harrycphibbs

PORTRAIT OF RIA MOONEY, 1928 HARRY KERNOFF RHA (1900-1974) via Hoodworld

At wikipedia. Resident producer at the abbey from 1948 to 63.

The play is by Lady Gregory, from 1904, and was performed at the Abbey as late as 1961 according to its own wikipedia page. Mooney would presumably have been playing Mrs. Fallon.

This, from her impressive life in the deadly Dictionary of Irish Biography, is delicious: "Although she had always wanted to be an actress, she had not been keen to act at the Abbey. Reminiscing in an unpublished autobiography, she alluded to its members, particularly W. B. Yeats and Lennox Robinson, as ‘odd-looking people’."

Born Maria Mooney 30th April 1903.

“Maureen Barry O'Delany (1 December 1888 – 27 March 1961), professionally known as Maureen Delany and also billed as Maureen Delaney, was an Irish stage actress and screen actress of British films”

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maureen_Delany

Nickname was 'Daisy' according to - www.imdb.com/name/nm0216319/

Evidently she over-acted - www.dib.ie/biography/delany-maureen-a9252 -
... Another part which Dublin theatregoers considered she made her own was the Widow Quin in ‘The playboy of the western world’ by J. M. Synge (qv). However, the critic Hugh Hunt (qv), assessing her career, noted that she played all her famous character parts in the same manner: ‘Large, warm-hearted, with a permanent twinkle in her eye . . . Maureen was not a great actress, but she was a superb performer. For over twenty years she was to play herself on the stage without varying her characterisation by a twitch of her eyebrow, to the utter delight of her public’ (Hunt, 118). The Dublin audience's appreciation probably prevented her development and froze her mannerisms; the American critic George Jean Nathan, writing on the Abbey's 1937 American tour, called the company ‘a caricature of its former self . . . [it] is obviously unable to control its fundamentally talented but personally over-cocky actress, Maureen Delany, and to prevent her from indulging in an outrageous overplaying, winking, snorting, and mugging that wreck any serious play she is in’ (Newsweek, 27 Dec. 1937). Her Times obituary noted that the Dublin audience often began to laugh even before she spoke. ...

youtu.be/A6lVN8niepA?si=r0TBjz5kPPx_Uyoq

Reel 1 of 3

She first played this role in 1917, at the Abbey, of course

www.abbeytheatre.ie/archives/production_detail/975/

I don’t see any performances of this play in 1933, but it was performed in 1934

www.abbeytheatre.ie/archives/production_detail/2191/

Arthur Shields at Wikipedia.

Bio on IMDb www.imdb.com/name/nm0793168/bio?ref_=nm_ov_bio_sm

There surely can't be two Harry C. Phibbses? Here is a statement to the Bureau of Military History 1913-21 by at least one Harry C. Phibbs.

Arthur Shields aged 15 in the 1911 census, and Harry Phibbs aged 30.

Here is an oddity via Trove ... Evidently the 'Irish Players' toured Australia in 1922 (11 years before this photo), and included J. M. Synge's 'The Playboy of the Western World' (1907) with Arthur Shields as the Playboy. Interesting to read the contemporary reviews in the newspapers.

... Arthur Shields presents the central role of the play-boy (idler) from West Ireland, with an admirable realisation of the youthful vanity and eloquence of the selfish, lonesome fugitive who wins all the races on the sands, and is adored by the girls. There was a charming scene which owed much to the winsome qualities of the brown-eyed Mair O'Neill, wherein the young poet drew a picture of her after their wedding, "the light o' seven heavens shinin' in her heart" while the girl cooed forth her faith that he was "drawing nearer and nearer to her, like the star o' Gold!" There was no marriage.

From - trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/16006272?searchTerm=Ar... Also - trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/245740763?searchTerm=A...