Sir, - The review of the play Good Evening Mr Collins in The Irish Times said it was "always playful and often painfully funny". I found the play amusing and entertaining - the acting and production were first-class - but I thought that the play itself had a fundamental defect: it was a one dimensional picture of a great Irishman. It showed Collins the terrorist, Collins the womaniser and his addiction to horseplay.
This was not the Collins who was recognised by the English as one of the two real leaders of the Treaty negotiations - Griffith was the other - which were surely the apex of Collins's life. He was a highly intelligent man and the play lacked a soliloquy which would show the inner, thoughtful Collins - the Collins who, at one of AE's intellectual soirees, after listening to AE's metaphysical meandering for a while, leaned forward, tapped him on the knee and said: "Your point, Mr Russell?"
There is nothing of the Treaty negotiations which would have shown Collins's real stature - a statesman who founded the Irish State. Even an incident such as the farewell handshake between Collins and Birkenhead, when Birkenhead said: "I have signed my political death warrant", and Collins replied saying, "I have signed my own death warrant", would have added to his dimension.
The play was apparently reviewed by the Sunday Times - "Brilliant, see it twice" (I did not read the review). It seems a pity that the English should see this depiction of Collins, which is reminiscent of their own common portrayal of Parnell as the Irish politician who charmed the drawers off Kitty O'Shea. - Yours, etc.,
Blackrock,
Co Dublin.