Word: caseys
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Dates: during 1950-1959
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Astringent and idiosyncratic, The Green Crow brings out the crackerbarrel philosopher strain in O'Casey. But the flashes of lyric power are there still, since fortunately, like the leopard, the proud "paycock" cannot change its spots...
...fine one, even though we may, at times, fall from the swing-boats, or grow dizzy and faint as we ride the galloping, scarlet and gold clad roundabout horses, or fail to win a thing at any of the booths . . ." The booth marked "Modern English Theatre," O'Casey seems to believe, is rigged by a bunch of gyp-artists. First off, there are the critics, "death-or-drivel boys gunning with their gab from their pillboxes . . . those who take a step forward to enthrone imagination in the theatre and make it more of a temple and less...
Zymotic Bilge. Among the playwrights only Shaw is placed above suspicion of shoddiness, and the long arm of an O'Casey grudge can reach far back to cuff an offender ("Pinero . . . turned the wine of drama into water. A miracle, a miracle!"). Three pieces are devoted to the demerits of Noel Coward, whose works are finally summed up in two words (of George Jean Nathan's): "zymotic bilge." As for the "flea minds" of Ireland who are not properly reverent to their self-exiled bard, "these critics do not injure O'Casey, but they disgrace Ireland...
When O'Casey's mind leaves the theater, he brightens perceptibly. He loves national flags-except for that of Ireland which "should replace the sickly-looking tricolor of green, white and yellow" with "the old flag, a lovely one, of the green field with the harp in its center." In "The Power of Laughter: Weapon Against Evil," O'Casey voices his deepest conviction: "Laughter is wine for the soul . . . Once we can laugh, we can live. It is the hilarious declaration made by man that life is worth living ... It is odd how many seem...
Still the "Paycock." Yet there is precious little laughter in the four short stories with which O'Casey ends his book. Each of the tales pictures a helpless bit of humanity fluttering in the cage of need. Best of the lot is I Wanna Woman, in which a young Londoner, whose girl friend fails to keep a date, spends the night with a Piccadilly prostitute and wakes to a racking hangover of disgust and remorse...