by Ultan Macken
Walter Macken
He was born in the City of Galway on May 3rd 1915, making him 31 years age in this 1946. His father also a Walter Macken was killed in World War I as a private soldier. His mother and two sisters are living in London. At present he is actor-manager-producer of Taibhdhearc na Gaillimhe (Galway Gaelic Theatre), a small theatre subsidised by the Irish Government for the production of original and translated plays performed in the Irish language. The theatre was founded in 1928.
At the age of 17 he became an actor, at least he commenced the business of becoming an actor in the theatre where he remained until the age of 21 when he married and went to live in London for two years, returning then to take up the position as producer etc., in the theatre, a position he still holds. He has two young sons.
He wrote his first play at the age of seventeen, and fortunately it was never produced anywhere or he would have had a hard time living it down.
After that he wrote three 3 act plays in Irish, ‘Oighreacht na Mara’ (Heritage of the Sea) which was published by the bookshop in Galway and two others, ‘An Cailín Aimsire Abú’ (Salute the Servant) and ‘An Fear ón Spidéil’ (The Man from Spiddal) both published by the Government Publishing Company – An Gúm.
In February 1946, his first play in English, ‘Mungo’s Mansion’ was produced at the Abbey Theatre, Dublin. He has also written other plays, long and short which have been produced at the Taibhdhearc.
Daniel Macmillan wrote to him in June 1946, suggesting the revised title ‘Wild West Wind’ for his first novel. My father replied on 13 June 1946:
Dear Mr Macmillan,
Thanks a lot for your letter about the title. I like very much the assonance of the three Ws. The only objection I can see to it is that some people looking at it might think it was a cowboy yarn, you know, the wild west. Have you thought of this side of it? I know it’s almost an insult to the house of Macmillan to say it but apart from that I think it is grand and will look well.
I had meant to write to you before this with the suggestion of a title which came to me while I was reading a poem in Irish. The title was ‘Quench the Moon’. The verse which I took it from goes as follows, roughly translated:
You took the south from me, you took the west from me,
You took the bright heart within my breast from me,
You quenched the moon and took the sun from me,
My fear is great that you took God from me.
What do you think of that? It is more or less a summary of the plaintive bits of the story. The poem itself is beautiful and is the cry of a girl about a departed lover. Excuse this tangentising into Irish poetry but since this thing was in my head, I thought it best to tell you of it.
However it is, I give my full blessing to ‘Wild West Wind’, if you think that ‘Quench the Moon’ is not so good. After all you know more about titles than I do and of what is likely to be the most suitable, and whatever you decide I thoroughly and heartily agree too.
Yours sincerely,
Walter Macken
My father was modest about his ability to choose the correct titles for his novels – Quench the Moon was the perfect title. Macmillan accepted it.
He had chosen Macmillan as they were the English publishers who had published Yeats, Frank O’Connor and Seán O’Casey – it was a good choice and he was to stay with them all his writing life. That they agreed to publish his first novel was a major breakthrough for my father and he began to concentrate on writing as much as possible. As with Mungo, Macmillan arranged for the novel to be published in America.
The principal character in Quench the Moon, Stephen O’Riordan is a young schoolboy in Cleggan when the story starts. The story clearly draws on my father’s own experiences. Stephen’s mother Martha is a strong character who loved to tell her only son stories. Quite early on in the story, she becomes ill with breast cancer and before going to hospital in Galway, she writes him what is essentially her last letter. She tells him how she had discovered a suitcase full of manuscripts under his bed and she compliments him on his writing saying that although it has faults, it is good and he should keep it up.
Stephen meets Michilín when he is just a child. Michilín, Stephen learns, is the best poacher in Connemara and when Stephen gets older, Michilín brings him along and trains him in the fine art of poaching. When he grows up, he falls in love with Maeve, who happens to be the sister of the family of bailiffs. Having had a bad fight with Malachi, one of the bailiffs, who he kills, and nearly killing his own father, Stephen decides to leave and find work in Galway. As he travels to Galway, there are wonderfully vivid pictures of the beauty of the road from Clifden to Galway. The book has a number of tragic incidents, the final one is where Stephen is knifed by the bailiff’s brothers and left for dead.
When the book was published in January 1948, the Connacht Tribune wrote a critical review, making the point that the author was living in the past and that incidents like the stabbing did not happen anymore. Right beside the book review was a brief news item which said that a man was admitted to the Galway Hospital from Connemara with thirty-eight knife wounds! Two months after the book was published, the Irish Censorship Board banned it – possibly because Stephen and Maeve make love and she becomes an unmarried mother. This deeply hurt my father. He considered appealing the ban, but as can be seen from a later letter from Lovat Dickson at Macmillan, he received no encouragement from the publishers to do so, and gave up on the idea.
There was great excitement towards the latter half of 1946, when an English producer, Irene Hentschel was interested in setting up an English production of Mungo’s Mansion. After various false starts with manuscripts of the play being lost in the post, the production received the green light in September 1946. The following letter spells out what was to happen:
Tennant Plays Ltd.,
Globe Theatre,
Shaftesbury Avenue,
London W1.
30th September 1946
Dear Mr Macken,
We are hoping to do ‘Mungo’s Mansion’, beginning rehearsals some time in December and opening on the road in January, coming into the Lyric, Hammersmith at the beginning of February. I enclose a copy of your usual agreement for the Lyric, Hammersmith. Will you read it through and let me know if you find it satisfactory, in which case I will draw it up for ‘Mungo’s Mansion’.
I am not very happy with the title as it is only good if one has seen the play. What one wants is a title that is attractive and will arouse people’s curiosity and make them want to see it. Will you try and find some other suggestions and I will see what I can think up. I am coming over to Ireland at the end of October, perhaps you could meet me in Dublin and we could discuss further details.
I have approached F.J. McCormick, but I am afraid we can’t get him. I have now sent the play to Arthur Sinclair. What do you feel about him for ‘Mungo’? He is a beautiful actor and if we can discipline him, I think he should be very good but he is a bit slow. For ‘Mowleogs’, I suggest Max Adrian. He is an Irish actor who has been playing for some time in London and I think he might be excellent. I am sure we can’t do better than Eileen Crowe for ‘Winnie’, but I don’t know yet whether she is available. I have written to her. Can you possibly get me a half a dozen copies of the play in book form and send them to me? I will of course pay for them if you let me know the cost.
Kindest regards,
Yours sincerely,
John Perry
P.S. The suggestion is that Irene Hentschel shall produce the play. She is one of the foremost producers over here and in addition I feel we are all under an obligation to her as she brought the play to our notice.
My father replied to John Perry almost immediately:
2 Whitestrand House.
3/10/46
Dear Mr Perry,
Thank you for your letter I am glad that you are going to produce ‘Mungo’, and hope that the venture will prove to be successful. About the specimen agreement you left out Am
erican rights or production or something but it will be all right anyway you can incorporate it into the agreement you make for ‘Mungo’. It’s a pity that you are not happy about the name. The reason I say that it has been produced in the Abbey under that title and is being published under that title and it seems a pity that you can’t stick to it. So I would be obliged if you could pin your faith on that name.
If you find such a thing impossible, however, I will spend the next few weeks browsing over it. All I can think of to throw up at the moment is ‘Mungo the Monarch’. If the title has to be changed, can’t it wait until you come to Dublin, where I will be delighted to meet you and have a chat and you can trot out your suggestions and I mine and maybe we can triumph in that manner.
It’s a pity about McCormick, I have never seen Sinclair acting but he has the reputation of being slow on the words. However, that is your baby. I know that you will get the best cast you can. The only person I would like to suggest (if available) is Denis O’Dea for the part of ‘Manders’. He was magnificent in the Abbey and if the play is produced a thousand times that part will never be done as well. He was completely satisfactory. His wife, Siobhán McKenna did the part of the daughter exceedingly well. She is a young Abbey star now and learned her craft here with myself in this little theatre of ours. However, since I am out of touch with the acting talent in Dublin and London, you do what you think best yourself about the casting.
I am delighted that Irene Hentschel will be producing. I have read about her frequently and anyhow her championing of ‘Mungo’ from the beginning makes her a natural as far as I am concerned. I haven’t a single book copy of the play myself. If I write to the publishers maybe they’d arrange for half a dozen page proofs to be supplied to you. Would it be worth your while to drift into their offices – Macmillans of St Martin’s Street – I am sure they would facilitate you, because the production of the play will probably have a favourable action on the sales of the book. Let me know.
Hoping I have forgotten nothing and looking forward to meeting you.
Yours sincerely,
Walter Macken
*Where addresses are repeated they are not set out in full each time.
9
DISAPPOINTMENT AND SETBACKS
It is in this correspondence about the English production of Mungo’s Mansion that we are introduced to Lovat Dickson of Macmillan, for the first time. My father dealt with him right through the 1940s, 1950s and even into the 1960s and had great confidence in him. This is his first letter to Dickson:
2 Whitestrand House,
Grattan Road,
Salthill,
Galway.
19/10/46
Dear Mr Dickson,
Thank you very much for your most clarifying letter of the 17th and I am gratified, if not a trifle smug, that you are taking all the worry of the business into your capable hands. I would be obliged if you could talk to Miss Hentschel about the arrangements as to her fee and so on.
Mr Perry in his letter said something about coming to Dublin at the end of October. I’d very much like to meet him but don’t know if he had changed his mind about this. If he hasn’t, I would be glad if you could inform him that I will be engaged in our own theatre with a play from the 4th to the 10th of November but any time before or after those dates would suit me. We produce a play the first week of every month.
The only claim that the Abbey have on the play is that they are entitled to 15% of the film rights if it is sold to the films. Apart from that, the play cannot be performed by any other company in Ireland, including Northern Ireland without prior consent in writing to the Society [The National Theatre Society] within one year from the date of the first performance at the Abbey (February 11 1946).
About changing the name of the play, I myself seem barren of ideas, but perhaps yourself or Mr Perry would hit on something that would suit, since he knows his audience and you know the public. If I think of a startling name, I will communicate it immediately.
There is something else I want to say, which has nothing to do with the matter in hand, but I thought I might as well say it and get the thing settled in the one letter. For the past year, I have been working on a second novel to succeed ‘Quench the Moon’, and have recently succeeded in completing it. It is entitled ‘Cockle and Mustard’ and I was wondering if you would read it and see if it is worth publishing. In the same period or before it really, I have beaten out another play called ‘Three Days in the Gantry’ and wondered if you could take both medicines together.
I don’t know if all this sounds over prolific to you, but it is well over two years since I wrote my last play in English – ‘Mungo’s Mansion’ – so I had time to brood over this second play, and it is over a year since I finished ‘Quench the Moon’, but nevertheless I feel that I owe you an apology for bombarding your firm with MSS in this manner. However, it could be that you may not like either of them, and then there will have been no need for an embarrassed feeling on my part. Thanking you heartfully for taking the play negotiations in hand and hoping that I have forgotten nothing else.
Yours sincerely,
Walter Macken
Lovat Dickson worked very hard on the negotiations with John Perry and also with Irene Hentschel’s agent, the end result was that 1% of gross profits would be assigned to Miss Hentschel, but in another letter written on 26 October, he again refers to the manuscripts of the new novel and play:
I am grateful to you for the offer of £25 advance on the publication of ‘Mungo’s Mansion’ and will accept it with thanks. I am grateful for all the work you have put into the play and hope someday to be able to thank you in person. I have dispatched under separate cover, the MSS of ‘Cockle and Mustard’, the novel and the play, ‘Three Days in the Gantry’.
I got the title of the novel from one of the gospels which I can’t trace at the moment about a man sowing mixed seed and cockle and not knowing whether the result would be the useless cockle or the useful mustard. It will be easy enough to dig up the reference if you find the book acceptable or the title or both. Again thanking you for all you have done and hoping that our joint work will be beneficial to all of us in the future.
Yours sincerely,
Walter Macken
The reply to this letter came from the Macmillan company rather than Lovat Dickson, who was on holidays:
Macmillan & Co. Ltd.
31st October 1946
Dear Sir,
In Mr Lovat Dickson’s absence we thank you for your letter of October 26th and for the return of the contract with H.M. Tennant duly signed. We have sent this to Mr Perry today.
Thank you for your generous view of Miss Hentschel. We have written to Miss Olive Harding [Miss Hentschel’s agent] today confirming that we will pay over one percent of the gross receipts from the production.
We enclose herewith a cheque representing an advance of £40 against the publication of ‘Mungo’s Mansion’ [it is unclear why this increased from £25 agreed earlier]. As you are a resident of Éire, British Income Tax has to be deducted here, but you can probably reclaim it. A certificate is enclosed.
We are so glad to hear that you have sent us under separate cover the manuscripts of ‘Cockle and Mustard’, and of the play, ‘Three Days in the Gantry’. We will read these with great interest and let you know our feelings about them as soon as we have a chance to consider them carefully.
Yours faithfully,
For Macmillan & Co. Ltd.
My father missed his chance to meet with John Perry when he was in Ireland. In a letter dated 7 November, he wrote that he still could not think of a new title for Mungo; among his suggestions was Galway Hurdle, Galway Merry-Go-Round. He thought he might be able to get up to see Perry during the second week in November once the play at the Taibhdhearc was over. Eileen Crowe was unavailable for the play and my father suggested May Kilmartin to John Perry. May had worked in the Taibhdhearc, at the Abbey for a while, on a tour of Ireland with Equity Players and then
had returned to teaching in London. John Perry replied to his letter on 20 November:
The Company of Four,
Lyric Theatre,
Hammersmith,
London W6.
Dear Mr Macken,
This letter will confirm our conversation at Woodroof. We have definitely decided, with your agreement to call the play, ‘Galway Handicap’. I am writing to May Kilmartin today and asking her to come up and see me and Irene Hentschel with a possible view to her playing ‘Winnie’. I do not have any more news for the time being, but I will let you know as soon as anything is definitely settled.
Yours sincerely,
John Perry
During the years in Whitestrand, my parents waited anxiously each day for the postman to come. If he was carrying a large parcel, they knew it was bad news, as it was probably a rejected manuscript. A few days after they received the November letter from John Perry, they received Macmillan response to his second novel and his second play. The letter was a mixture of good news and bad:
Macmillan & Co. Ltd.,
St Martin’s Street.
21st November 1946
Dear Sir,
We are glad to be able to tell you that we should be pleased to publish your play, ‘Three Days in the Gantry’ on the same terms as for ‘Mungo’s Mansion’ – a royalty of 10% of the published price on the first 5,000 copies and 15% thereafter; 6d on copies sold at reduced rates overseas and 10% of the English price for America and Canada. If this arrangement suits you, we will send you the usual formal agreement and pay an advance of £40 on account of royalties on signature.