Sir, - I really must (or somebody really must) take issue with Mr Andrew Moore's rejection of the "content" (his word) of Tom McIntyre's play Good Evening, Mr Collins (August 27th). What needs to be explained to Mr Moore is that playwrights, novelists and poets (even, maybe, composers) are not in the business of writing history. They are in the business of creating works of art or, at least, of entertainment.
For example Schiller, in his play about Mary, Queen of Scots, writes a scene in which she meets and argues with Elizabeth I. We know, and so did Schiller, that the two ladies never met. However, Schiller was not letting a detail like that get in the way of fashioning good drama. Later, Donizetti composed his opera Maria Stuatda to a libretto based on Schiller's play.
It seems to me that if the Andrew Moores of this world had their way, we would be deprived of a wonderful play and an equally wonderful opera. And lots more besides (how about Shakespeare's Richard III, for example?)
I believe that the point I have just made answers, equally, Mr Moore's objections to the play on the grounds that it is "distasteful and hurtful" to both sides in the Civil War and to the memory of Collins and de Valera. I cannot see how it can be so to both sides in the Civil War; anyway, hardly any of the protagonists in that particular event are alive today.
As to the reputation of Collins, I fail to see why his attraction to and for the opposite sex, in any way detracts from it. (This is the inference I draw from Mr Moore's letter). Whether or not Collins was Lady Lavery's lover is a matter of his conjecture, not theatre criticism.
De Valera is - I agree, caricatured in the play. But, once again, what we are dealing with is dramatic art, not biography. I never heard or read, by the way, that Dev could play the piano. - Yours, etc.,
Clos des Bergeronnettes,
1300 Limal
Belgium.