Denis Johnston
Denis Johnston | |
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war correspondence |
(William) Denis Johnston (18 June 1901 – 8 August 1984) was an
Early life
Johnston was the only child of William John Johnston from Magherafelt, a barrister (later an Irish Supreme Court judge), and his wife, Kathleen (née King), a teacher and singer from Belfast.[1] They were Presbyterians and liberal home rulers. Johnston was to see the family home in Dublin occupied by rebels during the 1916 Easter rising.[2]
Johnston was educated at St Andrew's College, Dublin (1908–15, 1917–19), and Merchiston Castle School, Edinburgh (1915–16). In 1918, he attempted to join Sinn Féin, offering to supply the party with weapons taken from his Officer Training Corps. In 1922, while reading history and law at Christ's College, Cambridge (1919–23) he tried to enlist in the civil-war Free State army. He went on to study at the Harvard Law School (1923–4) and entered King's Inns (Dublin) and the Inner Temple (London).[2]
In London, developing his interest in the theatre, Johnston abandoned plans for legal and political career.[2]
Career
Johnston was a protégé of
"Passionate in his radical scepticism and loathing of what he saw as the pernicious influence of the Roman Catholic Church",
This was at a time of heightened clerical militancy and as soon the meeting place of the Society (from which it distributed the British journal The Freethinker) was exposed, it had to shift to private houses outside of Dublin. In 1936 Johnson and the other members wound the society up and donated the proceeds to the government of the beleaguered Spanish Republic.[4] Johnston had become a recognised man of the left: in 1930 he had joined the Irish Friends of Soviet Russia, and though never a party member, until as late as the 1950s he professed faith in a communist future.[2]
During the
Johnston later moved to the United States and taught at
Denis and actress Shelah Richards were the parents of Jennifer Johnston, a respected novelist and playwright, and a son, Micheal.[8] His second wife was the actress Betty Chancellor, with whom he had two sons, Jeremy and Rory.[9]
Critical acclaim
Hilton Edwards, who first directed The Old Lady Says "No!", said that the script "read like a railway guide and played like Tristan and Isolde."[10]
Reviewing The Moon in the Yellow River in
Johnston's war memoir Nine Rivers from Jordan reached The New York Times' Best Seller list and was cited in the World Book Encyclopedia's 1950s article on World War II under "Books to Read", along with Churchill, Eisenhower et al.[14] Joseph Ronsley cites an unnamed former CBS Viet Nam correspondent who called the book the "Bible", carrying it with him constantly, "reading it over and over in the field during his tour of duty."[15]
In a profile in the New Yorker in 1938, Clifford Odets is quoted as saying that the only playwrights he admired were John Howard Lawson, Sean O’Casey, and Denis Johnston.[16]
Johnston's tribute to Dublin, "Strumpet city in the sunset," from the closing speech of The Old Lady says "No!", has achieved its own fame. James Plunkett titled his epic novel of Dublin before the First World War Strumpet City. And a travel guide written by Harvard students in introducing Dublin made a classic misattribution: "James Joyce loved his 'Strumpet city in the sunset'."[17]
The Denis Johnston Playwriting Prize is awarded annually by Smith College Department of Theatre for the best play, screenplay or musical written by an undergraduate at Smith, Mount Holyoke, Amherst and Hampshire Colleges and the University of Massachusetts Amherst. The prize was endowed by his former student at Smith, Carol Sobieski.
Works
Stage Plays
Synopses of the plays can be found at Denis Johnston on Irish Playography.
- The Old Lady Says "No!" (1929)
- The Moon in the Yellow River (1931)
- A Bride for the Unicorn (1933)
- Storm Song (1934)
- Blind Man's Buff (1936) (with Ernst Toller)
- The Golden Cuckoo (1939)
- The Dreaming Dust (1940)
- A Fourth for Bridge (1948)
- 'Strange Occurrence on Ireland's Eye' (1956)
- Tain Bo Cuailgne – Pageant of Cuchulainn (1956)
- The Scythe and the Sunset (1958)
Biography
- In Search of Swift (1959)
- John Millington Synge (Columbia University Press 1965)
Autobiography
- Nine Rivers from Jordan (1953)
- Orders and Desecrations (1992) (ed. Rory Johnston)
Non-fiction
- The Brazen Horn (1976)
Opera libretti
- Nine Rivers from Jordan (1968)
Adaptations for the stage
- Six Characters in Search of an Author (1950) (translation from Pirandello)
- Finnegans Wake (1959) (from Joyce)
Films
- Guests of the Nation (1935) (director)
- Riders to the Sea (1935) (acted the part of Michael)
- Ourselves Alone (1936)
- The True Story of Lilli Marlene (1944)
Bibliography
- Adams, Bernard. Denis Johnston: A Life. Lilliput Press, 2002.
- Barnett, Gene A. Denis Johnston. Twayne's English Authors Series No. 230. G.K. Hall & Co., 1978.
- Ferrar, Harold. Denis Johnston's Irish Theatre. Dolmen Press, 1973.
- Igoe, Vivien. A Literary Guide to Dublin. Methuen, 1994.
- Johnston, Denis. The Dramatic Works of Denis Johnston (3 vols.). Colin Smythe, 1979.
- Ronsley, Joseph, ed., Denis Johnston: a retrospective. Irish Literary Studies No. 8, Colin Smythe, Barnes & Noble Books, 1981.
References
- ^ Gageby, Patrick (2009). "Johnston, William John | Dictionary of Irish Biography". www.dib.ie. Retrieved 17 October 2022.
- ^ a b c d Maume, Patrick (2009). "Johnston, (William) Denis | Dictionary of Irish Biography". www.dib.ie. Retrieved 17 October 2022.
- ^ O'Kelly, Emer (2002). "A life twice lived but only half-covered". independent. Retrieved 17 October 2022.
- ^ a b Donal (30 November 2015). "The Secular Society of Ireland: Divorce, Birth Control and other tricky issues in 1930s Dublin". Come Here To Me!. Retrieved 17 October 2022.
- ^ "Anti-Clerical Organise: Stated Aims of New Dublin Society". Irish Press. 17 January 1934. Retrieved 17 October 2022.
- ^ "WAR CORRESPONDENTS IN ITALY, 1944-1945". Imperial War Museums. Retrieved 17 October 2022.
- ^ "VE Day: Denis Johnston reports from Bavaria". BBC Archive. Retrieved 17 October 2022.
- ^ "A shaper of sophisticated stories". Irishtimes.com. 9 January 2010. Retrieved 16 July 2016.
- ^ Clarke, Frances (2009). "Chancellor, (Lilias) Betty". In McGuire, James; Quinn, James (eds.). Dictionary of Irish Biography. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
- ^ Ronsley, Joseph, ed., Denis Johnston: a retrospective. Irish Literary Studies No. 8, Colin Smythe, Barnes & Noble Books, 1981, p. 5
- ^ "The Moon in the Yellow River". The New York Times. 13 March 1932. p. sec. 8 p.1.
- ^ Howard Taubman, "The Theatre: Irish Irony; Johnston's 'Moon in the Yellow River' Revived." New York Times. February 7, 1961
- ^ Denis Ireland (1936) From the Irish Shore: Notes on My Life and Times (London Rich & Cowan). p. 209
- ^ World Book Encyclopedia, Field Enterprises Educational Corporation, 1959, Vol. 18 p. 8927
- ^ Ronsley op. cit., p. vii
- ^ New Yorker Jan. 22 1938 p. 27
- ^ Let’s Go Britain and Ireland. E.P. Dutton 1978
External links
- Denis Johnston fonds at University of Victoria, Special Collections
- Denis Johnston at IMDbIncludes details on the plays broadcast on TV and production photos.
- Denis Johnston at Irish Writers Online
- Denis Johnston on Irish Playography
- Biography on Ricorso
- Denis Johnston in Dictionary of Irish Biography [1]