The Only Jealousy of Emer

Abstract

This play was first performed in Holland. It was produced by Albert van Dalsum in Amsterdam in 1922 and 1926 (see IP 68). It was performed at the Abbey Theatre on 13 August 1929. Yeats wrote to Olivia Shakespear about the production on 24 August 1929:

My Fighting the Waves has been my greatest success on the stage since Kathleen-ni-Houlihan and its production was a great event here, the politician[s] and the governor general and the American minister present — the masks by the Dutchman Krop magnificent and Antheil’s music. Every one here is as convinced as I am that I have discovered a new form by this combination of dance, speech and music. The dancing of the goddess in her abstract almost non-representative mask was extraordinarily exciting. The play begins with a dance which represents Cuchullan fighting the waves, then after some singing by the chorus comes the play which has for its central incident the dance of the goddess and of the ghost of Cuchullan, and then after more singing is the dance of the goddess mourning among the waves. The waves are of course dancers. I felt that the sea was eternity and that they were all upon its edge. (L 767)