Lennox robinson biography

Lennox Robinson (born Oct. 4, 1886, Douglas, County Cork, Ire. —died Oct. 14, 1958, Dublin) was an.
Esmé Stuart Lennox Robinson (4 October 1886 – 15 October 1958) was an Irish dramatist, poet and theatre producer and director who was involved with the Abbey.
Esmé Stuart Lennox Robinson was an Irish dramatist, poet and theatre producer and director who was involved with the Abbey Theatre.

•

Lennox Robinson Biography

1 minute read

(1886–1958), The Clancy Name, The Whiteheaded Boy, Crabbed Youth and Age, The Lost Leader

Irishplaywright and theatre director, born in Douglas, Co. Cork, the son of a Church of Ireland clergyman, and educated at Bandon Grammer School. After the popular success of his first play, The Clancy Name (1908), he was invited by W. B. Yeats to manage the Abbey Theatre, a position he held from 1910 to 1914 and then from 1919 to 1923, subsequently serving as an influential member of the theatre's board of directors until 1956. His popular comedies The Whiteheaded Boy (1916) and Crabbed Youth and Age (1922) helped the Abbey during an extended period of financial difficulty. In The Lost Leader (1918) and The Big House (1926) he showed that he was also capable of tackling more serious themes arising from Irish political life. Following The Far-Off Hills (1928), Robinson returned to lighthearted comedy with Drama at Inish (1933; retitled Is Life Worth Living?), a play which is a pragmatic portrayal of middle-class rural life appealin

•

Lennox Robinson (1886-1958)

Life

[Esmé Stewart Lennox;] b. 4 Oct., “Westgrove”, Douglas Co. Cork, youngest of seven children of Andrew Craig Robinson, a stockbroker turned clergyman in 1892, and Emily [née Jones]; raised at a rectory in Ballymoney, nr. Ballineen, Co. Cork; dressed in black velvet and lace in childhood; ed. Bandon Grammar School by a private tutor; saw Yeats’s Cathleen Ni Houlihan at Cork Opera Hse., 1907, and became an ardent nationalist and a budding playwright; his first play, The Clancy Name, ran for 3 months in 1908; wrote Cross Roads (Abbey 1909); called foremost of the Cork realists by Yeats and appt. Abbey manager in 1910.

alienated Annie Horniman - the Abbey patron - by his omitting to close the Abbey during the obsequies of Edward VII; she demanded his resignation, 1910; wrote The Patriots (1912), poking fun at harmless ageing Fenians in rural Cork (where it was played at the Opera House and seen by Frank O’Connor with a shock of recognition), and considered his best early play; appt. Organising L

•

Lennox Robinson collection

Collection

Identifier: Manuscript Collection No. 246

Scope and Content Note

This collection consists of 105 items, and is made up of correspondence (75 items) and manuscripts (30 items). The correspondence, which is filed first in the collection, dates from 1953 until the time of his death in 1958 and consists of letters to and from Robinson concerning the Yeats Memorial Fund. The manuscripts which form the remainder of the collection are undated, but seem to have been written shortly after Yeats's death in 1939.

The collection also includes a variety of materials relating to Robinson’s 1956 trip to China to participate in a lecture honoring George Bernard Shaw. Also present are approximately 150 drawings, including stage designs, costume designs, and other sketches, by Dorothy (Dolly) Robinson and, perhaps, others. Among these drawings is a painting for Hyacinth Halvey by Lady Gregory that was designed and painted by Dolly Robinson.

Dates

Language of Materials

Materials entirely in English.

Lennox robinson biography