This article commemorates the 120th anniversary of the premiere of Lady Gregory's play, 'Spreading the News,' which opened the Abbey Theatre in Dublin on December 27th, 1904. The play, a comedy based on an absurd rumour, was well-received by the audience and praised for its lively pace and witty portrayal of Irish life.
The leading actor, Willie Fay, said that the cast had put tremendous pace into the comedy – 'the pace of a hard football match'. Well over a century before fake news began to poison societies and imperil democracies, an absurd false rumour was the basis of a play that was staged for the first time at the opening night of the Abbey Theatre in Dublin.
“Aided by the infirmity of a deaf old applewoman, the story gets monstrously distorted and presently it blossoms into an accusation of wilful murder” against an innocent man, noted The Irish Times review of the premiere 120 years ago this month. Spreading the News was the third of three one-act plays staged as the opening performances of the Irish National Theatre at the Abbey on Tuesday December 27th, 1904. It was preceded by On Baile’s Strand by William Butler Yeats and by Cathleen Ni Houlihan, by Yeats and Lady Augusta Gregory – both Abbey Theatre co-founders. “Having got a liberal instalment of serious drama, the audience were in a mood to appreciate a sprightly bit of comedy”, the review said of Spreading the News, the first play that Lady Gregory wrote on her own. “It is a tripping little piece, founded on a simple idea of modern Irish life, but yielding in its short compass abundance of rich comedy” and it was “very favourably received”, added The Irish Times review.Influenza prevented Lady Gregory from attending the performance, but the leading actor, Willie Fay, announced from the stage after the final curtain that she would be told of “the hearty appreciation of the audience”. He added later that the cast had put tremendous pace into the play – 'the pace of a hard football match'. After a subsequent performance Lady Gregory thought that the audience laughed so much that they missed nearly half of the dialogue. She said that it was the audience’s reaction, not that of the critic, that was the test of a play’s failure or succes
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