Walter Macken

by Ultan Macken

  Mise le meas,

  Earnán de Blaghdh

  Translation:

  Walter my friend,

  It’s settled now that we won’t do ‘Juno and the Paycock’ before Christmas. So we need to start rehearsals for Professor Tim on Tuesday. There’s a part in it for you. Therefore I think we need to make an arrangement as regards the trip to America. It’s difficult to be between two stools any longer. Maybe you would come in and talk to me tomorrow.

  With regards,

  Ernest Blythe

  There were deep discussions into the night between my mother and my father, as to how he should reply to this letter, with the result that he sent a letter of resignation:

  31 Ardpatrick Road,

  Cabra.

  Oct. 27th 1950

  A chara,

  Go raibh maith agat as ucht do leitir den 26ú. Táim ag macnamh ar an scéal le fada, agus ar an mhí-shástach sa chaoi ina bhfuilfímid i ngeall ar an turas go Meiriceá, agus sé mo thuairim nach bhfuil ach bealach amháin sásúil as agus sé sin go néireodh mé as mo phost mar aisteoir sa Mhainistir.

  Dhá bhrí sin cuirim chugat le seo fógra faoi go bhfuil mé ar éiri as an bhfoireann. Seo é an uair is fearr mar nach bhfuilim páirteach i ndráma ar bith i láthair na huaire, is ní raibh le déanaí, agus nilim páirteach i gcleachtaithe agus ni ghortóideadh m’imeachtachta an amharchlann nó an complacht.

  Mise le meas,

  Walter Macken.

  Translation:

  Dear Sir,

  Thank you for your letter of the 26th. I have been thinking about my situation for a while now and the unsatisfactory position vis-a-vis my trip to America and it’s my opinion that the only answer is for me to resign my job as an actor in the company.

  As a result, I’m sending you my resignation with this letter. This is the best time for me to leave, as I’m not taking part in any play at the moment as I haven’t been for a while, and I’m not involved in any rehearsals either so my leaving will not damage the theatre or the company at this time.

  With regards,

  Walter Macken

  We were told by my parents that he had no choice, that he had to retire from the Abbey, but as Blythe’s reply to his letter makes clear, he would have been happy to welcome him back when he returned from the USA:

  27/10/50

  Toisc a mhí-chinnteach is tá data do imtheachta go Meiriceá ba dheacair tú chur i ndráma a leanfadh, bhféidir go Nollaig. De bhrí sin ceapaim gur fearr mar shocrú tú éiri as an bhfoireann go sealadach. Glacaim le do litir díorscoir ar an dtuiscint sin. Fé mar a dúirt leat, beidh fáilte romhat nuair a bheas tú saor chun teacht ar nais go dtí an bhfoireann.

  Translation:

  Because of the uncertainty of your trip to America, it was hard to cast you in any play that would last until Christmas. Therefore I think the best arrangement is for you to resign from the company on a temporary basis. I accept your letter of resignation on that basis. As I told you, you are welcome to come back to the company whenever you are free to do so.

  Judging from the correspondence it seems that my parents went to New York in November and while they were away, my father’s mother, Granny Macken as we called her, took care of us.

  Here is a letter from Macmillan which was sent to my father at the end of November, while he was in the USA. It was sent to his agent, Ruth May, who had been appointed on Macmillan’s recommendation. They felt that now that Rain On The Wind was successful, he needed to have a literary agent, so they found Ruth May for him. She represented him while he was in the USA working.

  Macmillan & Co. Ltd.

  28th November 1950

  Walter Macken, Esq.,

  c/o Miss Ruth May,

  83 Perry Street,

  New York.

  Dear Macken,

  Thank you for your letter telling me that the moguls of Broadway have ordered you to New York immediately. I know you must have arrived safely, because you are one of the most fortunate men I have met in a life-time. I have two further pieces of good news to give you, one of which you may have already heard from the New York Macmillan Company. I had a letter from Mr Latham this morning to say that ‘Rain on the Wind’ has been chosen by the Literary Guild for May of next year. This means a fantastically large circulation, and a considerable sum of money for you, so that that cottage in Connemara should now be within reach.

  The other piece of good news is that the ‘Reprint Society’ here, which distributes a book a month to 170,000 readers, has chosen ‘Rain on the Wind’ for distribution some time in 1952. The royalty payable on these copies, which are supplied to members at a reduced rate, is 2d, which will mean for you a minimum of £1,300. You will have to start thinking of consulting a tax expert to make sure that these payments are spread as much as possible.

  I look forward to hearing news of how you are getting on in New York. I begin to think that you bring good fortune, and that the play is bound to be a success.

  Yours sincerely,

  Lovat Dickson

  My father wrote an article for the Reprint Book Society magazine, in England, around this time. This article summarises a lot of what was going on in his life for the past ten years, but also demonstrates his self-effacing humour:

  The town of Galway in which I was born is divided into two distinct halves, the townspeople and the Claddagh people. I was a townie but I always admired the tall men of the Claddagh with their black boats and their blue gansies. They seemed to me always to be superior beings in every way. Some of their sons were at school with us, brainy boys with scholarships.

  One always seemed conscious of the Claddagh in Galway. If you went for a walk along the promenade you would see the black sails on the bay. Any house in the town with an extra storey could view the Bay, always there would be the black boat coming or going on it. Someday, I said, I will try and write about the Claddagh and what it means. That was in the palmy days when you knew you were going to be a writer although you had nothing concrete to back it up except a scarifying short story written at the age of twelve which had actually been turned down by a well-known English newspaper. Imagine! I have never forgiven that newspaper. At seventeen the Abbey Theatre refused to put on a three-act masterpiece, and had the colossal nerve to return it, actually pointing out what was wrong with it. The only thing that was wrong with it that I saw was that it was written in longhand, all two hundred and fifty pages of it and that was the third writing. That was the time I abandoned writing for good.

  I had the misfortune to be born with another talent, for the stage. I decided to indulge this when a cynical world couldn’t see what it was missing, so while still struggling hard at school, throwing off education like a duck’s feather, I became part of the small Gaelic Theatre in Galway where people had the vanity to produce plays in a dead language called Irish. The plays were good, only the best translated into Irish. Nobody much came to see them but we had a wonderful time trying to be concise in a spoken language, while thinking in basic English. The fact that original plays written in English were translated into Irish was a wonderful method of finding out the real meaning of the author’s intention. I recommend to the student of Shakespeare trying to translate him into another tongue. He’ll know exactly what he meant or he will end up in a lunatic asylum.

  The writing business cropped up again when I made the discovery that I could actually type with three fingers. The art of typewriting was acquired by taking the portable typewriter in the theatre to pieces and putting it back together again.

  First one had to get married because one loved the girl and her father didn’t love me. Two happy years in London trying to sell insurance to people who spoke English with peculiar accents, totally unlike the correct way of speaking we Irish use. Two pounds ten a week and the slow acquisition of the gift of the gab. Those were lovely times, when Devon baskets were a shilling, cheese cakes two pence halfpenny, and turkeys nine bob a head.

  We left London with a son and a second-hand typ
ewriter so now there was really no excuse left. Went back to the first love, the Gaelic Theatre, and experimented to heart’s content on account of being the boss. The most extraordinary plays found themselves being translated into Irish. In order to be original the boss had to write a few plays in Irish himself. The three-act plays earned him the colossal sum of £45. Decided that Irish was grand, but if you must eat then it would have to be in English. So wrote a play for the Abbey and a novel and another play and then, feeling that time was up, went and became a member of the Abbey Theatre players after eight years in Galway. Away from it all, one began to see the black sails on the waters of the bay at home.

  One made comparisons between this poor metropolis and the place at home and I think that it was out of this bit of home-sickness that the image of ‘Rain on the Wind’ grew. It had been tinkered with before in a play in Irish called ‘Oighreacht na Mara’ (Heritage of the Sea) which you will never read unless you have the Gaeilge. One found one had to abandon the Abbey Theatre to write the book, and having no money left had to go and act in a play on Broadway to try and keep the wolf away. Anyhow it was done.

  For me it was a sincere effort to picture the background of a place I like, peopled by people I admire. I don’t know what you will think of it, but some of the little people at home I like, liked it, and what was better still, got a kick out of it. The fact that you are reading it is incidental, pleasantly so, but incidental, because it was written for the little men at home, and that may be you too, because I think that should be the highest ambition of all of us, in these peculiar days, to be little men at home and let the atomaniacs [those who write automatically with no feelings] get on with it.

  In New York, they were met by the producer Michael Grace, who had booked them into a hotel. When Michael told his brother Peter and his wife Marjory that they were in New York, they insisted on meeting my parents. (Peter was the chief executive of Grace Corporation, a multi-national company with thousands of employees.) They insisted my father and mother stay with them at their large house in Manhasset, Long Island. It was to this address that Lovat Dickson’s next letter was sent, containing exciting news:

  7th December 1950

  Walter Macken Esq.,

  c/o Michael Grace Esq.,

  Tullaroan,

  Manhasset,

  Long Island.

  Dear Macken,

  Thank you for your letter of November 29th telling me of your call to the New York Macmillan office. By the same mail I had a letter from Mr Latham giving me his account of the visit and of the lunch you had at the office on the day following.

  I gather from Mr Latham’s letter that he told you the terms of the Literary Guild contract. This carries a guarantee of $30,000 on account of a royalty of 15 cents per copy and the guarantee covers a sale of 200,000 copies. The New York Macmillan office are entitled to half that amount, so that $15,000 will be transferred to us here. Under the terms of our contract with you, we are entitled to keep 20% commission on your one-half share of the proceeds, but my fellow directors are all of the opinion that we should try and help you as much as possible at this early stage of your career, and we propose therefore to keep only 10% of this amount, and 10% on the ordinary trade sale made in America. I hope this will please you.

  Alas the Double Taxation Agreement between the United States and Éire has not yet been signed, so that you will not be able to claim exemption from tax, but perhaps by the time the money has been received the Agreement will have been signed. It has been on the point of signature for a long time, but something seems to be holding it up in Washington.

  Miss Ruth May [Dad’s agent] tells me that you not only have a large house, but a Cadillac car and chauffeur put at your disposal in America. You are doing very well, and I shall hope for a letter when you have the time telling me what you think of it all.

  With all good wishes,

  Lovat Dickson

  Lovat Dickson wrote a further letter to my father in Long Island at the end of that same month:

  29th December 1950

  Dear Macken,

  Thank you so much for your letter of December 20th, which I received when the office opened again after the Christmas holidays. I can well understand your feeling of unattachedness at being separated from your family for the first time this Christmas, and that feeling must have been especially accentuated by the rather brilliant gloss given to Christmas festivities in New York. I hope that rehearsals have started by now, and that your feeling of homesickness is mitigated to some extent by your work.

  If the play settles in for a long run, I will enter a subscription for you to the airmail edition of ‘The Times’ which I believe arrives in New York within twelve hours of issue. ‘The Times’ isn’t always right, and its Irish news is not as full as you would wish, but I dare say it will serve if you read it in conjunction with the American papers. I am sending you two copies of ‘Rain on the Wind’ and ‘Mungo’s Mansion’. Just let me know if you want any more.

  With all best wishes for the New Year.

  Yours sincerely,

  Lovat Dickson

  The King of Friday’s Men had to be tested in smaller theatres in provincial areas, including Boston, New Haven and Rhode Island, before coming to Broadway and it was due at the Playhouse Theatre in New York on 21 February. My parents wrote to us regularly and here my grandmother replied to them in January 1951:

  31 Ardpatrick Road,

  Cabra.

  January 24th 1951

  Dear Peggy and Wally,

  I received your letter. I’m glad you are both keeping well, you are sure getting some travelling around. However, we will not feel now until February then into May [sic] and you’ll be home soon after that.

  The boys are keeping fine, Thank God. You need not worry about that. You will be glad to hear that Ultan has not wet his bed now for over a week. I got him to pray to St Philomena every night; as he says his prayer, I say one too. It looks like as if she answered our prayers.

  Let us know about the play. I keep on wondering how it will go over there. There is not much to write about, we never see anybody, nobody calls. The weather today is mild but there is no drying out as there is no breeze to dry the clothes. The girls in the chemist were asking for you, of course envying you, wishing they were in your place. I cannot think of anything else to say at the moment. Glad to know you are both keeping well. There was a small bomb thrown at the British Embassy here, because the British had sent Dutch army men to the north to be trained.

  Wally Óg will write tonight,

  Love Mother

  On 29 January 1951, The King of Friday’s Men opened in a Boston theatre. The cast included Rex O’Malley as Gaisceen, Maggie Mc-Namara as Una Brehony, Norma Crane as Maura Pender, and Frederic Tozere as Caesar French. The stage manager was Windsor Lewis. When my father was in these places, he was invited to give public talks, and he gave one in Boston on 11 February at the Copley Plaza Hotel, the subject was ‘The Abbey Theatre and Present Day Ireland’.

  While they were in America, my parents met up with what they called ‘the aunts’, my grandfather Walter S. Macken’s sisters, who had all emigrated to the USA. Sabina Walsh, whose mother Margaret was one of my grandfather’s older sisters, phoned them while they were in Boston and wrote them a letter to follow up her phone call:

  162 Dermott Avenue,

  Rockville Centre NY.

  February 11th 1951

  Dear Walter,

  I was so delighted when I spoke to you on the phone that I fear I was a trifle incoherent. I know how joyful Mother would be. She was sceptical about you being in America. She planned to write but is too excited.

  Walter do not fear bombardment by your cousins here, as by and large they are not clannish. I am the exception – and also I know how very much it means to Mother. We anticipate seeing you and knowing you when you come to New York. In preference to staying at a hotel, you could stay here with us. We would love it and I think Peggy might prefer the subu
rban atmosphere to the metropolitan. Contact us when you arrive here. We will await your call eagerly.

  Yours sincerely,

  Sabina Walsh

  P.S. This just occurred to me for clarification.

  Walter Stephen Macken

  Mary Jane Rodgers (grandparents)

  Mary, Kate, Pat,

  1883 Margaret (Sabina’s mother)

  Birdie, Nannie

  Tom

  1888 Walter – (your father – )

  Michael

  John (and Hannah (John’s first wife)) (my godparents).

  My parents were delighted to meet the aunts. Sabina organised a party and they all came to meet my mother and father. Many years later I learned that there was great anticipation among the aunts about meeting their brother’s son. One of them told Sabina afterwards: ‘He is a disappointment, he is nothing like his father, he is not as handsome or as outgoing as his father was, nor is he as good a singer.’ Of course she never told my father this. It was a great experience for my parents to meet them and they became great friends with Sabina and her husband.

  News came in February 1951 that a Dutch edition of I Am Alone had been published and on 21 February 1951, The King of Friday’s Men opened at the Playhouse Theatre. My father felt it would be a flop; he watched as the cast was chopped and changed after each venue, trying to improve its prospects. The reviews of the play were harsh; here is an extract from one:

  ‘The King of Friday’s Men’ (by Michael Molloy, produced by Michael Grace) is about as Irish as plays come – even out of Dublin’s famous Abbey Theatre. It is a gaudily romantic period piece about a homely 18th century shillelagh fighter who turns up in the west of Ireland just as a great landlord is about to seize a pretty young peasant girl for his pleasure. When the girl (Maggie McNamara) pretends love for the brawny shillelagh-swinging Dowd (Walter Macken), he cheerfully whips the landlord’s entire press gang. But though Dowd eventually wins the girl’s love, the landlord schemes so that he does not win the girl.