Elizabeth Gordon Quinn

Chris Hannan

• Publisher: Nick Hern Books
• Year: 2016
• Topic: Literature
• eBook ISBN:
  9781780017495
• Subtopic: Drama
• Index: Literature

A contemporary classic set during the Glasgow Rent Strike of 1915, with one of the best women's roles ever to emerge from Scottish theatre, an unforgettable tragicomic heroine with an extraordinary power to repel and attract.

The Quinn family live in a Glasgow tenement so poor the only floor covering is old newspapers. But Elizabeth Gordon Quinn is indomitable in the face of poverty and rising rents. Furthermore, she is harbouring a son who is wanted by the police for desertion.

Chris Hannan's play Elizabeth Gordon Quinn was first staged at the Traverse Theatre, Edinburgh, in 1985. This radically revised version was published alongside the major revival by the National Theatre of Scotland in 2006.

ACT TWO

Scene Six

It’s ten weeks later. In the raw cold of an early November evening, two MILITARY POLICEMEN are too busy trying to keep their circulation going to have much to say to each other. One or two PASSERS-BY enter and are questioned by the MILITARY POLICEMEN.

Inside, ELIZABETH sits at a sewing machine; sewing. She’s wearing a coat. Up the tenement stair comes AIDAN QUINN, dirty, cap down low over his face, out of breath and frightened. He stops outside the door of his house, considers knocking but doesn’t. He continues up the stair to the landing and disappears through the door to the lonely void.

Outside, MAURA enters and is questioned by the MILITARY POLICEMEN. After she goes, we lose the exterior sounds; the MILITARY POLICE exit and now we are concentrating on ELIZABETH. MAURA enters and heads for the range to get a heat; she doesn’t take her coat off and won’t for the duration of the scene.

ELIZABETH. Cold? I try not to let it bother me. Work work work, keep busy and keep warm.

ELIZABETH picks up a big pair of scissors in one hand and her wedding dress in the other.

MAURA. What are you doing?

ELIZABETH. I’m going to cut up my wedding dress. I was looking through some old things I’ve kept and decided it was time to get rid of some rubbish.

MAURA. No. Please. Whenever I see that wedding picture of you, standing beside your husband as though he is an archangel at least, and you scared but keen as mustard, my heart goes out to that fifteen-year-old bride and her mad, innocent heart.

ELIZABETH (cutting the dress). Be practical, Maura. I was thinking about the Belgian refugees and how they must be freezing, the poor souls, and then I saw my wedding dress and thought: well, rather than see it sit and rot in a box on top of a wardrobe. I decided to make them some gloves.

MAURA. Do you miss him?

ELIZABETH. Do I miss whom?

MAURA doesn’t answer. She goes to find a tin and a jotter she keeps in the press.

MAURA. I’m scared in this house now.

ELIZABETH. O. Why?

MAURA. I don’t know. I keep waiting for something to happen; then I realise it already has.

MAURA finds somewhere to do her accounts. She has to keep a record of who has given her rent.

ELIZABETH. Where have you been till this time anyway?

MAURA. I had to go and see one or two that were late with their rent.

ELIZABETH. Yes; she’s the rent man now.

MAURA. We’re withholding rent, we’re not defaulters. Someone has to collect the rent and keep a record.

ELIZABETH. You count the money so often, anyone would think it was yours.

MAURA. I’m the treasurer for the tenement.

ELIZABETH. You count it twice a day.

MAURA. I can’t afford to be out a penny.

ELIZABETH. You count it so much, the coins are sweaty. Do you pretend the money’s yours? Look, she’s blushing. You look like a miser counting her hoard.

MAURA (furious). You won’t make me feel any more ridiculous than I already do. Yes I’m ridiculous: I’ve no money. So I work. I make money. The more money I have, the less ridiculous I’ll look. (She’s shaking with anger, in this cold.Suddenly she feels the futility of it.) You make everything ridiculous. You really do. I work all day then I shop, come home and cook, go out again to picket a tenement till all hours of the morning. And after all that, I come home to this. I don’t know why I bother.

ELIZABETH. You must enjoy their company. You’re never in.

MAURA. I look at the others and think, ‘You’ve got homes. You’ve got men, children, you’ve got a reason to do this.’

ELIZABETH. You want your own home? (No answer.) You look at me and what I’ve made of my home and you want to emulate my success. (Slight pause.) That was a joke.

MAURA puts the rent money away.

MAURA. I’ll heat you up some stew.

MRS CUNNINGHAM enters.

I’ll be right with you, Mrs Cunningham.

ELIZABETH. Where are you going now? You’re only just in.

MAURA. The family of scabs across the street has moved out; we have to stop the factor moving another family in.

MRS CUNNINGHAM. There’s news, Maura.

ELIZABETH. Mrs Cunningham’s probably wondering why we gave you such an Irish name, Maura. We called her after an aunt of hers that worked in the fur department of Pettigrew’s. We had high hopes.

MAURA. What kind of news?

MRS CUNNINGHAM. The factor’s taking eighteen of us to the Small Debts Court. If the court agrees that the rent owed should be regarded as debt, the court will get powers to arrest our wages.

MAURA. Go into our pay packets and help themselves to our money?

MRS CUNNINGHAM. There’s twenty-five thousand of us on strike now. Look at it from their point of view.

MAURA. Take money out of our pay packets?

MRS CUNNINGHAM. They have to do something.

MAURA. You never said this could happen.

MRS CUNNINGHAM. I suppose they took legal advice. Used the best minds money can buy.

MAURA. We’re going to lose?

MRS CUNNINGHAM. We have a few days before the case comes up...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Original Production
• Interview with Chris Hannan
• Dedication
• Characters
• Act One
• Act Two
• About the Author
• Copyright and Performing Rights Information