Sean Walsh

Veil Reviewed

1966. A single typewritten page of A 4.  A lecturer in English at Queen’s University, Belfast, penned the following:

 Department of English, Queen’s University, Belfast.   1966.

 

VEIL by Sean Walsh

 

The idea of approaching the significance of the Passion obliquely, through the experiences of those who might be regarded as enemies, is good theatre; and the actual denouement is all the more dramatic for not taking place in the presence of the Saviour. In fact, the reality of the Incarnation seems to me properly realised in the movement – Christ’s life becomes dynamic and efficacious in the world…

 The devil’s part, as ever in literature, comes off best here, I think… Sadoc is a very consistent and interesting character whose psychology, though not as inherently interesting as Azarias’s, is made concrete in his machinations. Azarias is a rounded character whose development is at once true and inevitable: we watch a man finding some kind of grace in spite of himself, reaching fulfilment as much through circumstances as through personality – who sees the light in spite of himself, as it were. Ruth, Veronica and Benjamin are all right as straight characters…

 In the main, the speech is attractively dignified and in character. And I think that Misach’s outbreak in the end is the most exciting thing in the play, both as a dramatic device and as speech – after long silence. Misach, incidentally, would be my nominee for the best dramatic figure in the cast.

Definitely a step well beyond the weeping women and the cowering apostles. I was kept reading, which is the most important thing in the end…

– Seamus Heaney.

 Signed.

Seamus who?.. Back then the name did not ring even a wee bell with me. (Excuse my ignorance.)