Despite this, confusion is created: I read that A Cry From Heaven is (quote) ‘a version of Deirdre of the Sorrows by J.M. Synge’, and am livid. The story is older than all of us – as Synge knew so well – and how could anyone have the temerity (or be stupid enough) to write a version of his play. The truth is that I feel Synge’s Deirdre is the weakest of his plays, even allowing for the fact that it wasn’t finished; and I’m not convinced by Yeats’s contention that it would have been the playwright’s ‘masterwork’ if he’d lived to complete it. The language that soars and makes a new music in the other plays seems wrong here and contrived. Declan Kiberd argues that the writing is strongly influenced by Gaelic sources: written (Oidhe Chloinne Uisnigh) and oral (versions Synge may have heard on the Aran Islands); and says that this directness of approach is one reason why his play is more faithful to the legend and more exciting than the Yeats or Russell versions as drama.
