coincide with
certain types of Irish character, but that they know so well the types
of the folk-plays, and even the characters who are not types that appear
in the folk-plays, that they are able to portray them to the life. The
Abbey Players have discarded most of the tricks of the stage, or perhaps
it would be truer to say they do not inherit the tricks of the stage or
any traditional characterizations of parts. They are taught to allow
their demeanor and gesture and expression to rise out of the situation,
to "get up" their parts from their own ideas; and these ideas are
interfered with only if they run definitely counter to the ideas of
stage-manager or author. The smallness of the Abbey Theatre has saved
them from the necessity of heightening effects that they may carry to
the farthest corners of a large house, a necessity that leads so often
to over-emphasis by our own actors. There are less than six hundred
seats in the Abbey theatre (five hundred and sixty-two by actual count),
and it is so arranged that the words uttered on the stage carry easily
without emphasis all over the house.

It is an old saying that the English of Dublin is the most beautiful
English in the world. However that may be, there can be no doubt
whatsoever but that the English that is spoken in Dublin falls on the
ear with a mellowness of sound that is a joy to all who cherish proper
speech. In the earlier years of the company Mr. Yeats was very desirous
of having his dramatic verse spoken with "the half chant men spoke it
[poetry] with in old times." It was in some such way that Mr. Yeats had
tried to have his lines in "The Land of Heart's Desire" spoken when it
was put on at the Avenue Theatre, London, in 1894; and thirteen years
later Miss Florence Farr, whom he believes to speak English more
beautifully than anybody in the world, spoke his dramatic verses in a
"half chant," and his lyrical verses, many of them, to a definite
musical notation, on her American tour of 1907. It was noticeable,
however, when she played one of the musicians in his "Deirdre" on its
later presentations, that he method of intoning the verses differed a
great deal from their delivery by the regular members of the company.
If Mr. Yeats has not changed his views somewhat in regard to the
speaking of dramatic verse, he no longer insists on the half chant as it
was practiced by Miss Farr, but is content if the actors reproduce its
rhythm in "the beautiful speaking"