The Books: “Lovers” (Brian Friel)

Next play in my little unalphabetized pile of Samuel French plays is Lovers, by Brian Friel.

Next script on my script shelf

Lovers has two parts, one being called “Winners” and one being called “Losers”. The following excerpt is from the “Winners” part.

A sad sad play. Not only is the plot sad, but the structure of the play adds to the sadness. It is the story of two Irish teenagers – Joe and Mag. They are 17. She is pregnant. They are going to be married in 3 weeks. They sit on top of a hill and study for their final exams. Mag is a chatter-box, not interested in school. Joe is serious, and kind of burdened down by his life – he needs to do well on his exams so that he can get a good job.

Two other characters – Man and Woman – sit off to the sidelines of Joe and Mag’s scenes and occasionally, the lights will go down on Joe and Mag and come up on Man and Woman, who both hold open books in their laps – They sometimes refer to the books as they speak – as they tell the ending of the story. Joe and Mag end up disappearing – the town searches for them – and finally, their drowned bodies are found on the shore of a nearby lake.

So as we Joe and Mag fighting and laughing and studying on the hill – we know that something dreadful happened to them. We know it from the beginning of the play – because it opens with Man and Woman describing the events, almost like a police report. The knowledge that this time up on the hill is the last day Joe and Mag will be alive colors the entire play. It’s really sad.

You can see that Joe and Mag have “relationship issues” – he feels trapped into marrying her, he’s scared of her pregnancy, she feels lost and alone – she wants to talk, he doesn’t – she tries to force him to share his feelings – but then occasionally, the problems will melt away and they’ll start laughing like little kids about something.

A sad play – it has the feeling of a Greek tragedy – the same sort of inevitability. You know that the ending will be bad – because the Man and Woman keep coming in and reciting facts, like an obituary in a newspaper – but you can’t help but hope that everything will work out.

Here’s a scene where Mag lies asleep on the hill and Joe starts opening up to her. Of course he can only do so because she is asleep.

From Lovers, by Brian Friel

MAN. On Tuesday, June 21, a local boy was driving his father’s cows down to the edge of Lough Gorn for a drink when he saw what he described as “bundles of clothes” floating just off the north shore. He ran home and told his mother.

WOMAN. The police were informed, and Sergeant Finlay accompanied by two constables went to investigate. The “bundles” were the bodies of Margaret Mary Enright and Joseph Michael Brennan. They were floating, fully clothed, face down, in twenty-seven inches of water.

MAN. A post-morten was held in the parochial hall at 7:00 pm that evening.

[Joe has returned. He speaks with a dignified sincerity]

JOE. Mag, there is something I never told you. And since you are going to be my wife, I don’t want there to be any secrets between us. I have a post office book. I have had it since I was ten. And there is £23/15/0d. in it now. I intend spending that money on a new suit, new shoes, and an electric razor. And I’m mentioning this to you now in case you suspect I have other hidden resources. I haven’t.

[He cannot maintain this tone. He continues naturally]

And I was working out our finances. The rent of the flat’s two-ten. That’ll leave us with about four-ten. And if I could get some private pupils, that would bring in another — say — thirty bob. We can manage on that, can’t we? I mean, I can. What about you?

[Looks down at her]

Mag? You asleep, Mag? How the hell can you sleep when you have no work done! Maggie? … [He kneels beside her and looks into her face. He gently puts her hair away from her eyes. He straightens up as he remembers the word Caesarean] Dictionary. [He gets his own dictionary and searches for the word] Cadet … cadge … Caesar … Caesarean, pertaining to Caesar or the Caesars — section — an operation by which the walls of the stomach are cut open and … [shocked and frightened] … Cripes! [Reads] — as with Julius — oh my God! If I see you on that bike again I’ll break your bloody neck! As with Julius — good God! Maggie, are you all right, Maggie? Oh God, that’s wild, wild! Sleep, Mag, that’s bound to be good for you. [He lifts her blazer and spreads it over her] There. God almighty! Cut open. [Takes the blazer off] Maybe you’ll be too warm. God, I’d sit ten exams every day sooner than this! Don’t say a word, Maggie; just sleep and rest! That twenty-three pound fifteen — it’s for you, Maggie. And I want you to — to — to squander it just as you wish: fur coats, dresses, perfumes, makeup, all that stuff — anything in the world you want — don’t even tell me what you spend it on; I don’t want to know. It’s yours. And curtains for the window — whatever you like. God, Mag, I never thought for a minute it was that sort of thing!

[He looks closely at her] Mag. [whispers] Mag, I’m not half good enough for you. I’m jealous and mean and spiteful and cruel. But I’ll try to be tender to you and good to you; and that won’t be hard because even when I’m not with you — just when I think of you — I go all sort of silly and I say to myself over and over again: I’m crazy about Maggie Enright; and so I am — crazy about you. You’re a thousand times too good for me. But I’ll try to be good to you; honest to God, I’ll try.

[He kisses her hand and replaces it carefully across her body. Then with sudden venom] Those Caesars were all gets!

[He takes an apple from one of the lunchbags, gets out his penknife and peels it. As he does he talks to Mag even though he knows she is asleep] I hope it’s a girl, like you; with blonde hair like yours. ‘Cause if it’s a boy it’ll be a bloody hash, like me. And every night when I come home from Skeehan’s office I’ll teach her maths and she’ll grow up to be a prodigy. I saw a program on TV once about an American professor who spoke to his year-old daughter in her cot in four different languages for an hour every day; and when the child began to talk she could converse in German, French, Spanish and Italian. Imagine if my aul fella looked down into our wee girl’s cot and she shouted up to him “Buenos dias!!” Cripes, he’d think she was giving him a tip for a horse! I hope to God it’s a girl. But if it’s twins I’d rather have two boys or two girls than …

[He glances shyly at Maggie and trails off sheepishly when he realizes he has fallen into her speech pattern]

… D’You hear me? That’s the way married people go. They even begin to look alike. Wonder, is old Skinny Skeehan married? I bet she looks like a gate-post … Your father, Mag, my God, he’s such a fine man. And your mother — I mean she’s such a fine woman. I remember — oh, I was only a boy at the time — I remember seeing them walking together out the DublinRoad; And I thought they were so — you know — so dignified looking. I’d like to be like him. God, such a fine man. And so friendly to everyone. You’re lucky to have parents like that … My aul fella — lifting the dole on a Friday — that’s what he lives for. She laughs and calls him her man Friday; but I don’t know how she can laugh at it. And to listen to him talking — cripes, you’d think he was bloody Solomon. How can he sit on his backside and watch her go out every morning with her apron wrapped in a newspaper under her arm — Honest to God, I don’t know how he does it. I said to her once, you know; called him a loafer or something. And you should have seen her face. I thought she was going to hit me! “Don’t you ever — ever — say the likes of that again. You’ll never be half the man he is.” Loyalty, I suppose; ’cause when you’re that age, you hardly — you know — really love your husband or wife anymore … Did I ever tell you what he does when there’s no racing? He has this tin trunk under his bed; he keeps all my old school reports in it. And he sits up there in the cold and takes out the trunk and pores over all those old papers — term reports and all, away back to my primary school days! Real nut! I know damn well when he’s at it ’cause I can hear the noise of the trunk on the lino. And once when I went into the room he tried to stuff all the papers out of sight. Strange, too, isn’t it … You know, we never speak at all, except maybe “Is the tea ready” or “Bring in some coal.” … Sitting up there in that freezing attic, going over my old marks … Maybe when I’m older, maybe we’ll go to football matches together, like Peadar Donnelly and his aul fella … I don’t like football matches but he does; and we wouldn’t have to speak to each other — except going and coming back … Three years is no length for a degree. And I think myself I’d be a good teacher.

[Mag speaks but does not move or open her eyes. Her voice is sleepy]

MAG. What time is it?

JOE. Quarter to two.

MAG. Call me at half-past, will you? I have a bit of revision to do.

JOE. A bit! You’ve done nothing! [Mag has dropped off again] Mag!

MAG. Mm?

JOE. That’s all right! You go ahead and sleep! But I’m tellin gyou; if I die of a heart attach and leave you with a dozen kids, you’ll be damned sorry you haven’t your GCE ordinary levels! [Mag sits up and stares at him. He goes on defiantly] I’m just being practical. Nowadays you’re fit for nothing unless you have an education. And you needn’t stare at me like that; any qualification is better than nothing. You’ll always get some sort of job. Hennigan that teaches us PT — that’s all he has — is GCE. And I’m telling you, I wouldn’t give a shilling for your chances at the moment!

MAG. And the children?

JOE. What children?

MAG. Who’s going to look after the dozen children when I’m up at St. Kevin’s teaching physical jerks?

JOE. Oh, you’re very smart.

MAG. And where, may I ask, did the round dozen come from all of a sudden?

JOE. Cut it out, will you? YOu know what I meant.

MAG. Indeed I do. And if you think I’m going to spend my days like big Bridie Brogan —

JOE. Who’s she supposed to be?

MAG. She’s married to a second cousin once removed of Joan O’Hara’s —

JOE. God, I might have known! If there’s anyone I hate —

MAG. — and after her third baby the doctor told her she’d die if she had any more; but her husband was an Irish brute and she had a fourth baby —

JOE. And she died.

MAG. She didn’t die, smartie. But she lost her sight. And then she had a fifth baby —

JOE. And she died.

MAG. — and she went deaf. And she couldn’t watch after the sixth. And after the seventh she had to get all her teeth out —

JOE. Sounds like the Rose of Tralee.

MAG. And by the time she had ten —

JOE. Her husband died laughing at her.

MAG. She developed pernicious micropia.

JOE. Pernicious what?

MAG. I’m not in the habit of repeating myself. Anyhow she’s thirty-three now and —

JOE. You made that word up.

MAG. I did not.

JOE. You did, Maggie.

MAG. I did not.

JOE. Say it again, then.

MAG. I told you — I’m not in —

JOE. Pernicious what?

MAG. You’re too ignorant to have heard of it. My father came across frequent cases of it. I don’t suppose your parents ever heard of it. [As soon as she has said this, she regrets it. But she cannot retract now. Joe’s banter is suddenly ended. He is quietly furious.]

JOE. Just what do you mean by that?

MAG. What I say.

JOE. I said, what do you mean by that remark?

MAG. You heard me.

JOE. You insulted my parents — deliberately.

MAG. I was talking about a disease.

JOE. You think they’re nobody, don’t you?

MAG. You were mocking me.

JOE. And you think your parents are somebody, don’t you?

[Mag picks up a book, opens it at random, turns her back to him, and begins to read]

MAG. I have revision to do.

JOE. Well, let me tell you, madam, that my father may be temporarily unemployed, but he pays his bills; and my mother may be a charwoman but she isn’t running out to the mental hospital for treatment every couple of months. And if you think the Brennans aren’t swanky enough for you, then, by God, you shouldn’t be in such a hurry to marry one of them! [As soon as he has said this, he regrets it. But he cannot retract now.] You dragged that out of me. But it happens to be the truth. And it’s better that it should come out now than after we’re married. At least we know where we stand … [His anger is dead] Margaret? … Maggie? … [stiff again] Well, it was you that started it. And if you’re going into another of your huffs, I swear to you I’m not going to be the first to speak this time. [He picks up a book, opens it at random, turns his back to her, and begins to read]

WOMAN. At the post-mortem on the evening of June 21, evidence of identification was given by Walter Enright. He said that the body recovered form Lough Gorm was the body of his daughter, Margaret Mary Enright.

MAN. Michael Brennan identified the male body as that of his son, Joseph Michael Brennan.

WOMAN. Doctor Watson said that he examined the bodies of both the deceased. There were no marks of violence on either, he said. And in his opinion — which, he submitted, was given after a hasty examination — death in both cases was due to asphyxiation.

MAN. Mr. Skeehan, the coroner, asked was there any evidence as to how both deceased fell into the water. Sergeant Finlay replied that there was no evidence.

WOMAN. A verdict in accordance with the medical evidence was returned. Mr. Akeehan and Sergeant Finlay expressed their grief and the grief of the community to the parents. And it was agreed that the inquest should be held as soon as possible because the coroner took his annual vacation in the month of July.