BACK PAGES: To mark our 150th anniversary we take a daily tour through our archive. Today's date: APRIL 6, 1912
THE THEATRE Royal in Dublin re-opened on Easter Saturday, April 6th, 1912, with a production of Kismet: An Arabian Night after being closed for most of Holy Week. Not everybody was pleased, however, least of all the 30-year-old writer Padraic Colum, who thought the London production bore a startling resemblance to his own play The Desert which he had written five years earlier and submitted to several London theatres.
"Literary coincidences are generally brought about by what the theosophists call the 'tatuas' - that is, the world impulses," he wrote in a letter to The Irish Times. In a follow-up letter, published in this day's paper
in 1912, he summoned up the support of some of the best-known theosophists of the day - believers in a mystical philosophy very popular in the early 20th century among literary figures and intellectuals. The word plagiarism never figured anywhere in print.
Sir, - With reference to the letter which you were good enough to publish in the columns of The Irish Times on Tuesday last, I have been led to think that the correspondences between my play and the play about to be produced in the Theatre Royal are due to certain psychic phenomena. In the intellectual world such psychic phenomena often occur, and as it may be of interests to have a record of the present case, I have formed a committee who are prepared to regard the matter in a disinterested spirit. In order to make a comparison easy I am having my play, The Desert, printed. The gentlemen who have agreed to act on the committee are - Mr WB Yeats, Mr Geo W Russell, Mr Edward Martyn, Lord Dunsany, Professor Kettle, Professor Donovan, the Editor of The Irish Times, and the Editor of the Freeman's Journal. - Yours, etc,
Padraic Colum,
2 Frankfort Place,
Upper Rathmines,
April 5th, 1912
Whatever about the editors of the newspapers, the literary figures on his committee were mostly practising theosophists and another of his committee, Prof Kettle, was already on his side, presumably being the same TM Kettle who had written the next letter in this day's paper.
Sir, - I have been much interested to learn that the play Kismet is to be produced in Dublin and to read Mr Padraic Colum's letter of Tuesday last. As it happens that I know the inner history of Mr Colum's own play, The Desert, I venture to add some chronological facts to his statement. Mr Column had spoken constantly to me about The Desert from 1907; in the spring of 1908 he showed me the first draft, afterwards re-written; and in the winter of 1908 I saw the final version. I happen to know that from this date on the MS was going the rounds of various London theatres.
Kismet, I am informed, was first produced in the spring of 1911. On reading a description
of it I was so struck by the astounding resemblance of the idea, the catastrophe, and the setting of it to those of The Desert that I at once recommended Mr Colum to make an inquiry into the strangest case of coincidence in literature that I have ever encountered.
The printed version of The Desert, which is now available, will enable your readers to make the comparison for themselves, - Yours, etc,
TM Kettle,
28 Northumberland road,
Dublin,
April 5th, 1912
Whatever the eventual outcome, Kismet attracted packed houses. To read their letters, reports on what people did on Good Friday in 1912 and how they were coping with a coal strike click here www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/archive/1912/0406/Pg008.html