Clarke, Austin

Clarke, Austin (1896–1974), Irish poet, dramatist, and novelist, who kept interest in verse drama alive in Ireland during the 20 years following the death of Yeats. His first play, The Son of Learning, was performed at the Cambridge Festival Theatre (see GRAY, TERENCE) in 1927 and the Gate Theatre, Dublin, as The Hunger Demon, in 1930. Two short plays set in a convent, The Flame (1932) and Sister Eucharia (1939), were also staged at the Gate Theatre. Black Fast, a one-act farce based on a medieval debate, was produced by the Abbey Theatre company in 1941. In 1944 Clarke established the Lyric Players to revive poetic drama. Among his own plays produced by this group at the Abbey Theatre were The Viscount of Blarney (1944), The Second Kiss (1946), As the Crow Flies (1948), and The Plot Succeeds (1950), a ‘poetic pantomime’. Although many of Clarke's plays are set in medieval or legendary Ireland and reflect the satirical tone of early Irish writers, his works comment thoughtfully and provocatively on contemporary issues, probing the conflict between faith and reason and between individual conscience and established teaching.