattern as those lodged against both The Countess Cathleen and The Shadow of the Glen, as Synge was accused of presenting foreign characters and ideas on the Irish national stage and thereby defaming Irish morality and particularly Irish femininity. Once again, the defi nition of national theatre became the central issue in this confl ict. Synge’s critics believed that, to be national, an institution must refl ect the popular sympathies of the nation, while the directors insisted that the nation’s identity could only be forged by artists working independently.
