The impulse to which were due the Independent theatre, the Stage Society and the Vedrenne-Barker management, combined with local influences to bring about the foundation in Dublin of the Irish National theatre. Its moving spirit was the poet W. B. Yeats (b. 1865), who wrote for it _Cathleen-ni-Hoolihan_, _The Hour-Glass_, _The King's Threshold_ and one or two other plays. Lady Gregory, Padraic Collum, Boyle and other authors also contributed to the repertory of this admirable little theatre; but its most notable products were the plays of J. M. Synge (1871-1909), whose _Riders to the Sea_, _Well of the Saints_ and _Playboy of the Western World_ showed a fine and original dramatic faculty combined with extraordinary beauty of style.
Both in Manchester and in Glasgow endeavours have been made, with considerable success, to counteract the evils of the touring system, by the establishment of resident companies acting the better class of modern plays on a "short-run" plan, similar to that of the Vedrenne-Barker management. The Manchester enterprise was to some extent subsidized by Miss E. Horniman, and may therefore claim to be the first endowed theatre in England. The need for endowment on a much larger scale was, however, strongly advocated in the early years of the 20th century by the more progressive supporters of English drama, and in 1908 found a place in the scheme for a Shakespeare National theatre, which was then superimposed on the earlier proposal for a memorial commemorating the Shakespeare tercentenary, organized by an influential committee under the chairmanship of the Lord Mayor of London. The scheme involved the raising of £500,000, half to be devoted to the requisite site and building, while the remainder would be invested so as to furnish an annual subvention.
It remains to say a few words of the English literary drama, as opposed to the acted drama. The two classes are not nearly so distinct as they once were; but plays continue to be produced from time to time which are wholly unfitted for the theatre, and others which, though they may be experimentally placed on the stage, make their appeal rather to the reading public. Tennyson had essayed in his old age an art which is scarcely to be mastered after the energy of youth has passed. He continued to the last to occupy himself more or less with drama, and all his plays, except _Harold_, found their way to the stage. _The Cup_ and _Becket_, as we have seen, met with a certain success, but _The Promise of May_ (1882), an essay in contemporary drama, was a disastrous failure, while _The Falcon_ (1879) and _The Foresters_ (acted by an American company in 1893) made little impression. Lord Tennyson was certainly not lacking in dramatic faculty, but he worked in an outworn form which he had no longer the strength to renovate. Swinburne continued now and then to cast his creations in the dramatic mould, but it cannot be said that his dramas attained either the vitality or the popularity of his lyrical poems. _Mary Stuart_ (1881) brought his Marian trilogy to a close. In _Locrine_ he produced a tragedy in heroic couplets--a thing probably unattempted since the age of Dryden. _The Sisters_ is a tragedy of modern date with a medieval drama inserted by way of interlude. _Rosamund, Queen of the Lombards_ (1899), perhaps approached more nearly than any of his former works to the concentration essential to drama. It may be doubted, however, whether his copious and ebullient style could ever really subject itself to the trammels of dramatic form. Of other dramas on the Elizabethan model, the most notable, perhaps, were the works of two ladies who adopt the pseudonym of "Michael Field"; _Callirrhoë_ (1884), _Brutus Ultor_ (1887), and many other dramas, show considerable power of imagination and expression, but are burdened by a deliberate artificiality both of technique and style. Alfred Austin put forth several volumes in dramatic form, such as _Savonarola_ (1881), _Prince Lucifer_ (1887), _England's Darling_ (1896), _Flodden Field_ (1905). They are laudable in intention and fluent in utterance. Notable additions to the purely literary drama were made by Robert Bridges in his _Prometheus_ (1883), _Nero_ (1885), _The Feast of Bacchus_ (1889), and other solid plays in verse, full of science and skill, but less charming than his lyrical poems. Sir Lewis Morris made a dramatic experiment in _Gycia_, but was not encouraged to repeat it.