{{Short description|Irish dramatist and writer (1900–1968)}} {{Use dmy dates|date=November 2021}} {{Use Irish English|date=November 2021}} [[File:Portrait of Paul Vincent Carroll LCCN2004662676.jpg|thumb|Paul Vincent Carroll (1944) <br>Photo by [[Carl Van Vechten]] ]] '''Paul Vincent Carroll''' (10 July 1900 – 20 October 1968) was an [[Irish theatre|Irish]] dramatist who wrote over 60 plays.
Carroll was born in [[Blackrock, County Louth|Blackrock]] in [[County Louth]], on the east coast of Ireland, and received his degree in history from [[University College, Dublin]] (UCD), and settled in [[Glasgow]] in 1920. Several of his plays were produced by the [[Abbey Theatre]] in Dublin and on [[Broadway theatre|Broadway]] stages. He won two [[New York Drama Critics Award|New York Drama Critic's Awards]].
== Work as a dramatist == Carroll's plays were about Catholicism in Ireland.<ref>{{Cite news |last=Watts |first=Richard |date=February 18, 1955 |title=A Fantasy About a Modern Saint |work=New York Post |quote=[Carroll] has returned to his favorite subject of the joys and sorrows of the Catholic clergy in Ireland.}}</ref> Himself a devout Catholic, he nonetheless criticised several aspects of Catholic life in rural Ireland and the idiosyncracies of some clergy.<ref name=":0">{{Cite web |last=Cusack |first=George |date=January 16, 2015 |title=Paul Vincent Carroll, a playwright devoutly critical of the Catholic Church |url=https://www.irishtimes.com/culture/books/paul-vincent-carroll-a-playwright-devoutly-critical-of-the-catholic-church-1.2067319 |access-date=September 22, 2025 |website=The Irish Times |language=en}}</ref> Beyond plays, he also wrote short stories, movie scenarios, and television scripts.
He co-founded in 1932 with Grace Ballantine and [[Molly Urquhart]] the [[Curtain Theatre (Glasgow)|Curtain Theatre Company]] in Glasgow, Scotland, and of The Citizens Theatre in the same city.<ref>Murdoch, ''Travelling Hopefully: The Story of Molly Urquhart'', Edinburgh, 1981.<!-- ISBN, pages needed --></ref> He served as playwright in residence in both.
His play ''Shadow and Substance'' won the New York Drama Critic's Award (1938) and ''The White Steed'' won the same award in 1939.<ref>{{Cite web |title=Paul Vincent Carroll |url=http://www.ricorso.net/rx/az-data/authors/c/Carroll_PV/life.htm |access-date=2025-09-22 |website=www.ricorso.net}}</ref> Critic [[John Gassner]] described these as enjoying the status of "best Irish plays" for the next twenty years.<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Gassner |first=John |date=December 1954 |title=Broadway in Review |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/3203511?origin=crossref |journal=Educational Theatre Journal |volume=6 |issue=4 |pages= |at=335 |doi=10.2307/3203511|url-access=subscription }}</ref> Fearing that ''The White Steed'' was too anti-clerical for its audience, the Abbey Theatre rejected the play after the writer had finished it in 1938. Audiences at New York's [[John Golden Theatre]], however, found it excellent.<ref>{{Cite web |last=Allister |first=Jan Hill |date=2023 |title=Paul Vincent Carroll |url=https://www.ebsco.com/ |access-date=2025-09-23 |website=EBSCO Research |language=en}}</ref> Hurt by the Dublin theatre's rejection, Carroll published a dismissal of his former colleagues in a 1939 newspaper publication as "self-appointed magistrates of the arts … some of whom hate the living theatre and fear its full and true interpretive expression."<ref name=":0" /> ''The White Steed'' went on to enjoy a successful run on Broadway, where it won Carroll a second New York Drama Critics Award.<ref>{{Cite web |title=Past Awards |url=https://www.dramacritics.org/dc_pastawards.html |access-date=2025-09-22 |website=New York Drama Critic's Circle}}</ref>
''The Wayward Saint'' is about an Irish priest who emulates St. [[Francis of Assisi]]. It opened at the [[James Earl Jones Theatre|Cort Theatre]] in New York in 1955 and closed after 21 performances, a run which critics considered a success.<ref>{{Cite news |last=Zolotow |first=Sam |date=March 4, 1955 |title='WAYWARD SAINT' TO CLOSE SUNDAY |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1955/03/04/archives/wayward-saint-to-close-sunday-play-by-carroll-will-depart-after-21.html |access-date=2025-09-22 |work=The New York Times |language=en}}</ref>
In 1959, [[Helena Carroll]], the playwright's daughter, organised another production of ''Shadow and Substance'' (1937) in New York's Tara Theatre; she played the lead role of Brigid.<ref>{{Cite news |last=Calta |first=Louis |date=November 4, 1959 |title=Theatre: Irish Players; 'Shadow and Substance' Presented at Tara |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1959/11/04/archives/theatre-irish-players-shadow-and-substance-presented-at-tara.html |access-date=September 23, 2025 |work=The New York Times |pages=42 |language=en}}</ref>
In 1972, Carroll's work was the subject of the first issue of ''The Journal of Irish Literature''.<ref>{{Cite journal |date=1972 |title=Professional Notes and Comment |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/461198 |journal=[[Publications of the Modern Language Association of America|PMLA]] |volume=87 |issue=5 |pages= |at=1144 |issn=0030-8129}}</ref>
==Personal life== After graduating from St Patrick’s Training College, he first worked in [[Dundalk]] as a teacher; his father had been one. He soon left the small school and taught for sixteen years in Glasgow.<ref name=":0" /> Carroll and his wife, clothing designer Helena Winifred Reilly (1903–1957), married in Glasgow in 1923 and had three daughters; the youngest was actress Helena Carroll. Paul Vincent Carroll died at age 68 in [[Bromley, Kent]], England.<ref name="DIB">{{cite web |author=Christopher Murray |title=Carroll, Paul Vincent |url=https://www.dib.ie/biography/carroll-paul-vincent-a1509 |access-date=27 September 2024 |work=[[Dictionary of Irish Biography]]}}</ref>
==Works (selection)==
*''The Things That are Caesar's'' (London, 1934). *''Shadow and Substance'' (1937, won the Casement Award and the New York Drama Critics' Circle Award). *''[[The White Steed]]'' (1939, won Drama Critics’ Circle Award). *''The Strings Are False'' (1942, published as ''The Strings My Lord Are False'', 1944). *''Coggerers'' (1944, later renamed ''The Conspirators''). *''The Old Foolishness'' (1944). *''The Wise Have Not Spoken'' (1947). *''[[Saints and Sinners (1949 film)|Saints and Sinners]]'' 1949. *''She Went by Gently'' (1953, *Irish Writing* magazine. Republished in 1955 in ''44 Irish Short Stories'' edited by Devin A. Garrity). *''The Wayward Saint'' (1955).
==References== {{reflist}}
== External links == * {{IBDB name|8071}} * [https://norman.hrc.utexas.edu/fasearch/findingAid.cfm?eadID=00816 Paul Vincent Carroll Collection] at the [[Harry Ransom Center]] {{Authority control}}
{{DEFAULTSORT:Carroll, Paul Vincent}} [[Category:1899 births]] [[Category:1968 deaths]] [[Category:People from County Louth]] [[Category:Irish male dramatists and playwrights]] [[Category:20th-century Irish dramatists and playwrights]] [[Category:20th-century Irish male writers]] [[Category:Alumni of St Patrick's College, Dublin]] [[Category:Scottish people of Irish descent]] [[Category:Irish schoolteachers]] [[Category:Scottish dramatists and playwrights]]