Modern Irish Drama http://www.telegraph.co.uk/content/dam/books/2015-09/30sept/Wilde-xlarge.jpg Oscar Wilde (1854-1900) http://roundtherocktx.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/maxresdefault-2.jpg https://lagosbooksclub.files.wordpress.com/2013/09/17788-the-importance-of-being-earnest.jpg http://img.rp.vhd.me/4658790_l4.jpg http://d3rm69wky8vagu.cloudfront.net/photos/large/3.158614.jpg The Importance of Being Earnest: A Trivial Comedy for Serious People by Oscar Wilde (1895) Algernon: Did you hear what I was playing, Lane? Lane: I didn’t think it polite to listen, sir. Algie: I’m sorry for that for your sake. I don’t play accurately – anyone can play accurately – but I play with wonderful expression. As far as the piano is concerned, sentiment is my forte. I keep science for life. Lane: Yes, sir. Algie: And, speaking of the science of life, have you got the cucumber sandwiches cut for Lady Bracknell? Lane: Yes, sir Algie: Oh!... By the way Lane, I see from your book that on Thursday night, when Lord Shoreman and Mr Worthing were dining with me, eight bottles of champagne are entered as having being consumed. Lane: Yes, sir; eight bottles and a pint. Algie: Why is it that at a bachelor’s establishment the servants invariably drink the champagne? I ask merely for information. Lane: I attribute it to the superior quality of the wine, sir. I have often observed that in married households the champagne is rarely of a first-rate brand. Algie: Good heavens! Is marriage so demoralising as that? Lane: I believe it is a very pleasant state, sir. I have had very little experience of it myself up to the present. I have only been married once. That was in consequence of a misunderstanding between myself and a young person. Algie: I don’t know that I am much interested in your family life, Lane. Lane: No, sir; it is not a very interesting subject. I never think of it myself. Algie: Lane’s views on marriage seem somewhat lax. Really, if the lower orders don’t set us a good example, what on earth is the use of them? They seem, as a class, to have absolutely no sense of moral responsibility. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/content/dam/books/2015-11/nov01/george-bernardshawmain.jpp-large.jpg George Bernard Shaw (1856-1950) http://www.benchtheatre.org.uk/plays80s/pygmalionimage.jpg http://watchinsomemovies.files.wordpress.com/2010/11/37-my-fair-lady1.jpg http://blackbirdtheater.com/wp-content/uploads/photo-gallery/Man-and-Superman/superman-poster-990w. jpg John Bull’s Other Island by George Bernard Shaw (1907) Broadbent: All the capable people in Ireland are of English extraction. It has often struck me as a most remarkable circumstance that the only party in parliament which shows the genuine old English character and spirit is the Irish party. Look at its independence, its determination, its defiance of bad Governments, its sympathy with oppressed nationalities all the world over! How English! Doyle: Not to mention the solemnity with which it talks old fashioned nonsense which it knows perfectly well to be a century behind the times. That’s English, if you like. Br: No, Larry no. You are thinking of the modern hybrids that now monopolize England. Hypocrites, humbugs, Germans, Jews, Yankees, foreigners, Park Laners, cosmopolitan riffraff. Don’t call them English. They don’t belong to the dear old island, but to their confounded new empire; and by George! they’re worthy of it; and I wish them joy of it. Doyle: My dear Tom, you only need a touch of the Irish climate to be as big a fool as I am myself. If all my Irish blood were poured into your veins, you wouldn’t turn a hair of your constitution and character. Go and marry the most English Englishwoman you can find, and then bring up your son in Rosscullen; and that son’s character will be so like mine and so unlike yours that everyone will accuse me of being the father. [With sudden anguish] Rosscullen! Oh, good Lord, Rosscullen! The dullness! the hopelessness! the bigotry! Broadbent: [matter-of-factly] The usual thing in the country, Larry. Just the same here. Doyle: No, no: the climate is different. Here, the life is dull, you can be dull too, and no great harm done [Going off into a passionate dream] But your wits can’t thicken in that soft moist air, on those white springy roads, in those misty rushes and brown bogs, on those hillsides of granite rock and magenta heather. You’ve no such colours in the sky, no such lure in the distances… …It’s all dreaming, all imagination. He can’t be religious. The inspired Churchman that teaches him the sanctity of life and the importance of conduct is sent away empty; while the poor village priest that gives him a miracle or a sentimental story of a saint, has cathedrals built for him out of the pennies of the poor. He can’t be intelligently political: he dreams of what the Shan Van Vocht said in ninetyeight. If you want to interest him in Ireland you’ve got to call the unfortunate island Kathleen ni Hoohlihan and pretends she’s a little old woman. It saves thinking. It saves working. It saves everything except imagination, imagination, imagination; and imagination’s such a torture that you can’t bear it without whisky. http://api.ning.com/files/4MXCALxsrL1PxgUQbgzqrD8Zg3HdEhwY*s3BQ7eaXFQvGpRKVbV9hDvBcTjI3bqAIJoJOd*Pn J2f2FQQFt-CU4kTMP*EHzil/johnmsynge.jpg J.M. Synge (1871-1909) The Playboy of the Western World by John Millington Synge (1907) http://api.ning.com/files/4MXCALxsrL3m646hilBjjkT*rWxOLGF88MigUuOwUaik2HB-F1Z-hMRQr3mSfSSLyGAIVrukF vAkd5WkvI9FWAy-WXyX0aX4/playboy_western_world.jpg http://media.tumblr.com/tumblr_lvwliin7fI1qce9kx.jpg http://culturespotla.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/04/PWW.jpg http://www.aristheatre.org/images/shows/Aris-PotWW-04.jpg Philly: Well, that lad’s a puzzle of the world. Jimmy: He’d beat Dan Davies’ circus or the holy missioners Making sermons on the villainy of man. Try him again, Philly. Philly: Did you strike golden guineas out of solder, young fellow, or shilling coins itself? Christy: I did not mister, not a sixpence nor a farthing coin. Jimmy: Did you marry three wives maybe? I’m told there’s a sprinkling have done that among the holy Luthers of the preaching north. Christy: (shyly) I never married with one, let alone a couple or three. Philly: Maybe he went fighting for the Boers, the like of the man beyond, was judged to be hanged, quartered and drawn. Were you off east young fellow, fighting bloody wars for Kruger and the Boers? Christy: I never left my own parish till Tuesday was a week. Pegeen: (coming from counter) He’s done nothing, so. (To Christy ) If you didn’t commit murder, or a bad, nasty thing, or false coining, or robbery, or butchery, or the like of them, there isn’t anything would be worth your troubling for to run from now. You did nothing at all. Christy: (his feelings hurt) That’s an unkindly thing to be saying to a poor orphaned traveller, has a prison behind him, and hanging before, and hell’s gaping below. Pegeen: (with a sign to the men to be quiet) You’re only saying it. You did nothing at all. A soft lad the like of you wouldn’t slit the windpipe of a screeching sow. Christy (offended ) You’re not speaking the truth. Pegeen: (in mock rage) Not speaking the truth, is it? Would you have me knock the head of you with the butt of the broom? Christy: (twisting round on her with a sharp cry of horror). Don’t strike me. I killed my poor father, Tuesday was a week, for doing the like of that. Pegeen: (with blank amazement) Is it killed your father? Christy: (subsiding) With the help of God I did surely, and that the Holy Immaculate Mother may intercede for his soul. Philly: (retreating with Jimmy) There’s a daring fellow. Jimmy: Oh, Glory be to God! Michael: (with great respect) That was a hanging crime, mister honey. You should have had good reason for doing the like of that. Christy: (in a very reasonable tone) He was a dirty man, God forgive him, and he getting old and crusty, the way I couldn’t put up with him at all. Pegeen: And you shot him dead? Christy:(shaking his head) I never used no weapons. I’ve no licence, and I’m a law-fearing man. Michael: It was with a hilted knife maybe? I’m told, in the big world, it’s bloody knives they use. Christy:(loudly, scandalized) Do you take me for a slaughter- boy? Pegeen: You never hanged him, the way Jimmy Farrell hanged his dog from the licence, and had it screeching and wriggling three hours at the butt of a string, and himself swearing it was a dead dog, and the peelers swearing it had life? Christy: I did not then. I just riz the loy and let fall the edge of it on the ridge of his skull, and he went down at my feet like an empty sack, and never let a grunt or groan from him at all. http://4.bp.blogspot.com/--dwgEhiaBdw/T5ZCfYTG5KI/AAAAAAAAEY8/oqRmPbKYOi8/s1600/easter_rising_irela nd_strike_1913.jpg http://combatace.com/uploads/post-32273-1240462271.jpg http://www.liberalhistory.org.uk/uploads/libhist5.jpg http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-BvDadI7ehc0/T5ZEApVccZI/AAAAAAAAEZ8/0reNlt_URUc/s1600/sigscomposite.png http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/2/2e/Thomas_MacDonagh.png/220px-Thomas_MacDonag h.png Thomas Macdonagh http://easter1916.ie/wp-content/uploads/2011/08/people_mcbride.png John MacBride http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-qO171BA401A/UVWbnjcwfOI/AAAAAAAAIIY/AVj35gaMGaw/s400/con2.jpg Constance Markiewicz http://www.laphamsquarterly.org/sites/default/files/styles/tall_rectangle_custom_user_large_1x/publ ic/images/contributor/yeats_360x450.jpg?itok=ZTqJMXlJ from Easter 1916 by W.B. Yeats Easter 1916 I have met them at close of day Coming with vivid faces From counter or desk among grey Eighteenth century houses. I have passed with a nod of the head Or polite meaningless words, Or have lingered awhile and said Polite meaningless words And thought before I had done Of a mocking tale or a gibe To please a companion Around the fire at the club, Being certain that they and I But lived where motley is worn: All changed, changed utterly: A terrible beauty is born That woman’s days were spent In ignorant good-will, Her nights in argument Until her voice grew shrill. What voice more sweet than hers When, young and beautiful She rode to harriers? This man kept a school And rode our winged horse; This other his helper and friend Was coming into his force; He might have won fame in the end, So sensitive his nature seemed So daring and sweet in thought. This other man I had dreamed A drunken vainglorious lout. He had done most bitter wrong To some who are near my heart, Yet I number him in the song; He too, has resigned his part In the casual comedy; He, too, has been changed in his turn, Transformed utterly: A terrible beauty is born. Hearts with one purpose alone Through summer and winter seem Enchanted to a stone To trouble the living stream. The horse that comes from the road, The rider, the birds that range From cloud to tumbling cloud, Minute by minute thy change; A horse-hoof slides on the brim, And a horse plashes within it; The long-legged moor-hens dive, And hens to moor-cocks call; Minute by minute they live: The stone’s in the midst of all. Too long a sacrifice Can make a stone of the heart. O when may it suffice? That is Heaven’s part, our part, To murmur name upon name, As a mother names her child When sleep at last has come On limbs that had run wild. What is it but nightfall? No, no, not night but death; For England may keep faith For all that is done and said. We know their dream; enough To know that they dreamed and are dead; And what if excess of love Bewildered them till they died? I write it out in a verse – MacDonagh and MacBride And Connolly and Pearse Now and in time to be, Wherever green is worn, Are changed, changed utterly; A terrible beauty is born. September 25,1916 from Ulysses by James Joyce (1922) https://tulsajoyce.files.wordpress.com/2013/09/joyce-1902.jpg http://i.telegraph.co.uk/multimedia/archive/02940/sylviajoyce_2940850b.jpg http://i.telegraph.co.uk/multimedia/archive/01977/joyce_1977858b.jpg http://www.turnau.cz/sites/default/files/images/James-Joyces-Ulysses-005.jpg (Staggering Bob, a whitepolled calf, thrusts a ruminating head with humid nostrils through the foliage) BLOOM: Simply satisfying a need. (With pathos) No girl would when I went girling. Too ugly. They wouldn’t…_ (High on Ben Howth through rhododendrons a nanny goat passes, plumpuddered, buttytailed, dropping currants) THE NANNYGOAT: (Bleats) Megegaggeg! Nannananny! BLOOM: (Hatless, flushed, covered with burrs of thistledown and gorsepine.) Regularly engaged. Circumstances alter cases.(He gazes intently downwards on the water) Thirtytwo head over heels per second. Press nightmare. Giddy Elijah. Fall from cliff. Sad end of government printer’s clerk. (Through silversilent summer air the dummy of Bloom, rolled in a mummy, rolls rotatingly from the Lion’s Head cliff into the purple waiting waters) THE DUMMYMUMMY: Bbbbblllllbbblblodschbg? https://encrypted-tbn1.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcR5WQAeb8k8A8yUAqnalpdKeyce7QGF7S_70wHCpPeGQTv 175mm http://web.vipwiki.org/media/cache/1966522/samuel-beckett.jpg http://www.onlinegalerij.nl/wp-content/uploads/2013/04/samuel-beckett.jpg Waiting for Godot by Samuel Beckett (1952) http://i0.wp.com/meanderite.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/02/waitingforgodotw-1024x768.jpg?fit=1024%2 C768 Vladmir (Didi): What do we do now? Estragon (Gogo): Wait. Didi: Yes, but while we’re waiting? Gogo: What about hanging ourselves? Didi: Hmm. It’d give us an erection. Gogo: (Highly excited.) An erection! Didi: With all that follows. Where it falls mandrakes grow.That’s why they shriek when you pull them up. Did you know that? Gogo: Let’s hang ourselves immediately! Dodo: From a bough? [They go towards the tree.] I wouldn’t trust it. Gogo: We can always try. Didi: Go ahead. Gogo: After you Didi: No, no, you first. Gogo: Why me? Didi: You’re lighter than I am. Gogo: Just so. Didi: I don’t understand. Gogo: Use your intelligence, can’t you? [Vladimir uses his intelligence] Didi:[Finally] I remain in the dark Gogo: This is how it is [He reflects] The bough… The bough… [Angrily] Use your head, can’t you? Didi: You’re my only hope. Gogo: Gogo light – bough not break – Gogo dead. Didi heavy – bough break – Didi alone. Whereas – Didi: I hadn’t thought of that. Gogo: If it hangs you it’ll hang anything. Didi: But am I heavier than you? Gogo: So you tell me. I don’t know. There’s an even chance. or nearly. Didi: Don’t let’s do anything. It’s safer. Gogo:Let’s wait and see what he says. Gogo: Who? Didi: Godot. https://static01.nyt.com/images/2015/10/03/arts/03friel-obit-4/03friel-obit-4-blog427.jpg Translations by Brian Friel (1981) https://drama.washington.edu/sites/drama/files/styles/large/public/images/translations-02.jpg?itok= pG_tOYiH https://therealchrisparkle.files.wordpress.com/2014/03/translations038-568x320.jpg http://i.telegraph.co.uk/multimedia/archive/01760/Translations_Sarah_1760747c.jpg http://www.studynotes.ie/wp-content/themes/studynotes.ie/img/thumb.php?src=http://www.studynotes.ie /wp-content/uploads/2013/08/Screen-Shot-2012-06-14-at-12.46.59-e1376659574521.png&w=620&h=270 https://www.princeton.edu/main/images/news/2006/10/IMG_1245-i2.jpg Maire: Lieutenant George. Yolland: Don’t call me that. I never think of myself as a lieutenant. Maire: What-what? Yolland: Sorry-sorry? (He points to himself again.) George. Maire nods: Yes-yes. Then points to herself. Maire: Maire Yolland: Yes, I know you’re Maire. Of course I know you’re Maire. I’ve been watching you night and day for the past… Maire: (eagerly) What –what? Yolland: (Points.). Maire. (Points.) George. (Points both) Maire and George. Maire nods: Yes-yes-yes. I-I-I Maire: Say anything at all. I love the sound of your speech. Yolland: (eagerly) Sorry-sorry? In acute frustration looks round, hoping for some inspiration that will provide him with communicative means. Now he has a thought: he tries raising his voice and articulating in a staccato style and with equal and absurd emphasis on each word. Every-morning-I-see-you-feeding-brown-hens-and-giving-meal-to-black-calf (the futility of it) – O my God. Maires smiles. She moves towards him. She will try to communicate in Latin. Maire: Tu es centurio – in –in-in exercitue Britannico – Yolland: Yes-yes? Go on – go on – say anything at all. I love the sound of your speech. Maire: - et es in castris quae – quae – quae sunt in agro – (the futility of it) – O my God. Yolland smiles. He moves towards her. Now for her English words. George – water. Yolland: ‘Water’? Water! Oh yes – water –water – very good – water – good –good. Maire: Fire. Yolland: Fire – indeed – wonderful – fire, fire, fire – splendid – splendid! Maire: Ah…ah… Yolland: Yes? Go on. Maire: Earth. Yolland: ‘Earth’? Maire: Earth. Earth. Yolland still does not understand. Maire stoops down and picks up a handful of clay. Holding it out. Earth Yolland: Earth! Yes, of course – earth! Earth. Earth. Good Lord, Maire, your English is perfect! * * * * * * Yolland: Maire. She moves away. Maire Chatach She still moves away. Bun na habhan? (He says the name softly, almost privately, very tentatively, as if he were searching for a sound he might respond to. He tries again. Druim Dubh? Maire turns towards him. She is listening. Yolland is encouraged. Poll na gCoarach. Lis Maol. Maire turns towards him. Lis na nGall. Maire: Lis na nGradh. They are now facing each other and begin moving – almost impreceptibly – towards one another. Carraig an Phoill. Yolland: Carraig na Ri. Loch na nEan. Maire: Loch an Iubhair. Machaire Buidhe. Yolland: Machaire Mor. Cnoc na Mona. Maire: Cnoc na nGhabar. Yolland: Mullach. Maire: Port. Yolland: Tor. Maire: Lag. She holds out her hands to Yolland. He takes them. Charles Baudelaire (1821-1867) Theophile Gautier (1811-1872) Stephane Mallarme (1842-1898) Ford Madox Ford, James Joyce, Ezra Pound Originally Published 1915 Marcel Duchamp: ‘Fountain’ 1917 Tracey Emin: ‘My Bed’ (1998) T.S. Eliot: 1920 E.M. Forster (1872-1970) A Room with A View (1908) Howard’s End (1910) Maurice (1913/14) A Passage to India (1924) D.H. Lawrence (1885-1930) James Joyce (1882-1941) Dubliners (1914) A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man (1916) Ulysses (1922) Finnegans Wake (1939) Virginia Woolf (1882- 1941) Jacob’s Room (1922) Mrs Dalloway (1925) To The Lighthouse (1927) Orlando (1928) The Waves (1931) But this service in King’s College – why allow women to take part in it? Surely, if the mind wanders (and Jacob looked extraordinarily vacant, his head thrown back, his hymn-book open at the wrong place), if the mind wanders it is because several hat shops and cupboards upon cupboards of coloured dresses are displayed upon rush-bottomed chairs. Though heads and bodies may be devout enough, one has a sense of individuals – some like blue, others brown; some feathers, others pansies and forget-me-nots. No one would think of bringing a dog into church. For though a dog is all very well on a graveled path and shows no disrespect to flowers, the way he wanders down an aisle, looking, lifting a paw, and approaching a pillar with a purpose that makes the blood run cold with horror (should you be one of a congregation – alone, shyness is out of the question, a dog destroys the service completely. So do these women – though separately devout, distinguished and vouched for by the theology, mathematics, Latin, and Greek of their husbands. Heaven knows why it is. For one thing, thought Jacob they’re as ugly as sin. WE ARE TRANSMITTERS As we live, we are transmitters of life. And when we fail to transmit life, life fails to throw through us. That is part of the mystery of sex, it is a flow onwards. Sexless people transmit nothing. And if as we work, we can transmit life into our work, life, still more life, rushes in to compensate, to be ready and we ripple with life through the days. Even if it is a woman making an apple dumpling, or a man a stool, if life goes into the pudding, good is the pudding, good is the stool, content is the woman, with fresh life rippling into her, content is the man. Give, and it shall be given unto you is still the truth about life. But giving life is not so easy. It doesn’t mean handing it out to some mean fool, or letting the living dead eat you up. It means kindling the life quality where it was not, Even if it’s only in the whiteness of a washed pocket-handkerchief. Bronze by gold heard the hoofirons, steelyrining Impethnthn thnthnthn. Chips, picking chips off rocky thumbnail, chips. Horrid! And gold flushed more. A husky fifenote blew. Blew. Blue bloom is on the Gold pinnacled hair. A jumping rose on satiny breasts of satin, rose of Castille. Trilling, trilling: Idolores. Peep! Who’s in the peep of gold? Tink cried to bronze in pity. And a call, pure, long and throbbing. Longindying call. Decoy. Soft word. But look! The bright stars fade. O rose! Notes chirruping answer. Castille. The morn is breaking. Jingle jingle jaunted jingling. Coin rang Clock clacked. Avowal.Sonnez I could. Rebound of garter. Not leave thee. Smack. La cloche! Thigh smack. Avowal. Warm. Sweetheart, goodbye. Jingle. Bloo. Boomed crashing chords. When love absorbs. War! War! The tympanum. A sail! A veil upon the waves. Lost throstle fluted. All is lost now. Horn. Hawhorn. When first he saw. Alas! Full tup. Full throb. Warbling. Ah, lure! Alluring. Martha! Come! Clapclop. Clipclop. Clappyclap. Goodgod henev erheard inall. Deaf bald pat brought pad knife took up. A moonlight call: far : far. I feel so sad. P.S. so lonely blooming. Listen! Katherine Mansfield (1888-1923) Dorothy Richardson (1873-1957) Evelyn Waugh (1903-1966) Graham Greene (1904-1991) George Orwell (1903-1950) Samuel Beckett (1906-1989)