Outside Mullingar (TCG Edition)

John Patrick Shanley

• Publisher: Theatre Communications Group
• Year: 2014
• Print ISBN:
  9781559364751
• eBook ISBN:
  9781559367868
• Topic: Literature
• Subtopic: American Drama
• Index: Literature

"In the work of John Patrick Shanley, the truth is as charming as it is painful, reality as touched with magic as it is factual, and existence as absolute as it is illusory."—BOMB magazine

For Anthony and Rosemary, introverted misfits straddling forty, love seems unlikely. In this very Irish story with a surprising depth of poetic passion, these yearning, eccentric souls fight their way towards solid ground and happiness. Their journey is heartbreaking, funny as hell, and ultimately, deeply moving. Set in the Irish countryside, Outside Mullingar has been dubbed the "Irish Moonstruck" and will premiere on Broadway in 2014, starring Debra Messing and Brian F. O'Byrne and helmed by Doug Hughes, the Tony Award–winning director of Doubt.

John Patrick Shanley is from the Bronx. His plays include Danny and the Deep Blue Sea, Savage in Limbo, and Dirty Story. His trilogy Church and State began with Doubt, followed by Defiance and Storefront Church. For his play Doubt, the playwright received both the Tony Award and the Pulitzer Prize. He has nine films to his credit, including the five-time Oscar-nominated Doubt with Meryl Streep, Philip Seymour Hoffman, Amy Adams, and Viola Davis. Other films include Five Corners, Alive, Joe Versus The Volcano, and Live From Baghdad for HBO (Emmy nomination). For Moonstruck, he received both the Writers Guild Award and the Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay. The Writers Guild of America awarded Shanley the 2009 Lifetime Achievement Award in Writing.

Scene 1

It’s December 2008. The sound of cattle, doves and wind. The bachelor farm kitchen of a cattle and sheep farm outside Killucan, in Ireland. Over the sink, on a shelf, is an old TV. A turf stove sits on a torn linoleum floor. A small table by a window still has some uncleared dishes. A vinyl chair, with stuffing visible here and there, is set up in a nook created by a staircase. The first of two doors opens and shuts, off. The second now opens into the kitchen, revealing Tony Reilly, a wily old Irishman in a serviceable dark suit and Greek fishing cap, followed by Anthony Reilly, his son. Tony is seventy-five or so, and his eyes are sly. Anthony is forty-two, and his eyes are those of an intense dreamer.

ANTHONY: Jesus, what an experience. My heart feels like a stone. It’s a physical sensation.

TONY: Why did you do it? That’s what I want to know.

ANTHONY: The whole half of me cut across the shoulders down is horrible. It’s grief, that’s what it is.

TONY: We’d be done with it now if it wasn’t for you.

ANTHONY: Done with what?

TONY: What do you think? Our obligations. Our social obligations.

ANTHONY: Obligations? There are no obligations.

TONY: All that was left to do was good night, and sorry for your trouble. But you had to say, “Come by.”

ANTHONY: Are you that selfish, Daddy?

TONY: I can’t be bothered.

ANTHONY: You don’t mean it.

TONY: Ah, you’re half woman. You’d better see to those dishes now.

ANTHONY: Jesus, you’re right. Mother of God, look at this. They’ll think us tramps.

TONY: Your mother would die again if she saw the state of this house.

(Anthony puts on an apron and starts washing dishes.)

ANTHONY: Don’t mention death. And us staring at poor Christopher Muldoon’s headstone this very day.

TONY: It took me back to the last time he died.

ANTHONY: The last time he what?

TONY: Chris Muldoon. The last time he died.

ANTHONY: If this is your notion of humor, no one’s laughing.

TONY: Where’s me pipe?

ANTHONY: Upstairs. And you’re not getting it.

TONY: I’ll have it when I want. Muldoon died before.

ANTHONY: Would you stop?

TONY: He was a great one for the pub years ago. Never missed a Sunday with his mates. Until that night his son was born.

ANTHONY: The Muldoons never had a son.

TONY: They did. Years gone by. They had a son, but the poor gossoon was born broken and died a few weeks in.

ANTHONY: I couldn’t not know.

TONY: It wasn’t spoken of.

ANTHONY: Everything’s spoken of in Killucan.

TONY: They didn’t put it about as the baby was born half size and got smaller from there.

ANTHONY: He shrank?

TONY: Like a sock in the wash. They named him Christopher after his father, and he died right before he was baptized.

ANTHONY: No.

TONY: Yes. Off to limbo he went.

ANTHONY: Don’t talk about this when they come.

TONY: So they put it in the paper that Christopher Muldoon was dead, and didn’t the lads down in the pub think their mate had passed. They showed up at the wake half pissed, and what do they find sitting there but a little white coffin one foot long. And the one of them cries out, “Jesus! Look at that! Is that all that’s left of Chris Muldoon?”

(Tony has a good laugh.)

ANTHONY: They thought it was Chris Muldoon?

TONY: Well, it was and it wasn’t.

ANTHONY: Chris Muldoon had a son.

TONY: He did. For a mi...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Copyright
• Dedication
• Contents
• Introduction
• Production History
• Characters
• Scene 1
• Scene 2
• Scene 3
• Scene 4
• Scene 5
• Scene 6
• Scene 7
• About the Author