Collected Plays and Teleplays

Flann O'Brien, Daniel Keith Jernigan

• Publisher: Dalkey Archive Press
• Year: 2013
• Print ISBN: 9781564788900
• eBook ISBN: 9781564789884
• Topic: Literature
• Subtopic: British Drama
• Index: Literature

In the same spirit as his novels, O'Brien's plays are speculative, inventive, wickedly funny, and a delightful addition to his collected works—now available at last: this volume collects Flann O'Brien's dramatic work into a single volume, including Thirst, Faustus Kelly, and The Insect Play: A Rhapsody on Saint Stephen's Green. It also includes several plays and teleplays that have never before seen print, including The Dead Spit of Kelly (of which a film version is in production by Michael Garland), The Boy from Ballytearim, and An Scian (only recently discovered), as well as teleplays from the RTÉ series O'Dea's Your Man and Th' Oul Lad of Kilsalaher.

STAGE
PLAYS

FAUSTUS KELLY

Characters in the play

KELLY CULLEN REILLY HOOP SHAWN KILSHAUGHRAUN TOWN CLERK MRS. MARGARET CROCKETT HANNAH CAPTAIN SHAW THE STRANGER

Chairman of the Urban Council Members of the Council An ex-T.D., also a member A Corkman A widow Her maid A visitor ?

Faustus Kelly was first performed at the Abbey Theatre, Dublin, on 25 January 1943, with the following cast:

KELLY	F. J. McCormick
CULLEN	Fred Johnston
REILLY	Michael J. Dolan
HOOP	Denis O’Dea
SHAWN KILSHAUGHRAUN	Brian O’Higgins
TOWN CLERK	Cyril Cusack
MRS. MARGARET CROCKETT	Ria Mooney
HANNAH	Eileen Crowe
CAPTAIN SHAW	Gerard Healy
THE STRANGER	Liam Redmond

Directed by Frank Dermody

Designed by Michael Clarke

PROLOGUE

Stage is blacked out. A faint white light picks out the head and shoulders of the DEVIL and the head of KELLY. The DEVIL is standing behind KELLY, who is seated signing a diabolical bond. When he has it signed, the DEVIL reaches out a green-tinted claw and snatches up the document with a sharp rustling noise. Immediately there is a complete black-out.

ACT I

The setting of the First Act is the Council Chamber, which is also used by the TOWN CLERK as his office. It is a spacious room with a window at side, left; the door is left. The TOWN CLERK’S desk with adjacent typist’s table and various office effects are on the right-hand side of the room. In the remaining two-thirds of the floor space stand the large table and chairs used for meetings of the Council. The side of the table faces audience and one side should be long enough to accommodate four chairs. REILLY and KILSHAUGHRAUN sit at the ends in ACT I. At back is a recessed platform railed off and marked with a sign ‘SILENCE: Public Gallery.’ When the curtain goes up CULLEN and REILLY are discovered in casual attitudes, evidently waiting for the others.

CULLEN: That was a bad business out the road, Martin.

REILLY: I was just saying today that if we didn’t do something to control them motorcars, they’ll wipe out the whole lot of us.

CULLEN: I wouldn’t blame the motorcar, Martin. The motorcar is man’s friend. Fair is fair. Blame where blame is due, as the man said. Where do you leave Mister John Barleycorn?

REILLY: O, I know. I’m not making any excuse for that, the driver was fluthered, I’m told. And the lady was no better. A very bold article, I believe, with a man’s breeches on her—

CULLEN: Well, there you are! A young drunken pup flying around the country in transports of intoxication, killing hens, cows, pigs and Christians—and you blame the motorcar! What sort of reasoning is that, man?

REILLY: (With great feeling.) I’d like to see all the motorcars in the world destroyed.

CULLEN: Faith, Martin. I often think you’re not all in it.

REILLY: I’m sure of one thing—it’s only in a motorcar you’d see a bold article like her with her trousers and her brazen face and her big backside.

CULLEN:(Laughing.) Ah, Martin, you’re very hard on the poor motorcars.

REILLY: (Paying no attention.) Isn’t it a terrible thing to have young people misbehavin’ and drivin’ around drunk and killin’ people? Is it any wonder they have them retreats above in the Chapel?

CULLEN: Maybe they were brother and sister.

REILLY: And what brother, in God’s name, would let his sister go around with pants on?

CULLEN: (Doubtfully.) O, I don’t know. (Reflectively.) My own sister Maggie, now, or a girl with that class of a figure. . . .

REILLY: (Exploding.) Get away outa that, man, for pity’s sake. You ought to be ashamed of yourself. . . . (Gets up and looks out of window. Comes back frowning.) There’s nothing but trousers in Russia, I’m told. Men, women and children go about all day working at ingines and thrashing machines, no privacy or home-life or respect for womanhood. That’s where you ought to be, in Russia. Away out with a crowd of madmen thrashing and working away for further orders. Father Peter was telling me that a business like that can’t last. Couldn’t possibly last.

CULLEN: (Smiling some good-humour back into the conversation.) Russia, is it? Ah, a beautiful but distant land. The Russian bear, the Russian steamroller. The Volga, the Vistula and the Dnieper. The grave of Napoleon’s Grand Army. Never fear, Martin, ould Ireland’s good enough for me. (He pauses.) The Big Man, Mr. Kelly, is late tonight. So are the others.

REILLY: The Chairman’s late every night but always in time to bawl off some unfortunate man that’s two minutes later. (He sits.)

CULLEN: True enough. Do you remember the night he went for me? (Mimicking.) Am I to understand, Mr. Cullen, that you desire to have your name recorded as having been present at this meeting? Don’t exert yourself talking, Mr. Chairman, says I, till you get your breath back, because them stairs would kill a horse! (Laughs appreciatively.) Wasn’t it good? He was just in before me. ‘Don’t exert yourself talking, Mr. Chairman, till you get your breath back, because them stairs would kill a horse.’

REILLY: (Very drily.) Yes.

CULLEN: I think I hear the bould Shawn.

REILLY: (Makes a grimace of distaste and rises stiffly and shambles to the window.) Well, for God’s sake keep him off politics because that fellow has me worn out with his politics.

CULLEN: Good evening to you, Shawn.

(SHAWN KILSHAUGHRAUN enters from main door, back right. He is a thick, smug, oafish character, dressed in a gawkish blue suit. He exudes a treacly good-humour, always wears an inane smile and talks with a thick western brogue upon which sea-weed could be hung. Hangs hat on stand, right of door.)

SHAWN: Bail o Dhia annso isteach. Hullo, Tom. And how is Martin.

REILLY: (Sourly.) Martin is all right.

SHAWN: (Expansively.) Well, isn’t it the fine-glorious summer evening, thanks be to God. Do you know, the air is like wine. I’m half drunk, drinkin’ it in. Ah, but ‘tis grand. A walk on a day like that would do you as much good as a good iron tonic.

CULLEN: It’s great weather, there’s no doubt. I’d like to take off all my clothes and lie out in the meadow as stark naked as God made me.

REILLY: (Turning quickly from the window.) You’d get all you want of that carry-on in Russia. You can wheel a wheelbarra down the main street of Moscow without a stitch on you and the people will say you’ve a nice new barra. That’s the place for you—Russia. (Sits right of table.) He’s off to Russia, Shawn, that’s the latest.

SHAWN: Do you tell me so?

REILLY: He’s going to make his sister, Maggie, wear trousers and drive a thrashing-mill. If he could find a mine, he’d send me and you down, to be working with pneumatic artillery in the bowels of the earth and blasting tons of rocks and stuff down on top of us. Two miles down he’d send us.

SHAWN: Yerrah, now, you’re coddin’ me surely. You’re trying to take a rise out of me. (Sits left of table.)

CULLEN: Don’t mind him, Shawn.

SHAWN: But who would see him if he was stretched in his natural state in the meadow? Sure the grass is up to here, look, and lovely rich juicy Irish grass it is.

CULLEN: Certainly.

SHAWN: Sure if you drove a small motorcar into my meadow in the morning, you wouldn’t know where to look for it in the evening. (Cares...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title
• Contents
• Introduction
• Stage Plays
• Television Plays
• Contributors
• Copyright