Sean O'Casey and the Road to Expressionism

STUDENTS OF SEAN O'CASEY generally agree that his plays describe a course of technical development from naturalism to expressionism. The point of definite change of genre is usually established as the second act of The Silver Tassie (1928). Shortly after the first performance of the play, Curtis Canfield wrote: "In The Silver Tassie [O'Casey] gives evidence of relinquishing a medium and a method in which he was most effective for the sake of a different subject matter and a different technique .... The Silver Tassie opens in the familiar Dublin tenement but the last acts move away from realism into the realm of philosophic expressionism." A decade later, the same interpretation persisted. For example, Walter Starkie commented that in The Silver Tassie O'Casey '1eft behind the plays of his former manner, and he began to grope towards new dramatic values. . . . The first act is written in true O'Casey manner—there is movement, there is life: the characters are real beings .... The second act, which is set in the trenches 'somewhere in France: is a queer, fantastic scene that recalls slightly the dream play in Masses and Men by Toller." After still another decade, S. Marion Tucker and Alan S. Downer were indicating that in The Silver Tassie O'Casey ''began experimenting with form and trying his hand at expressionism." And so on. Numerous other examples could be offered.