Young Cassidy (1965)

Michael Redgrave: W.B. Yeats

Photos 

Quotes 

• W.B. Yeats : You're young Cassidy, and that makes your passion effortless and artless. Think towards the day when you are old and the passion is painful and remorseless. What you have now has given you pity. What you must one day find will give you compassion. Age, the winter days, make the chill of the frost as compelling as the heat of the sun. Lovers look towards the time of day when the sun goes down. But give a thought to the time, when as an old man, you'll be surprised to see the sun come up. The warmth of your girl's body inspires you now, Cassidy. There will be a time when you must be inspired by the Artic waste. Prepare for that.

• W.B. Yeats : Mr. Cassidy, you have great talent, an uneasy talent, but, a voice that must and should be heard. Pay no attention to the poor attendance in the house tonight. Our city is not famous for its welcome to the new. Ignore the fatuous reviews of your play that you will undoubtedly read on waking tomorrow morning. Oh, keep the faith. Be steady in your art. We will look to the future together. Your view of life and subject matter alarm me; but, this doesn't matter. The art of literature and especially of dramatic literature is wide. There is as much vision and mystery in the dirt and the dung as there is in the heavens. A fact I may become a reconciled to when I'm very old man.

• W.B. Yeats : Ah, Cassidy. We need your permission for something. If your play is proceed, action must be taken. Objects are being thrown at the actors. The stage may be stormed. We think it necessary to call in the police.

  John Cassidy : The police? Me call the police against the workers? Never, sir!

  Lady Gregory : My dear boy, such scruples. They're *our* police now. Not English police, anymore.

  John Cassidy : Lady Gregory, they're still the police.

• O'Brien : Yeats, this song at the end of the second act of Cassidy's play, well, its got to come out.

  W.B. Yeats : Why?

  O'Brien : Why? Because its disgusting. And what's more, it's sung by a prostitute!

  W.B. Yeats : It's an obscene, bawdy - *beautiful* song. And it stays in.

• W.B. Yeats : "The Plough and the Stars" is the finest thing you've done. You've written the great play, Cassidy. There's brutality here and tenderness and a kind of humanity that reminds me of - Cassidy you are the Irish Dostoevsky.

  John Cassidy : I'm Johnny Cassidy. Nobody else.

• W.B. Yeats : I am running a theater, not a brothel. I am concerned with good art, not distractions. And Cassidy's play is *excellent* art.

• W.B. Yeats : There are theaters in all the great cities of the world. There's London, New York, Moscow, Berlin, Paris. And as a playwright, Johnny, they all belong to you. Well, be happy. Good night.