Paul Vincent Carroll

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Paul Vincent Carroll (1944)
Photo by Carl Van Vechten

Paul Vincent Carroll (10 July 1900 – 20 October 1968) was an Irish dramatist who wrote over 60 plays.

Carroll was born in Blackrock, County Louth, Ireland and received his degree in history from University College, Dublin and settled in Glasgow in 1920. Several of his plays were produced by the Abbey Theatre in Dublin and on Broadway stages. He won two New York Drama Critic's Awards.

Work as a dramatist

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Carroll's plays were about Catholicism in Ireland.[1] Himself a devout Catholic, he nonetheless criticized several aspects of Catholic life in rural Ireland and the idiosyncracies of some clergy.[2] Beyond plays, he also wrote short stories, movie scenarios, and television scripts.

He co-founded in 1932 with Grace Ballantine and Molly Urquhart the Curtain Theatre Company in Glasgow, Scotland and of The Citizens Theatre in the same city.[3] He served as playwright in residence in both.

His play Shadow and Substance won the New York Drama Critic's Award (1938) and The White Steed won the same award in 1939.[4] Critic John Gassner described these as enjoying the status of "best Irish plays" for the next twenty years.[5] Fearing that The White Steed was too anti-clerical for its audience, the Abbey Theatre rejected the play after the writer had finished it in 1938. Audiences at New York's John Golden Theatre, however, found it excellent.[6] Hurt by the Dublin theatre's rejection, Carroll published a dismissal of his former colleagues in a 1939 newspaper publication as "self-appointed magistrates of the arts … some of whom hate the living theatre and fear its full and true interpretive expression."[2] The White Steed went on to enjoy a successful run on Broadway, where it won Carroll a second New York Drama Critics Award.[7]

The Wayward Saint is about an Irish priest who emulates St. Francis of Assisi. It opened at the Cort Theatre in New York in 1955 and closed after 21 performances, a run which critics considered a success.[8]

In 1959, Helena Carroll, the playwright's daughter, organized another production of Shadow and Substance (1937) in New York's Tara Theatre; she played the lead role of Brigid.[9]

In 1972, Carroll's work was the subject of the first issue of The Journal of Irish Literature.[10]

Personal life

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After graduating from St Patrick’s Training College, he first worked in Dundalk as a teacher; his father had been one. He soon left the small school and taught for sixteen years in Glasgow.[2] Carroll and his wife, clothing designer Helena Winifred Reilly (1903–1957) married in Glasgow in 1923 and had three daughters, the youngest was actress Helena Carroll. Paul Vincent Carroll died at age 68 in Bromley, Kent, England.[11]

Works (selection)

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  • The Things That are Caesar's (London, 1934).
  • Shadow and Substance (1937, won the Casement Award and the New York Drama Critics' Circle Award).
  • The White Steed (1939, won Drama Critics’ Circle Award).
  • The Strings Are False (1942, published as The Strings My Lord Are False, 1944).
  • Coggerers (1944, later renamed The Conspirators).
  • The Old Foolishness (1944).
  • The Wise Have Not Spoken (1947).
  • Saints and Sinners 1949.
  • She Went by Gently (1953, *Irish Writing* magazine. Republished in 1955 in 44 Irish Short Stories edited by Devin A. Garrity).
  • The Wayward Saint (1955).

References

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  1. ^ Watts, Richard (18 February 1955). "A Fantasy About a Modern Saint". New York Post. [Carroll] has returned to his favorite subject of the joys and sorrows of the Catholic clergy in Ireland.
  2. ^ a b c Cusack, George (16 January 2015). "Paul Vincent Carroll, a playwright devoutly critical of the Catholic Church". The Irish Times. Retrieved 22 September 2025.
  3. ^ Murdoch, Travelling Hopefully: The Story of Molly Urquhart, Edinburgh, 1981.
  4. ^ "Paul Vincent Carroll". www.ricorso.net. Retrieved 22 September 2025.
  5. ^ Gassner, John (December 1954). "Broadway in Review". Educational Theatre Journal. 6 (4). 335. doi:10.2307/3203511.
  6. ^ Allister, Jan Hill (2023). "Paul Vincent Carroll". EBSCO Research. Retrieved 23 September 2025.
  7. ^ "Past Awards". New York Drama Critic's Circle. Retrieved 22 September 2025.
  8. ^ Zolotow, Sam (4 March 1955). "'WAYWARD SAINT' TO CLOSE SUNDAY". The New York Times. Retrieved 22 September 2025.
  9. ^ Calta, Louis (4 November 1959). "Theatre: Irish Players; 'Shadow and Substance' Presented at Tara". The New York Times. p. 42. Retrieved 23 September 2025.
  10. ^ "Professional Notes and Comment". PMLA. 87 (5). 1144. 1972. ISSN 0030-8129.
  11. ^ Christopher Murray. "Carroll, Paul Vincent". Dictionary of Irish Biography. Retrieved 27 September 2024.
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