On September 18, 1964, Irish playwright Sean O'Casey died at the age of 84. Today we celebrate his life and works and the controversy "The Plough and the Stars" at the Abbey Theater caused. It is likely that no other theatre in the English-speaking world is more identified with an individual playwright, and owes more to that playwright than the Abbey Theatre does to Sean O’Casey (1880-1964).
The Abbey’s productions of three O’Casey plays - “The Shadow of Gunman” (1923), “Juno and the Paycock” (1924) and “The Plough and the Stars” (1926), O’Casey’s Dublin trilogy – sustained the theatre in its early years, a fact publicly acknowledged by W.B. Yeats, an Abbey director.
It was primarily these plays that accounted for the world-wide reputation of the Abbey and its magnificent company of actors: Barry Fitzgerald, F.J. McCormack, Cyril Cusack, Sara Allgood, Jack McGowran, Arthur Shields , Siobhan McKenna and many more.
“ The Plough ” was the most controversial and arguably the best of these plays as it questioned the canonical heroism of some Irish patriots and satirized the love of war and bloodshed celebrated in the fulminations of Patrick Pearse. It was at t he fourth night’s performance of The Plough that there was an audience riot at the Abbey, ostensibly over the appearance in the Act II pub scene of both the Irish tricolor and a lady of the evening, one Rosie Redmond. Legend has it that Yeats mounted the stage to quiet the rioters and said: “Y.