HUGH LEONARD, with typically acerbic wit, once said that “the problem with Ireland is that it’s a country full of genius, but with absolutely no talent”. Leonard himself was a man of many talents – first and foremost as a writer for stage, but also for television and film and as a memoirist.
As for genius, he earned that accolade too when one of his early theatrical successes, Stephen D – a dramatisation of Joyce’s Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man – was described as such by Bernard Levin, when the play transferred to the London stage.
Leonard wrote serious plays with popular appeal, a rare distinction in modern theatre. He was, essentially, a champion of "the theatre of a good night out". Even though his work has been widely performed and achieved critical success in London and on Broadway where he was the first Irish playwright to win a Tony, his stature as a dramatist has, perhaps, never been given the recognition it deserves in Ireland. In that regard, his cantankerous persona may have been an obstacle, but at least two of his plays – the autobiographical Daand A Life– will endure as classics and ensure his reputation.
In these and other plays he conjured a wonderful sense of place, particularly when he brought his much cherished Dalkey to life on the stage; the small Co Dublin town where he spent most of his later life was, he once wrote, a place that existed “out of ordinary time: a kind of Irish Brigadoon without the mists”.
One of the most prolific of Irish writers, Leonard was, for year after year, a stalwart of the Dublin Theatre Festival as well as favourite of the amateur drama movement.
While the stage was his central preoccupation, he devoted much of his considerable energy to adopting literary works for the screen — a skill at which he showed a master's touch with his version of James Plunkett's epic novel Strumpet City.
While the setting for his plays was local, his themes were universal; a lampooning of contemporary Ireland was often combined with a wistful yearning for a bygone time. Behind his sharp tongue and prickly personality – characteristics he bestowed on some of the characters he created for the stage – there was a deep and experienced insight into human nature and its foibles.
Above all, he was a superb storyteller and observer of social change, with an ear for dialogue that gave sparkle to many of his plays. In the midst of the sparkle, though, there was always hard honesty.