Abstract

Theatre, 1956, January, 14

The play "Red Roses for Me," seems to be one of the more successful of Sean O'Casey's later plays. Better balanced than most of the other plays in his second manner, it combines the earthy folk realism of his first work and the later attempt to invest that quality with a more conscious, stylized and exalted lyricism. Perhaps the reason for the comparative success of the fusion lies in the play's dream like quality. The early plays were almost immediate responses to and records of painfully recent occurrences. "Red Roses for Me," written in the forties, is a poet's reminiscence of the old days of struggle, turmoil, aspiration and bitter hope centered in the Dublin transport strike of 1918-1914. It is not actually a strike play, though its slight action deals with that memorable one.