Cheerio, Titan: The Friendship Between George Bernard Shaw, Sean O'Casey and Eileen O'Casey - Hardcover

In this portrait of a friendship, Shaw takes center stage by force of character, blowing buffets of wit at the milder-mannered O'Caseys and everyone else (Yeats; Irish literary and theater grand dame Lady Isabella Gregory) who strays into his path. The seminal Irish playwright O'Casey and Irish-born polymath dramatist G.B.S. apparently met by mail when O'Casey asked Shaw to write a preface for his Three Shouts on a Hill . The request was politely declined, but Shaw became a lifelong ally, whose loyalty was especially appreciated when Dublin's Abbey Theatre declined to produce O'Casey's controversial play, The Silver Tassle . Shaw and wife Charlotte intervened in the O'Caseys' lives in many ways, offering strong-minded suggestions on their children's schooling, on whether Eileen O'Casey should continue to work as an actress and on how O'Casey himself might curb his tongue. Though affably written, the memoir is a sketchy, chatty, sometimes excessively coy account by the playwright's wife. Photos not seen by PW .
Copyright 1989 Reed Business Information, Inc.

O'Casey writes about the friendship of two great Irish playwrights, her husband Sean and G.B. Shaw. She shows us for the first time the extent of this friendship and describes Shaw's strong support of O'Casey's work. The book quotes letters by Yeats, Lady Gregory, and, most notably, by Shaw and Sean O'Casey, some previously unpublished. The most engaging sections record Eileen O'Casey's own relationship with Shaw, including two meetings during the playwright's final illness. Informative and charming, this brief memoir will appeal to readers with a special interest in Shaw and O'Casey or in the development of modern Irish drama.
- Michael Hennessy, Southwest Texas State Univ., San Marcos
Copyright 1989 Reed Business Information, Inc.