Walter Macken
Page 28
14
DAILY LIFE IN THE 1950s
When I read about the ‘depressing’ 1950s I cannot believe it. For us living in Oughterard the 1950s were a never-to-be-forgotten period. For my father in particular, it was a wonderful era. Rain on the Wind being published in 1950 had allowed him to give up a weekly wage packet and concentrate on earning his living as a writer. It was (and still is!) very difficult to rely totally on writing to earn a living. My mother often told me how hard my father found living without the security of a weekly wage packet.
I think that we moved to Oughterard either the end of July or the beginning of August 1951. As a boy of seven, the journey seemed to me to be very long. We set off from Ardpatrick Road very early in the morning and it took hours to reach Galway. Then the final part of the journey to Oughterard and the trip out the narrow road to Glann, the name of the area where we lived, seemed to take forever to my mind. I seem to remember that when we drove into Gort na Ganiv, it was about 2 a.m.
I will never forget that first morning waking up in Gort na Ganiv. I got up, dressed and walked out the back door. The sun was shining, and I began to explore. There were two sheds at the back of the house and then through the bushes, I spotted a sort of path running up through the hedges. I pushed my way through and discovered the path lead up to a concrete tennis court. There was even a little tennis pavilion where spectators could sit and drink lemonade and watch the matches. Behind the tennis court, the path led to a gateway to our own forest. It looked huge to me, it was about an acre with a wide range of trees. I even noticed one tree that was bent down towards the ground in such a way that you could sit on it and ride it like you were riding a horse.
After I had explored the forest, I turned my attention to the orchard which stretched back towards the house. There were almost a hundred fruit trees, cooking apples and eating apples, pears, rows of raspberries and a bed of strawberries. There was a huge lawn in front of the house and then to the right-hand side there were hidden gardens that we called the Upper and Lower Glades. It was a wonderful place for a young boy to grow up.
My father soon established his own daily pattern in Gort na Ganiv. We got up every morning at about 7 a.m. My father and mother, coming out of their bedroom coughing, would wake me up – they were both very heavy smokers. There was a washing and shaving routine and then we set off for morning mass in Oughterard. My parents were daily mass-goers and so we always went to 8 a.m. mass. After mass, we went to the local shop where my father bought the Irish Press. We were back at home about 8.40 a.m. and then had breakfast. My father read the newspaper from cover to cover and then he left us in the kitchen. He went into what we called the living-room, where he had his typewriter on the large table, and closed the door. He walked around the table smoking cigarettes and working out what he was going to write.
In my memory, I see myself and my mother waiting anxiously in the kitchen. My mother would actually be saying a few prayers to herself aloud, but I have no memory of my brother being there during these morning sessions. When we heard the typewriter going my mother would say a prayer of thanks! My father typed for maybe half an hour or three-quarters of an hour. Then he would open the door and call out – ‘Peggy’. My mother went in to listen to him reading the piece he had just written. She was his first audience and he always watched her keenly to see her reaction. When Peter died in Rain on the Wind, she cried. ‘Ah,’ my father said, ‘it’s working.’
He then worked in the garden during the afternoon and there was always a walk. In those first months, my mother was often too busy to accompany him and so I was his walking companion. We would leave the house and walk up the road a bit until we came to what was called the old road to Oughterard, and there were wonderful views of Lough Corrib and the islands stretching towards the horizon. My mother always had lunch ready at 1.30 p.m. and tea at 6.30 p.m. At night, my parents sat in the living-room, reading books.
There was a huge amount of hard work to do with the gardens. My father, with help from local men, built concrete footpaths right around them. We sowed vegetables and of course he went fishing on Lough Corrib. He spent his first season on the lake in 1951–52 going out with local man, Paddy Mons. Once the season began on 14 February, they tackled the lake most days and were sometimes called ‘bellmen’, because they used long lines attached to a plain wooden rod. On top of each of the rods there was a little bell and when a fish struck their bait, the bell rang. They used a small version of a Corrib boat, called a punt, suitable for one person.
There was a pattern to their fishing season. The first few months was called the ‘bricín’ season. As bait, they used small little fish, ‘minnows’, which were readily available in the streams right around Lough Corrib and kept alive in a tin can until they were used. Professional fishermen earned a living from the lake – when they caught fish they brought them into local dealers in Oughterard and the fish were picked up by train and taken from Oughterard to Galway and from Galway to Dublin and could be on sale in Billingsgate, London, the following day.
By the second season, my father had his own boat and knew the best fishing areas in the lake and I would go with him. As soon as I hooked my first trout and landed it, I was hooked on the sport. I often fished on school days with my father’s consent and he wrote letters of regret to the school principal. The season was as follows: bricín fishing from February through March; fly fishing March/April; dapping with the Mayfly to the end of May; then fishing for the summer salmon (grilse) in June/July and Harry and Daddy Long Leg dapping in August /September.
Before leaving Dublin, my father had completed The Bogman, which had been very well received by the publishers. Once he had finished writing The Bogman, he began writing what would become his best known play – Home is the Hero. It was first staged by the Abbey Players at the Queen’s Theatre, Pearse Street, Dublin on 28 July 1952 (they had moved because of the fire at their own theatre). The kernel of Home is the Hero is the story of Paddo O’Reilly who was imprisoned for five years for the manslaughter of a neighbour, killed in a drunken rage. As the play opens, the family are anxiously waiting for him to come home. It’s clear the family had a difficult time while he was away in prison and had to take in two lodgers, an old drinking friend of Paddo’s, Dovetail, and his wife Bid. Also in the house is Paddo’s son, Willie, who has a lame leg and taught himself to become a cobbler, and his daughter Josie, who has smart alecky boyfriend, Manchester Monaghan. Under the influence of Bid, his wife Daylia has begun to take an odd sup of alcohol.
The play opens with Dovetail excited about his friend coming home and he wants to make sure that there is a big welcoming party for him at the station. Paddo avoids the crowds and comes quietly into the house. Paddo is a different man to the man who went away and wants nothing to do with Dovetail or any of his friends. He objects to his wife drinking and he is shocked to find out that Dovetail and his wife are actually living with them. He is very angry when he learns that Josie is seeing Manchester Monaghan and he is equally horrified to find out that Willie is going with Lilly Green, the daughter of the man he killed. That original Abbey Theatre production was the most successful run of one of his plays and ran for seventeen weeks. Up to the 1960s and the arrival of Brian Friel’s plays, it held the record for the longest-running play in the Abbey.
Reviews for The Bogman in both England and America seemed to suggest it was destined to be successful, but there was disappointment again at home, as once again this new novel was banned. My father was deeply hurt; again the basis on which it was banned seemed to be that there is some suggestion of a sexual encounter between a traveller wife and Cahal. And of course at the end of the novel, Cahal leaves his wife and goes away with his true love Máire – an unmarried woman.
I talked to my father once about The Bogman and what he was aiming to do with the story, as he had planned to write a sequel. He asked me what I would do about the ending of The Bogman and I said that I would kill off the old woman.
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��Ah,’ he told me, ‘that’s where you are wrong, I plan to kill off the young woman.’
The success of Home is the Hero led to talk of it being staged in America and there were a lot of conversations and letters and telegrams about it. Finally in January of 1954, a concrete proposal was made when the Theatre Guild in New York decided to produce it:
The Theatre Guild,
23 West 53rd St,
New York.
Directors: Therese Helburn Laurence Langner, Armenia Marshall
January 18th 1954
Dear Walter Macken,
Again you must forgive me for being so long in answering your letter. We had our cast fairly well lined up but were delayed and then disappointed by the director. It is now so late that we think it is unwise to open this season.
We now think it would be much wiser to open early next fall with the chance of a long run. We can set the director now for an early date and would like to go into rehearsal around the middle or the end of August, opening out of town in September and coming in to New York at the end of September or early in October. This will also give us the chance to get the right theatre for New York.
We all very much want you to play Paddo, and I hope this will make it easier for you to do so, since it will give you time perhaps to finish your book, dispose of your sons and to get away without too much difficulty.
We are trying to communicate with Miss May, but she has not yet returned from Europe. If she is abroad now, perhaps you will see her. We are also contacting Joe Magee and advising him of our change of plan and our desire to have you with us in September, but please let me hear from you direct as soon as possible.
I hope you will be able to come. I personally can think of no one who would be as right for the part as you are.
Sincerely,
Therese Helburn
Good fortune came in March 1954, when the US Treasury Service decided to pay back the taxes he had paid in 1951–52, and he received a cheque for $6,202.78.
He completed the manuscript of his fifth novel, Sunset on the Window Panes, which he had begun in spring 1953. The principal character is Bart O’Breen, a tough young fellow who always gets into trouble. The world he creates come alive on the pages so much so that you think you actually know the people.
His friend Lovat Dickson loved it:
Macmillan & Co. Ltd.
11th March 1954
Dear Walter,
I should know better after twenty-two years of publishing, but after reading half ‘Sunset on the Window Panes’, last night, I cannot refrain this morning from writing you a note to say that I think you have really pulled it off this time. I read until the early hours of this morning, and found myself to be completely gripped throughout. It seems to me to be far the best book you have written, and I cannot tell you how delighted I am. All this is most irregular. I should wait until several readers and Directors have read it and give you the consensus of all their views. However, it is impossible to control my enthusiasm, and you are the man to whom I want to impart it.
There are so many things I would like to talk to you in connection with this book: the title for instance, the American market, possible serial rights, time of publication, and a host of other things. I wonder is there any chance of you and Peggy coming to London for a few days? If it is a matter of finances, let me know and I will see what my fellow Directors think of that. If it is a matter of leaving the boys, then I will understand if you cannot make it and will write about everything – though how much I should prefer to talk to you.
Yours ever,
Rache Lovat Dickson
From this time on Lovat Dickson starts using his popular name Rache, when signing letters to my father. He was so enthusiastic about the new novel that he wrote a follow-up letter the following day:
Dear Walter,
I finished ‘Sunset on the Window Panes’ at an early hour this morning. It was a tremendous finish. I do congratulate you. I think it is a wonderful story and will be remembered for a long time. The title is absolutely right, of course, the end of the story makes that clear.
I wish I could convey to you how much moved I have been by this story. It had a tremendous effect on me, and I think it will have on all its readers. The characterisation is so consistent: one sees so at the end looking back. I cannot suggest a change throughout the book except that part in Chapter 19 where Breeda tears up Bart’s letter and throws it into the sea and then the pieces come together again to form the ‘tumbled words and sentences’ and you get a further bit of Bart’s story. I do not think I would have the end of this chapter, but this is a point we can talk about.
The MS will now be read by my colleague, Thomas Mark, and he will prepare it for the printer. Meanwhile we will be getting a contract ready and will send it to you for signature.
Yours ever,
Rache Lovat Dickson
Meanwhile the Theatre Guild was making arrangements for the staging of Home is the Hero on Broadway. It was very common to get telegrams rather than phone calls when someone in America wanted to contact my father. The following was one such telegram, which was sent on 4 June 1954:
Worthington Minor directing Hero, he and we want you for Paddo could you hold yourself available to start rehearsals on either August 15 or 22. Do you know Dinah Sheridan age and ability and can she play with Irish accent, who played Dovetail there and any other suggestions besides Barry Fitzgerald, please reply immediately. Will confirm definitely within two weeks also could you airmail photo of Irish stage set. Thanks and greetings – Therese Helman
Following on this invitation, my father agreed to go to New York, because a week or so later, on 15 June, the following piece appeared in the New York Times:
Temporarily stymied in getting a leading man for Walter Macken’s Irish drama, ‘Home is the Hero,’ the Theatre Guild is furtively eyeing an ace up its sleeve to solve the problem. It is trying to persuade the author to portray the chief role, for which Thomas Mitchell was last mentioned. An actor since his salad days, Mr Macken gave a sample of his histrionic ability in the swashbuckling lead in Michael J. Molloy’s, ‘The King of Friday’s Men’ seen here briefly in 1951.
If all the loose ends are tried up firmly, count on ‘Home is the Hero’ being the Guild’s first local entry of the 1954–55 season. One thing is set though, C. Worthington Minor, who hasn’t been associated with the Broadway stage since 1940, will grip the directorial reins.
My Dad wrote to Sabina Walsh on 12 July to tell her that he and Peggy would be in New York on 15 August and he hoped to see her and her family when they arrived. He told her that Cyril Cusack had invited him to go to Paris in July to play the part of the old man in The Playboy of the Western World at an international theatre festival. He declined the invitation as he told Sabina in his second letter, sent to her at the end of July:
Gort na Ganiv,
Oughterard,
Co. Galway.
July 28th 1954
My dear Sabina,
I didn’t go to Paris. I didn’t like the play. Instead, Peggy and myself and the two boys went on a tour of Switzerland and Italy. We had a marvellous time, used all our money. Otherwise I would hardly be going to act in New York even if it is in my own play. We expect to fly over on the 14th of August. Rehearsals are to start on the 16th. When we meet you can expound all the great mystery. My agents have booked a room for us in a hotel. I don’t know where as yet but will get in touch with you.
With regards to Peter and the family.
Sincerely,
Walter
PS. By the way the play is my own play – ‘Home is the Hero’ and it’s to be directed by C. Worthington Minor – do you know of him?
Another telegram came from the Theatre Guild, this time spelling out that the play would open in Westport on 23 August, with a New York opening shortly afterwards.
My father received two letters from actors in August wondering was there any chance they could be offered a part in the Broadway product
ion: Brian O’Higgins who had played the part of Paddo in the Abbey wondered if he could act as understudy to my father, while Jack McGowran, another Abbey actor, who was finding it difficult to get work, asked to be considered for the part of Willie. A letter came from my father’s theatre agent, Joe Magee, posted on 12 July:
William Morris Agency.
Dear Walter,
It was good to get your nice letter and we are all looking forward to your arrival. Rehearsals begin in New York about 10 a.m. on August 16th and continue for two weeks. Then you open at the Westport County Playhouse, Westport, Connecticut for a one week try-out there the week of August 30th, then either to New York for the Broadway opening tentatively set for September 30th.
Best wishes,
Joe Magee
My father wrote a rough note to himself, names of people that he would like to meet: Lee Strasberg, Julian Compton and Clifford Odets [prominent American theatre people]. In a second letter, Joe Magee suggested that my parents could rent his apartment for $200 a month. I do not know whether they did that although it strikes me that it was probable. While they were in Westport, they met another first cousin, Rita Joyce, for the first time and she became a good friend of theirs.
The play opened in Westport on 30 August and among the cast was Glenda Farrell as Daylia, Richard Lupino as Willie, Peggy Ann Garner as Josie, Frances Fuller (Worthington Minor’s wife) as Mrs Greene, J. Pat O’Malley as Dovetail and Christopher Plummer as Manchester Monaghan. My mother told me how Chris Plummer regularly sat her down to talk at him so that he could learn a proper Irish accent.