Sive E-Book

John B. Keane

• Herausgeber: Mercier Press
• Kategorie: Poesie und Drama
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2009

Seitenzahl: 200

Beschreibung

Sive is a young and beautiful orphan who lives with her uncle Mike, his wife Mena and his mother Nanna. A local matchmaker, Thomasheen Seán Rua, wants Sive to marry an old man called Sean Dóta. Thomasheen convinces Mike and Mena to organise the marriage. They will receive a sum of two hundred pounds as soon as she marries him. However, Sive is in love with a young man, Liam Scuab. But Liam is not suitable and is refused permission to marry Sive. Sive is distraught but is forced to do the will of her uncle and his bitter wife. Faced with an unthinkable future she takes the only choice left to her. Set against the harsh poverty and difficult times of 1950s Ireland, Sive caused considerable controversy on its debut in February 1959. Since then it has become an established part of Ireland's theatrical canon.

Leseprobe

MERCIER PRESS 3B Oak House, Bessboro Rd Blackrock, Cork, Ireland.

www.mercierpress.iehttp://twitter.com/IrishPublisherhttp://www.facebook.com/mercier.press

Original three act version first published 1959 This two act version first published 1986

© The Estate of John B. Keane, 2011 © Notes and Introduction: Joanna Keane O’Flynn, 2011

ISBN: 978 1 85635 651 0 Epub ISBN: 978 1 78117 017 5 Mobi ISBN: 978 1 78117 016 8

Sive is a copyright play and may not be performed without a licence. Application for a licence for amateur performances must be made in advance to Mercier Press Ltd, Unit 3b, Oak House, Bessboro Road, Blackrock, Cork. Terms for professional performances may be had from JBK Occasions, 37 William Street, Listowel, Co. Kerry.

This eBook is copyright material and must not be copied, reproduced, transferred, distributed, leased, licensed or publicly performed or used in any way except as specifically permitted in writing by the publishers, as allowed under the terms and conditions under which it was purchased or as strictly permitted by applicable copyright law. Any unauthorised distribution or use of this text may be a direct infringement of the author’s and publisher’s rights and those responsible may be liable in law accordingly.

CHARACTERS

NANNA GLAVINAn old woman (mother of Mike Glavin and grandmother of Sive)MENA GLAVINMike Glavin’s wifeSIVEThe illegitimate granddaughter of Nanna GlavinTHOMASHEEN SEÁN RUAA matchmakerMIKE GLAVINThe man of the house (husband of Mena Glavin, son of Nanna Glavin)LIAM SCUABA carpenter, Sive’s sweetheartSEÁN DÓTAAn old farmer, suitor for the hand of SivePATS BOCOCKA travelling tinker-manCARTHALAWNHis musical son

The action of the play takes place in the kitchen of Glavin’s small farmhouse in a remote mountainy part of southern Ireland.

INTRODUCTION

My parents, John B. Keane and Mary O’Connor married on 5 January 1955. They bought ‘The Greyhound Bar’ on 37 William Street, Listowel in the same year. One afternoon, while my father was working behind the counter, a haggard old man called in for a drink. He announced to all and sundry that a match had been arranged for him and that he would be getting married in the not too distant future. He requested that my unsuspecting father accompany him to a nearby jewellery shop to help him purchase a ring for his intended bride to be. My father visited the shop with the old man and thought no more about the encounter until months later. To his dismay, he heard from a friend that the aged man had married a girl who was too young for him. He also discovered that the young girl was deeply unhappy and ended up institutionalised after a nervous breakdown. This experience troubled my father for a long time after. The unfortunate girl’s painful experience provided him with the material to write Sive.

My father had been experimenting with words since he was twelve. He had moderate success with articles published in The Evening Press and Ireland’s Own and a radio play produced on RTÉ Radio. However, having attended Listowel Drama Group’s award-winning production of All Souls Night by Joseph Tomelty with my mother in Listowel, John B. was stimulated to write Sive. ‘When I came home that night I was impatient and full of ideas. I sent Mary to bed and filled a pint. I sat by the fire for a while and after a quarter of an hour I reached for my copy-book and pencil. I started to write and six hours later, or precisely at 6.30 a.m., I had written the first scene of Sive’ [Self Portrait, 1966]. Within two weeks he had written the first draft of Sive and after much revision and editing, he submitted it to The Abbey Theatre, but was disappointed to have the play returned by post five weeks later. Rejected by The Abbey Theatre, Listowel Drama Group championed my father and premiered Sive on 2 February 1959 in Walsh’s Ballroom, Listowel.

The play went on to win the All-Ireland Amateur Drama Final in Athlone in 1959. In the same year, the Abbey Theatre invited Listowel Drama Group to perform Sive for one week, which they did to popular acclaim.

The popularity of Sive established John B. as a writer and gave him the appetite to write several plays, novels, short stories and poems.

‘I am a kind of writer. Nobody knows what kind of writer I am least of all myself. My ambition is that people will say some time “He was a kind of writer. He said things a different way from others” [Self Portrait, 1966].’

The rapturous rat-a-tat-tat of his typewriter will stay with me forever.

JOANNA KEANE O’FLYNN

ACT ONE

SCENE 1

[The kitchen is poorly furnished, with an open hearth on its left wall. A door leads to a bedroom at the left side of the hearth. On the wall facing the audience there is a small window, and a door leads to the yard at the front of the house.

A large dresser, filled with ware in its upper half, stands between the door and the window. The lower part has doors. A third door is in the right wall of the kitchen with a small working-table at one side. Overhead a mirror hangs. Under the table are two buckets and a basin. A 20-gallon creamery tank stands between the door and the table with a half-filled sack of meal and a half-sack of flour.

A larger table stands in the middle of the floor. There are six sugan chairs; two beside the table; two by the fire; the others on either side of the dresser.

In the hearth a black skillet hangs from a crane and a large black kettle rests in a corner. An enamel bucket of drinking water is on the table.

The time is the recent past, a late evening of a bitter March day.

An old woman bent forward with age, dressed in black, sits near the fire surreptitiously smoking a clay pipe, she is NANNA GLAVIN, mother of the man of the house. She holds the tongs, idly gathering the fire; with the other hand she conveys the pipe continuously between lap and mouth.

When she hears the door latch lifting the tongs falls in her haste to conceal the pipe. A great quantity of red petticoat, and long boots tied up to her shins, are revealed when she lifts her skirt to hide the pipe.

Her skirts are hardly in place again, when another woman enters. The newcomer is strong, well-proportioned, hard-featured, in her early forties: her hair raven-black tied sharply in a bun gives the front of her head the appearance of being in want of hair, or being in a coif. She is MENA,wife of the man of the house.]

Mena:

There’s a smell of smoke!

Nanna:

[Crossly:] ’Tis the way you left the fire when you went out.

Mena:

Not turf smoke, oul’ woman, tobacco smoke!

Nanna:

Tobacco smoke how are you? [NANNAseizes the tongs and belabours the fire.]

Mena:

In the name of all that’s dead and gone, wouldn’t you take out your pipe and smoke it, not be humpin’ yourself there, like a cat stealin’ milk?

[MENAbends to take one of the buckets from under the working-table. She puts it between her boots and pours water from the full enamel drinking bucket into it. She replaces the enamel drinking bucket.]

Nanna:

[Irritably:] Such clatter!

[MENA, scoops several fistfuls of meal from the bag into the bucket.]

Mena:

No clatter unless ’tis your own. Wouldn’t you give over talkin’, and take out your pipe [wearily] and not be hiding it when we walk in and out of the kitchen?

Nanna:

Am I to be scolded, night and day in my own house? Ah! ’twas a sore day to me my son took you for a wife. What a happy home we had before you came into it! Fitter for you be having three of four children put from you at this day of your life.

Mena:

I had my fortune; ’twasn’t for the want of a roof over my head that I came here. I could have done better if I bided my time. [Lifts the bucket and turns to the door.]

Nanna:

We all know what you could do, girl, and the stock you came from … and the cabin you came out of! [Laughs a little forcefully.] Where ye used to drink yeer tay out of jam pots for the want of cups. Oh, indeed, you needn’t tell me about yourself. A nice bargain you were!

Mena:

You have nothing else to do but talk. Saying your prayers you should be, at this hour of your days, instead of cackling with your bad tongue … Where was your poor amadawn of a son before I came here? Pulling bogdeal out of the ground with a jinnet, going around like a half-fool with his head hanging by him … you give me the puke with your grandeur. Take out your dirty doodeen of a pipe and close your gob on it, woman. I have something else to do besides arguing with you.

[MENAlifts the latch to go out. As she does so, the door opens and a pretty young girl enters. She is aged about 18 and wears a grey tweed coat, a little too small for her. A flimsy scarf covers her head. She carries a satchel, filled with books, in her hand. Her name is SIVE. When she enters, MENAcloses the door and looks at SIVEpiercingly. SIVEputs her satchel on the large table, aware of MENA’s eyes upon her back.]

Sive:

I was held up after leaving the village. The front wheel of the bicycle went flat on me, and to crown my misfortune didn’t I get a slow puncture in the other wheel. ’Tis the tyres that are worn. I was lucky to meet the master on the road. He gave me a lift as far as the end of the bohareen. [She unties her scarf.]

Mena:

Schoolmasters and motor cars. And I suppose you expect me to have a hot dinner ready for you any minute of the day you decide to come home.

Sive:

Oh, no! … we had a cookery class at the convent today, all the girls got dinner there. We had fricassee with dortois for dessert. It was lovely!

Mena:

Saints preserve us! Out working with a farmer you should be, my girl, instead of getting your head filled with high notions. You’ll come to no good either, like the one the went before you!

[MENAlifts the bucket and goes out. SIVEtakes off her coat and holds it over her arm. Underneath she wears a brown schoolgirl uniform with white collar attached.]

Sive:

What does she mean, Gran? The one that went before. Who was she referring to?

Nanna:

There’s no meaning to that woman’s blather! [Lifts her skirt and puts her pipe into her mouth.] Quenched! bad skewer to her gone out!

Sive:

She meant my mother, didn’t she, Gran?

Nanna:

[Takes a box of matches from her pocket and lights her pipe.] ’Sha your mother.

Sive:

Well, Gran, it was my mother, wasn’t it? What did she mean?

Nanna:

Your mother, the Lord mercy on her, was my daughter. She wouldn’t dare to draw down her name … it was only poison prattle, child; wind and steam. Isn’t she always at it. ’Tis the disease in her system. If she didn’t let it out of her mouth, ’twould break out in boils and sores all over her. You’re worse, to take notice of her!

Sive:

[Lays her coat over the books on the table and sits on its edge facing grandmother.] Gran, all I know about my mother is that she died when I was a baby. Any time I’ve asked questions about her you’ve all put me off and told me you didn’t know or that you had forgotten … and my father … you say he was drowned, no more. What I want to know is what sort of a man was he. Was he funny; was he handsome? Why wasn’t he here by my mother’s side when I was born or what kind of a father was he that he left her to suffer alone?

Nanna:

He was in England. He couldn’t be here, could he, when he was there. He was drowned, the poor boy, a few days after you were born. Coal-mining he was, when the waters rushed in and trapped him. [Reflective sadness:] Away over in England.

Sive:

What was I like when I was born? Am I like my father now or like my mother?

Nanna:

Questions! Questions! Nothing but questions! You were a fine common lump of a baby! I remember well the night you were born. The doctor came in his new motor car from the village. I remember well to see the two roundy balls of fire coming up the bohareen. The old people swore it was the devil but sure it was only the two headlamps of the car shining in the darkness. [Draws on her pipe fruitlessly.] Devil take the tobacco they’re making these days!

Sive:

Tell me more about my mother, Gran. She was pretty, wasn’t she?

Nanna:

[With regret:] She was pretty, too pretty. [Shakes her head.] She was handsome, God rest her.

[The kitchen door opens noiselessly and MENAstands framed in it without speaking. She is unnoticed by SIVEand NANNA. She carries the empty bucket.]

Sive:

Go on, Gran! Tell me more! You must have so many stories about my mother when she was young.

Nanna:

What more is there to tell?

[She lifts her head, looks past SIVEto the door and tries to indicate to SIVEthat MENAis at the door. She hides her pipe hurriedly. Suddenly SIVEunderstands and looks behind her in bewilderment. She comes to her feet quickly.]

Mena:

’Tis a wonder you took your backside from the table where people do be eating. Is that what you’re learning at the convent?

[Abashed, SIVEtakes her coat and books from the table. MENAputs the bucket under the working-table.]

Mena:

Your uncle and I work ourselves to the marrow of the bones to give you schooling and the minute I turn my back you’re cohackling with that oul’ boody woman in the corner. [To NANNA:] Some day that pipe will take fire where you have it hidden and you’ll go off in a big black ball of smoke and ashes.

Nanna:

[Slowly:] If I do, ’tis my prayer that the wind will blow me in your direction and I’ll have the satisfaction of taking you with me. Aha, you’d burn well, for you’re as dry as the hobs of hell inside of you. Every woman of your age in the parish has a child of her own and nothing to show by you.

Mena:

Hold your tongue, old woman. How dare you cast your curses inside in my own house. It isn’t my fault I have no child. [Looks meaningly at SIVE.] Enough that had children in their time. I have every right to this house. I paid dear for my share.

Nanna:

I was here before you.

Mena:

Ah, but you won’t be here after me!

Nanna:

That is the will of God, woman; not your will.

Mena:

[To SIVE – loudly:] Take your books and get to your room. Is it for ornament you think we are keeping you? I’m sure the nuns would like to hear of your conduct.

[SIVEhurries to the door at the right of kitchen. She casts a quick look behind her towards her grandmother.]

Mena:

What nonsense have you been filling the girl’s head with? She’ll be as cracked as the crows if she listens to you; wasting her time when she should be at her studies. When I was her age in my father’s house I worked from dawn till dark to put aside my fortune.

Nanna:

You should have stayed in your father’s house … Your father [derisively] a half starved bocock of a beggar with the Spanish blood galloping through his veins like litters of hungry greyhounds.

Mena:

[Threateningly:] Old woman, be careful with your free tongue! ’Twill wither up inside your head. You mind your corner of the house and I’ll mind mine. You have great gumption for a woman with nothing.

Nanna:

[Takes the tongs in her hand.] The calves are bawling for their milk.

[NANNAleans on the tongs and rises with its support, then lets it fall noisily. She goes after SIVEinto the room at the right of kitchen, ignoring MENA’s looks. She walks slightly humped.

When she has left, MENAgoes to the fire and rearranges it with the tongs. She goes to the dresser, opens one of the doors and extracts an apron which she ties about her waist. Going to fire she lifts the skillet from the crane and replaces it with the kettle. She uses the hem of her apron to handle both utensils. She goes to the working-table and withdraws the second bucket, and listens at door of room where NANNAand SIVEare.

While she is thus occupied there is a faint knock on the kitchen door. She turns instantly, then looks into the mirror and pats her hair hurriedly. She advances a step towards the door.]

Mena:

Come in, let you!

[The door opens slowly and a man peers cautiously about the kitchen. He wears a disfigured felt hat upon unruly hair and looks as if he had not shaved for a week. He is shifty-looking, ever on his guard. He is fortyish. He takes the hat from his head and thrusts it into his coat pocket, when his eyes rest on MENA. He is THOMASHEEN SEÁN RUA, a matchmaker.]

Thomasheen:

Are you along, bean a’ tighe? [He looks around again.] Or is there someone with you? [Very confidential. His voice has a rasp-like quality with the calculated slow drawl typical of the south-west.]

Mena:

I’m as much alone as ever I’ll be. Come in, will you. You look like a scarecrow there in the doorway.

Thomasheen:

God help us, amn’t I like a scarecrow always, matchmaking and making love between people I spend my days and no thanks for it.

[He enters and goes to the fire. He turns his back to it and lifts the tail of his overcoat to savour the heat. MENAcloses the door and stands at the table.]

Mena:

[Pause.] What is all the secrecy about, Thomasheen. You look like you have something to tell.

Thomasheen:

There’s a frightful sting in the air this evening. There is the sign of rain to the west, God between us and all harm … Is the man of the house within or without?

Mena:

He is gone to the village with a rail of bonhams.

Thomasheen:

Ah! Great money in bonhams these days. They’ll save the country yet, I may tell you. There’s more money in two bonhams than there is in the making of a match, God help us.

Mena:

If you think I can spend the evening listening to bualam ski, you can go the road for yourself. What is that brought you? Out with it!

Thomasheen:

There is no one with an ear cocked? [He looks about suspiciously.]

Mena:

The old woman and the girl are below in the room but you can shout to the heavens for all the attention they’ll pay to you. If it is after matchmaking you came, boy, you have put pains on your feet for nothing.

Thomasheen:

Thomasheen Seán Rua never blisters his feet without cause. There is some one who have a great “wish for the young lady, this one they call Sive. ’Tis how he have seen her bicycling to the convent in the village. [Shakes his head solemnly.] He is greatly taken by her. He have the mouth half-open when he do be talking about her. ’Tis the sign of love, women!

Mena:

Are you by any chance taking leave of your senses, buachall! What is she but a schoolgirl … and illegitimate, to crown all! She has no knowledge of her father and the mother is dead with shame out of her the most of twenty years.

Thomasheen:

Illegitimate! There is fierce bond to the word and great length to it. Whatever she is, she has the makings of a woman.

Mena:

Rameish! You have great talk.

Thomasheen:

Ah! but she have one thing we will never see any more of, God help us … she have the youth and the figure and the face to stand over it. ’Tis the youth, blast you, that the old men do be after. ’Tis the heat [pronounced ‘hait’] before death that plays upon them.

Mena:

Old men! What are you saying about old men! [Her voice rises in volume.]

Thomasheen:

Hush, woman! … You’ll tell the parish! … What matter if the girl be what she is, if she had a black face and the hooves of a pony … the man I mention is taken with her. He will buy, sell and lose all to have her. He have the wish for the girl.

Mena:

[Suddenly shrewd:] Who has the wish for her?

Thomasheen:

No quibble between the pair of us, Mena. Seán Dóta is the man.

Mena:

Seán Dóta!

Thomasheen:

Hould your hoult, woman! Take heed of what I say. He have the grass of twenty cows. He have fat cattle besides and he have the holding of money.

Mena:

He’s as old as the hills!

Thomasheen:

But he’s a hardy thief with the mad mind for women breaking out through him like the tetter with no cure for it. What matter if he is as grey as the goat. There is many a young man after a year of marriage losing his heart for love-making. This man have the temper. He would swim the Shannon for a young wife. He would spoil her, I tell you. There is good reward for all concerned in it. Don’t be hasty, to be sorry later.

Mena:

You are like all the matchmakers: you will make a rose out of a nettle to make a bargain.

Thomasheen:

He have the house to himself – nothing to be done by her only walk in and take charge. There is a servant boy and a servant girl. There is spring water in the back yard, and a pony and trap for going to the village.

Mena:

Seán Dóta! [Reflectively:] The girl hasn’t a brown penny to her name.

Thomasheen:

No fortune is wanted, I tell you. ’Tis how he will give money to have her.

Mena:

He will give money! The devil isn’t your master for the red lies. That’s the first I ever heard of a farmer giving money instead of looking for it. What will we hear next?

Thomasheen:

[Extends both hands.] ’Tis the ageing blood in the thief … Ah! It’s an old story, girl. The old man and the young woman. When they get the stroke this way there is no holding them. There is the longing he have been storing away these years past.

Mena:

[Pause.] And you say he would give money for her?

Thomasheen:

That my right hand might fall off if he won’t! Two hundred sovereigns for you if the girl will consent.

Mena:

[Suspiciously:] And what is for you? It isn’t out of the goodness of yer heart you are playing your hand.

Thomasheen:

There will be £100 for me.

Mena:

£200 … she’ll scorn him. She has high notions.

Thomasheen:

Aye! It won’t come aisy. [He advances a little way towards her and lowers his head to peer at her before going on.] High notions, or no high notions, you’re the one that can do it. Isn’t she a bye-child? … Tell her you will bell-rag her through the parish if she goes against you. Tell her you will hunt the oul’ woman into the county home. Think of the 200 sovereigns dancing in the heel of your fist. Think of the thick bundle of notes in the shelter of your bosom. It isn’t every day of the week £200 will come your way.

Mena:

The girl is flighty like a colt. Threats might only make her worse.

Thomasheen: