THE COMIC CONTROL OF LIFE: COMEDY, COMIC TRADITIONS, AND THE TROUBLES IN THE WORKS OF WOMEN PLAYWRIGHTS IN NORTHERN IRELAND, 1980-2000

LINDA BURKHARDT

A DISSERTATION SUBMITTED TO THE FACULTY OF GRADUATE STUDIES

IN PARTIAL FULFILMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS

FOR THE DEGREE OF

DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY

GRADUATE PROGRAM IN ENGLISH

YORK UNIVERSITY,

TORONTO, ONTARIO

NOVEMBER 2011 Library and Archives Bibliotheque et Canada Archives Canada

Published Heritage Direction du Branch Patrimoine de I'edition

395 Wellington Street 395, rue Wellington Ottawa ON K1A0N4 Ottawa ON K1A 0N4 Canada Canada Your file Votre reference ISBN: 978-0-494-88683-0

Our file Notre reference ISBN: 978-0-494-88683-0

NOTICE: AVIS: The author has granted a non­ L'auteur a accorde une licence non exclusive exclusive license allowing Library and permettant a la Bibliotheque et Archives Archives Canada to reproduce, Canada de reproduire, publier, archiver, publish, archive, preserve, conserve, sauvegarder, conserver, transmettre au public communicate to the public by par telecommunication ou par I'lnternet, preter, telecommunication or on the Internet, distribuer et vendre des theses partout dans le loan, distrbute and sell theses monde, a des fins commerciales ou autres, sur worldwide, for commercial or non­ support microforme, papier, electronique et/ou commercial purposes, in microform, autres formats. paper, electronic and/or any other formats.

The author retains copyright L'auteur conserve la propriete du droit d'auteur ownership and moral rights in this et des droits moraux qui protege cette these. Ni thesis. Neither the thesis nor la these ni des extraits substantiels de celle-ci substantial extracts from it may be ne doivent etre imprimes ou autrement printed or otherwise reproduced reproduits sans son autorisation. without the author's permission.

In compliance with the Canadian Conformement a la loi canadienne sur la Privacy Act some supporting forms protection de la vie privee, quelques may have been removed from this formulaires secondaires ont ete enleves de thesis. cette these.

While these forms may be included Bien que ces formulaires aient inclus dans in the document page count, their la pagination, il n'y aura aucun contenu removal does not represent any loss manquant. of content from the thesis. Canada iv

ABSTRACT

This study addresses the ways in which women playwrights use comedy and comic devices to simultaneously capture and deconstruct the absurdities and tragedies of the contemporary Troubles in Northern Ireland. Anne Devlin, Christina Reid, Marie Jones, and Jennifer Johnston invoke the manifold and multivalent forms and devices of comedy, including Western stage comedy, Irish comedy, the carnivalesque, and feminist comedy. The comic play-spirit evident throughout the plays in this study captures the acerbic humour that is central to Northern Irish life, culture, and theatre and that ultimately serves to interrupt the tragedies of the war-torn province. Through alienation and meta-laughter comedy creates vital distance by displacing the immediacy and tragedy of the Troubles; comic estrangement enables the women playwrights in this study to critically examine the sociohistorical context of their troubled society. Devlin, Reid, Jones, and Johnston employ comedy and humour to underscore and thereby challenge the absurdities of seemingly intractable ideologies and identities. While comedy has the power to ridicule, satirize, or exclude, the women playwrights in this study most often use comedy and humour to invoke the communal, uniting characters and their audiences in shared laughter and stories and offering glimmers of hope and imaginative possibility beyond the divisions, the despair, and the tragedies of late twentieth-century Northern Ireland. Their troubles drama constitutes not only a significant contribution to theatre in Northern Ireland but also important alternatives to the dominant, androcentric narratives of the Troubles. V

There is a comic road to wisdom, as well as a tragic road. There is a comic as well as a tragic control of life. And the comic control may be more usable, more relevant to the human condition in all its normalcy and confusion, its many unreconciled directions.

- Wylie Sypher vi

To Mike and Dean,

my comic duo vii

Acknow ledgemen ts

This Ph.D. dissertation could not have been written without the support, advice, and encouragement of a number of people. I would like to thank my supervisor, Cynthia Zimmerman, for her steadfast support, advice, and encouragement throughout the research, writing, and revising phases of my work. I would also like to thank my committee members, Christopher Innes and Darren Gobert, for their insights and encouragement during the revision process. I would like to thank Darren, in particular, for his meticulous readings and revision notes as well as his wise counsel, which greatly helped me to strengthen, polish, and refine my dissertation.

I am grateful to the librarians in the interlibrary loans department at Scott library for the numerous articles and books that they helped to retrieve from other institutions in Canada and abroad.

I am indebted to a number of friends and colleagues at Seneca College for their support. In particular, Dr. John Adames' insights on Beckett during our numerous discussions, along with his suggestion that I revisit Beckett's Proust, provided the grounding for my fourth chapter. Maria Vasilodimitrakis was a very good friend and provided support and counsel at critical moments throughout the writing and revising process.

I would also like to extend a special thanks to family and friends who have offered help and support throughout my Ph.D. I am grateful to my mother, my sister, Lisa, and my very good friend Amber, who have always had great faith in my work. A special thank you to Mike, whose unconditional support and patience granted me the time and focus to research and write. And finally to Dean, whose sense of play has been a constant reminder of the importance of laughter and fun in my life and work. viii

CONTENTS

Abstract iv

Acknowledgements vii

Notes to the text ix

1. Introduction: Comic Traditions and Women Playwrights in Northern Ireland 1

2. (Un)Making (the) Trouble(s) in the Plays of Anne Devlin 39

3. Did You Hear the One By the Irish Woman?: Comedy and Comedians in the Plays of Christina Reid 102

4. Transgressing the Divides: Marie Jones' Camivalesque Subversions of Northern Ireland's Troubled Status Quo 173

5. "You have to have a laugh:" Comic Necessity in the Tragicomic Landscape of Jennifer Johnston's Northern Ireland 231

6. Conclusion: The Comic Play-ground 288

Selected Bibliography 296 ix

Notes to the text

The dates listed in parentheses in the text of my dissertation refer to the original production date for the plays. In the bibliography, the dates listed refer to their publication date. 1

Introduction: Comic Traditions and Women Playwrights in Northern Ireland

The bitter, the hollow and—Haw! Haw!—the mirthless. The bitter laugh laughs at that which is not good, it is the ethical laugh. The hollow laugh laughs at that which is not true, it is the intellectual laugh. Not good! Not true! Well well. But the mirthless laugh is the dianoetic laugh, down the snout—Haw!—so. It is the laugh of laughs, the risus purus, the laugh laughing at the laugh, the beholding, the saluting of the highest joke, in a word the laugh that laughs—silence please— at that which is unhappy. (Beckett Watt 48)

Ludo ergo sum: I play therefore lam. (Stewart Parker, Dramatis Personae 6)

The fundamentally theatrical nature of life amid the contemporary Troubles in

Northern Ireland has been noted by several critics.1 John P. Harrington and Elizabeth J.

Mitchell begin their introduction to Politics and Performance in Contemporary Northern

Ireland with a telling anecdote: "Youngsters in Northern Ireland who exaggerate a hurt are apt to be urged by their parents to 'stop that playactin'!(1). While this underscores the dramatic nature of everyday life in Northern Ireland, it also highlights an underlying connection between theatre and the play-spirit of comedy. Contemporary Northern Irish playwright Stewart Parker believes that play is central to both life and theatre and that theatre becomes an educational tool "If for the word Drama we substitute the word Play."

Citing Johan Huizinga's study, Homo Ludens, Stewart insists that "Play is how we test the world and register its realities. Play is how we experiment, imagine, invent, and move forward. Play is above all how we enjoy the earth and celebrate our life upon it"

(.Dramatis Personae 6). Despite and perhaps because of the tragic nature of the Troubles, this play-spirit mixed with a fundamentally acerbic humour is one of the essential mainstays of Northern Irish life, culture, and theatre. Ashley Taggart notes that a mordant

1 See Harrington and Mitchell; Maguire, Making Theatre; Murray; and Roche, Contemporary. 2 humour "informs Northern Irish life, and... pervades the work of all its writers" (67). She suggests that playwrights from Northern Ireland "retain a keen sense of the absurd," and

"We may be watching the comedy of desperation, but the glimmer of wit never quite dies." Taggart insists that "Playwrights must give voice to the instinctive dark humour which crosses the divide, and which, consciously or otherwise, unites its people" (82).

This underlying dark humour and play-spirit are evident throughout the Troubles drama of Anne Devlin, Christina Reid, Marie Jones, and Jennifer Johnston. These playwrights invoke the manifold and multivalent forms and devices of comedy to simultaneously capture and deconstruct the absurdities and tragedies of their divided society. Through alienation and meta-laughter comedy creates a vital distance by displacing the immediacy and the tragedy of the Troubles; comic estrangement enables the women playwrights in this study to critically examine the sociohistorical contexts of the Troubles. Nevertheless, the play-spirit of comedy in the works of Devlin, Reid, Jones, and Johnston also often serves to unite characters and audiences in shared stories and laughter, offering glimmers of hope and imaginative possibility amid the despair and tragedies of their troubled society.

The underlying, dark humour of Northern Irish theatre and society is also captured in the popular use of the term Troubles to denote the contemporary civil war between unionists and nationalists in Northern Ireland. The term Troubles is both a euphemism and a comic degradation of a violent and tragic context. In this study the terms "Troubles drama" and "Troubles plays" refer specifically to plays that are set in and directly address the contemporary Troubles in Northern Ireland. The historical roots 3 of the contemporary Troubles can be traced from the Anglo-Norman invasion in 11692 to the colonization of Ireland by the British in the late sixteenth century,3 which culminates psychologically in the Battle of the Boyne in 16904 and politically in the formal partition of Ireland in the 1920s.5 The immediate background to the Troubles, however, involves the civil rights marches in the late 1960s and rising tensions between the Catholic and

Protestant communities in Northern Ireland. Most historians cite 1969 to 1972—the years in which the British army entered the province to address the growing violence between unionist and nationalist paramilitary organizations—as the official start of the Troubles.

According to A. T. Q. Stewart:

Most people, if asked to define the chief symptoms of the Northern Ireland troubles would say it is that the two communities cannot live together. The very essence of the Ulster question, however, is that they do live together, and have done so for centuries. They share the same homeland, and, like it or not, the two diametrically opposed political wills must coexist on the same narrow ground. When all is said and done, Cain and Abel were brothers, (qtd. in Murray 187)

These "diametrically opposed political wills" hold equally intractable beliefs in their religious, political, and historical right. It is these entrenched beliefs that form the core of the master narratives of both communities: the unionist belief in the right of their British,

2 In 1169 Anglo-Norman knights and their followers landed at Wexford on the south east coast of Ireland. They initially captured Wexford and Waterford and eventually Dublin. 3 During the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries the British forcefully created a number of plantations throughout Ireland in an effort to colonize its lands and peoples. 4 The Battle of the Boyne took place near Drogheda on the east coast of Ireland during the Williamite wars. During this famous battle, William of Orange's army defeated James II's and thereby guaranteed Protestant ascendancy in England and Ireland. The Battle of the Boyne and 1690 are glorified in Protestant myth and memory, and the 12th of July celebrations of the battle have become a celebration of Protestant and unionist identity in Northern Ireland. 5 In 1920 the British government passed the Government of Ireland Act that granted the unionists a parliament to rule over the six counties now known as Northern Ireland. A year later, the British government entered into negotiations with Irish nationalists. These talks led to the establishment of the Irish Free State in the south and western parts of Ireland. These two acts created an official, geographical, and political border between Northern Ireland and what would later become the Republic of Ireland. 4

Protestant identity drives their fight to maintain a British Northern Ireland, and the nationalist belief in the right of their Irish, Catholic identity equally impels their fight to expel the British and re-establish a united Ireland. During the Troubles, the republican and loyalist factions of both sides shared a parallel, non-negotiable conviction in the necessity of violence in aid of their cause.6 Stewart's interpretation of the conflict as a familial war between brothers captures the tendency in historical and political narratives, as well as the master narratives in each community, to regard the Troubles as a war between men. Women are most often represented as mute witnesses and victims or steadfast proponents in their silent loyalty to their given community and its cause.7

Margaret Ward and Marie Therese McGivern argue that the Protestant, unionist and Catholic, nationalist traditions in Northern Ireland are infamous for their ultra- conservative ideologies regarding gender roles (581-83). Women, as devoted wives and caring mothers, are expected to remain silently loyal to their families and respective communities. Monica McWilliams states that "Many women become so concerned about their families and relatives or friends and neighbours that they do not feel at liberty to speak out or to be seen as betraying their 'religion'" (89). Women are not only confined to the traditional gender roles that define their lives and sexuality but also relegated to

6 The term nationalist in this study refers to those in Northern Ireland whose aim is the unification of Northern Ireland and Ireland and who work within the existing political system to attain this goal. Although some Protestants in Northern Ireland identify as nationalists, the majority are Catholics. Republicans, like nationalists, also seek a united Ireland; however, their emphasis is on revolution through any means necessary, including violence. Unionist refers to those who strive to remain a part of the United Kingdom and work within the existing political system. Loyalists share the unionist objective, but like their republican counterparts, are willing to defend a British Northern Ireland by force. Unionists and loyalists are most often aligned with the Protestant faith and its varying facets in Northern Ireland. 7 Nationalist and republican women have to some extent been active in the fight for a united Ireland; however, the political and paramilitary organizations throughout the Troubles were predominantly male dominated. Unionist and loyalist women, by contrast, were more obviously excluded from politics and paramilitary activities by their stereotyped, prescribed role as the tea-makers of their community and cause. 5 silent exponents of a war that many of them do not support. The traditional categories and labels that inform the Troubles have also limited women's experiences and voices.

Rebecca Phelan maintains that:

The traditional polarization of Irish politics and historiography into Irish/English, nationalist/unionist and revisionist/post-colonial, has meant that women, historically, have not only been forced to choose between such binaries in terms of their personal politics, but have been represented as being contained within these political categories, (qtd. in Maguire, "Northern" 73)

Women's containment within these traditional, androcentric binaries—whether British,

Irish, unionist, or nationalist—is presupposed by the entrenched loyalties that are attached to each label. To question the set categories Irish/English and nationalist/unionist in particular is tantamount to an act of treachery.

I have chosen contemporary women playwrights who were born and/or reside in

Northern Ireland and whose backgrounds reflect the varying sides of the divide.

Moreover, my focus is on playwrights who both directly address the Troubles in their plays and purposely use comedy to not only challenge the categories and narratives that maintain and reproduce the sectarian divide but also interrogate the complexities of contemporary Northern Ireland. Finally, I have selected those playwrights whose works are published and therefore are not only part of the canon of Irish and Northern Irish drama but also accessible to a wider variety of readers. Anne Devlin was raised in a predominantly Catholic, working-class area in Northern Ireland. Christina Reid, born into a working-class, Protestant, and unionist family, grew up in a principally Catholic neighbourhood in Belfast. Marie Jones was born and raised in East Belfast in a chiefly

Protestant, working-class area, while Jennifer Johnston comes from a Protestant, 6

Republic of Ireland background. Their early connections with specific sides of the divide

do not necessarily predetermine either their politics or their representations of the

Troubles. Nevertheless, their common refusal to adhere to the androcentric labels and

binaries informs their comic interrogations, while their public challenges to the myths,

stereotypes, and steadfast beliefs of both nationalists and unionists, beliefs that perpetuate

the Troubles, suggest a subversive, even rebellious insistence on refusing the role of

silent, loyal woman and a conscious decision to comically enter the public debate.

Christopher Murray, who recognizes that the conflict reflects the essence of

tragedy, insists that "What confers distinction on individual dramatization of the Northern

conflict is a writer's ability, through humour, the use of fantasy and distancing

mechanisms of form, to re-present tragic occurrence as entertainment" (187-88). The

comedy inherent in a great deal of theatre in Northern Ireland creates what Murray calls

"a theatre of hope," and he suggests this comic spirit is central to the plays of Stewart

Parker and Martin Lynch, as well as Brian Friel's Troubles play, Freedom of the City

(196). While Murray addresses the work of women playwrights Christina Reid and Anne

Devlin, he fails—like many of his contemporaries—to fully recognize and analyze their comic contributions to theatre in Northern Ireland. Like their male counterparts, Devlin,

Reid, Jones, and Johnston employ a mordant, playful, and hopeful comic spirit to address the contemporary Troubles. However, to suggest that these playwrights belong to a singular tradition would be to limit the scope of their comic interrogations. Rather, all four playwrights borrow freely and openly from varying, overlapping traditions, including a tradition of dark, satiric Northern Irish humour and comedy, a larger comic 7

Irish tradition that can be traced back to the ancient myths and stories of Gaelic literature,

the traditions of folk humour and carnival, western stage comedy, contemporary comedy,

as well as feminist comedy. The range and diversity of the comic play-spirit as it appears

in Troubles plays by women in Northern Ireland reflects the shifting, malleable nature of

comedy.

The mordant humour prevalent in contemporary Northern Irish drama can be

traced back to the beginnings of theatre in Northern Ireland. Murray notes that the Ulster

Literary Theatre was founded in 1902 "with the ambition of establishing in Belfast a

Northern version of W. B. Yeats' Irish Literary Theatre in Dublin" (188). Ignored and

rejected by Yeats, however, the founding members of ULT abandoned their initial

literary ambitions in favour of a more parochial, comedic repertoire that upheld the

masculinist, Protestant ethos of their society's majority. According to Murray, what

distinguished the Ulster Literary Theatre from its southern counterpart was "a local dialect and a satiric point of view" (188). Imelda Foley notes that the communal, comic nature of the ULT was concretized by a subtitle added to the Grand Opera House in

Belfast. Although the theatre was originally built in 1895 for the "risen classes," in 1904

it "became 'the Palace of Varieties,' a music hall 'for the masses'" (1). According to

Foley, the low comedy produced during the early years marked a failure of the ULT's

original more liberal intentions and "fostered a tradition of Ulster comedy within which sectarianism, partner of colonialism, became a seemingly harmless folk culture" that

"capitulated to local populism and an easy representation of 'prod' and 'taig'" (xiii-xiv).

The tradition of satire and parody developed by the ULT is best captured in the plays of 8

Gerald MacNamara, one of its founding members (Foley 5).8 MacNamara's The Mist that

Does Be On the Bog (1909) directly parodies J. M. Synge's The Playboy of the Western

World and In the Shadow of the Glen (Foley 7-8). MacNamara's parodies and satires like other plays produced by the ULT "instated sectarianism as a popular subject for comic treatment" (Foley 6). This comic treatment, however, ultimately failed to engage in a critical analysis of sectarianism, its history, and its consequences (Foley 21).

Alice Milligan perhaps offered the most critical alternative to the comedies being produced at the ULT; however, the patriarchal nature and outlook of the theatre ensured that her feminist and ironic representations of Ireland and its myths of heroism were never produced by the ULT (Foley 18, 20). A direct engagement with sectarianism in

Northern Ireland was not fully initiated until the 1960s with the production of Sam

Thompson's Over the Bridge (1960). Tellingly, the backlash against the parochial, comedic roots of the ULT came most obviously and directly from the establishment of the Lyric Players Theatre in 1951, which "remained implacably opposed to 'political drama', 'propaganda', or any view that art might be politically determined" (Pilkington

186). The founding members of the Lyric were also opposed to comedy in favour of more serious poetic drama. Mary O'Malley, one of the original members of the company, insists that "A propaganda play or a trivial farce or comedy may be thought provoking or entertaining but it will hardly ever be considered as 'art'... The Lyric's restriction to poetic drama was quite deliberate" (qtd. in Pilkington 186). Despite the controversial

8 Satire was also evident in other cultural forums of the time. Foley notes, "Alongside the Northern theatre venture, the literary review Uladh was established in November 1904 to promote 'the product of the Ulster genius.' The first editorial defines Ulster's separatism, which would be expressed in forms 'more satiric than poetic'" (3). 9 beginnings of comedy in Northern Irish theatre, the satiric roots of early plays created a basis from which contemporary Northern Irish playwrights could eventually, comedically confront their troubled society.

The roots of humour in contemporary Northern Irish theatre can also be traced to a larger archaic, comic spirit in ancient Gaelic literature. Vivien Mercier, in his groundbreaking study The Irish Comic Tradition, posits the comic as the most prevalent tradition in Irish literature. He argues that the comic spirit in Gaelic literature encompasses a dark humour that often aligns itself with the fantastic, the macabre, and the grotesque and, as such, does not always conform to what we think should be funny

(11). He suggests that macabre humour in particular is inseparable from terror and serves as a defense mechanism against the fear of death. Mercier traces an evolutionary development of humour in ancient Gaelic literature and society from its earliest forms in verbal magic to the crafted poetry of the Gaelic bards. Mercier's history of Irish comedy begins with fantastic humour, "which springs from the absurd, that which is laughable because it is untrue or irrational or, at the very least, exaggerated" (1). The next stage includes the grotesque and macabre, which are concerned with the uncontrollable forces of life and death. Against their exaggerations of the cruelties and ugliness of life, "We laugh at their absurd exaggeration, simultaneously expressing our relief that life is, after all, not quite so unpleasant" (1). The ambivalent connection between the grotesque and the macabre, according to Mercier, is most fully captured in the mythical sheela-na-gig:

"With her ferocious mouth, skeleton ribs and grotesquely exaggerated sex organ [she] is essentially a goddess of creation-and-destruction" (4-5). This dual-natured goddess 10 manifests in various forms in Irish myth and literature, including Ashling, Roisin Dubh, and Cathleen Ni Houlihan. Irish writers in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries often used one of the three figures as a central trope to represent Mother Ireland. W. B. Yeats and Lady Gregory in their famous 1902 play immortalized the figure of Cathleen Ni

Houlihan. While their version is a serious and poetic dramatization of the figure, their play inspired later literary, comic versions of Cathleen. David Krause suggests that on the modern Irish stage—and in Irish fiction—the figure most open to profaning was Cathleen

Ni Houlihan (Krause, "The Principle" 3-4). The next stages of humour, according to

Mercier, include word play, wit, and the more complex literary forms of satire and parody. The tradition of cursing was a central device in satires written by bardic poets in pre-modern Ireland. Many believed in the power of satire to cause physical harm, and thus, the bards were accorded a certain amount of reverence and influence (7). Mercier argues that the defining characteristic of an Irish comic tradition derives from its roots in an archaic society and literature (9). The conservatism and archaism of Irish life and literature developed a "play-spirit in a way that a more modern civilization could not have done" (244). He continues that this play-spirit is central to Irish literature: it is embodied in "the mockery of Irish laughter" from which "no aspect of life is too sacred to escape" (248).9 Despite the androcentric, teleological nature of Mercier's study, the various stages of this Gaelic comic tradition are evident in the works of all four women playwrights in this study. Devlin's inclusion of the macabre and grotesque and her subversion and mockery of the sacred—most notably Cathleen Ni Houlihan—posit her as

9 While Mercier notes that "A great deal of Irish humour is indistinguishable from its British counterpart" (10), this may be explained by its roots in an ancient, archaic culture that also informs British literature. 11

a direct descendent of this ancient comic tradition.

David Krause, in The Profane Book of Irish Comedy, develops Mercier's

examination of the subversive nature of Irish humour. According to Krause, central to

Irish comic writing, and specifically Irish comedic drama, is "the desecration of Ireland's

household gods" (The Profane 11). The impulse to mock the sacred, for Krause, begins

with Oisin, "the last great playboy of the pagan world," in the "Dialogue between Oisin

and St. Patrick" and culminates in modern Irish drama. He suggests that Irish dramatists

have overwhelmingly, either "instinctively or mythically, through the dynamism of their

plays, written what amounts to a profane book of Irish comedy, a body of theatrical

literature that comically desecrates whatever is too sacred in Ireland" (The Profane 9).

Irish humour, according to Krause, strikes "a universal impulse, a common cause... to

mock conformity and authority" {The Profane 12). He suggests that Irish playwrights

"were driven by the Irish passion for a profane book of comedy, as well as a sardonic disillusionment with the mythical queen of Irish nationalism, Cathleen Ni Houlihan, the old sow who, according to Joyce's tragicomic jest, tries to devour her farrow" {The

Profane 10). All four playwrights in this study openly profane the sacred traditions and

beliefs of their communities in their comic interrogations of the Troubles. Devlin, in particular, profanes a number of Ireland and Northern Ireland's household gods through her feminist re-scripting of the Troubles.

Krause posits Sean O'Casey and the iconoclastic, satirical humour of his Dublin trilogy as central to the development of Ireland's profane comic tradition. O'Casey was aware of the power of derisive laughter and underscored its significance in his essay, "The Power of Laughter: Weapon Against Evil":

A laugh is a great natural stimulator, a pushful entry into life; and once we can laugh, we can live. It is the hilarious declaration made by man that life is worth living. Man is always hopeful of, always pushing towards, better things; and to bring this about, a change must be made in the actual way of life; so laughter is brought in to mock at things as they are so that they may topple down, and make room for better things to come. (226)

For O'Casey, laughter underscores the ambivalent connection between comedy and tragedy that is central to ancient and modern Irish comedy. According to O'Casey,

"Comedy and tragedy step through life together, arm in arm, all along, out along, down along lea" (226). Devlin, Reid, Jones, and Johnston—like many Irish and Northern Irish playwrights before them—have been influenced by O'Casey's tragicomic vision. Reid, however, pays the most direct tribute to O'Casey through an intertextual reference to his

In the Shadow of the Gunman in her play Joyriders (1986) and through her adoption of the gritty realism and dark humour characteristic of O'Casey's Dublin Trilogy.

Krause's study argues that modern Irish dramatic comedy is a distinct genre, one that draws from the history of stage comedy, the Gaelic tradition, and a medieval tradition. This last tradition suggests an important connection between the roots of twentieth-century Irish comedy and Mikhail Bakhtin's theories of medieval carnival. In this case, Mercier's and Krause's studies belong in part to a larger western tradition.

Mercier's discussion of grotesque and macabre humour, in particular, reflects Bakhtin's theories of the carnivalesque, which also has its roots in an archaic past. The ambivalent connection between life and death in grotesque and macabre humour suggests the essential ambivalence of carnival. Carnival both mocks and renews the sacred, it destroys and revives: in carnival death is always related to birth (Bakhtin, Rabelais 16, 50). 13

Moreover, the riotous, profane nature of Irish comedy, discussed by both Mercier and

Krause, reflects Bakhtin's theory of the potentially rebellious nature of carnival, which mocks and overturns the norms and ideologies of its society. According to Bakhtin,

"Carnival celebrated temporary liberation from the prevailing truth and established order"

{Rabelais 10) and was invoked "to liberate from the prevailing point of view of the world, from conventions and established truths, from cliches, from all that is humdrum and universally accepted" (Rabelais 34). This places the Irish comic tradition and, by extension, comedy in Northern Irish theatre within a larger context of carnival. The carnivalesque, in its varying manifestations, is evident throughout the works of Devlin,

Reid, Johnston, and most notably Jones; it is the central manifestation of hope (comedy) and despair (tragedy) that interweave throughout their theatrical narratives on the

Troubles.

The ambivalence of Bakhtin's carnival is central to understanding not only an archaic and pre-modern comic tradition but also contemporary comedy. The intersections between tragedy and comedy, between life and death, and between hope and despair are central motifs in a great deal of twentieth-century comic literature. Christopher Innes, in his study of modern British drama, notes that in the twentieth century there is an increasing use of comedy to explore 'dark' themes (215). Wiley Sypher argues that amid the inherent absurdities of the twentieth century "the comic and tragic views of life no longer exclude each other" and "that comedy can tell us many things about our situation even tragedy cannot" (193). According to Sypher, this is an absurd, disorderly, and irrational and thus a comic century: "Is it any wonder that along with our wars, our machines, and our neuroses we should find new meanings in comedy, or that comedy

should represent our plight better than tragedy?" (201). The tragicomic play-spirit of the

twentieth century is perhaps best captured in Samuel Beckett's mirthless or dianoetic

laugh, which ultimately finds its roots in the archaic tradition described by Mercier. This

mirthless laugh, according to Simon Critchley, is the authentic laugh, the laugh that best captures the absurdity of contemporary existence (47-50). It is also the laugh that clearly connects the varying and diverse comic traditions, the Troubles, and the women playwrights in this study. While Johnston is the most Beckettian of the four playwrights, the Troubles plays by Devlin, Reid, and Jones include clear echoes of the mirthless laughter and the tragicomic nature of Beckett's theatre.

Susan Carlson notes that "The increasingly persistent issue that has dominated studies of twentieth-century comic drama is whether any comedy is possible in this century" (308), in what she calls the "age of despair" (308). Nevertheless, numerous scholars have underscored an essential connection between laughter and humanity. For

Henri Bergson, according to Tew, "Laughter is a register of what ontologically constitutes humanity" (3). Sypher develops Bergson's theory of the essential humanness of laughter: "Man has been defined as a social animal, a tool-making animal, a speaking animal, a thinking animal, a religious animal. He is also a laughing animal" (201). Sypher suggests that "Comedy seems to be a more pervasive human condition than tragedy"

(206). Comedy is broader in scope than tragedy and "comic action touches experience at more points than tragedy" (206). We laugh because we are human, because we need to in order to exist and persist amid the absurdities and tragedies of contemporary life. 15

Likewise, Devlin's, Reid's, Jones', and Johnston's characters laugh because they need to

in order to exist and persist amid the absurdities and tragedies of their troubled lives.

Critchley suggests that "True humour can be said to have a therapeutic as well as

critical function" (Critchley 15). He continues that "Humour both reveals the situation,

and indicates how that situation might be changed" (Critchley 16). Mary Moynihan and

Paul Kennedy, based on their experiences with the community-based Irish theatre

company Smashing Times, insist that comedy both "challengejs] people to change their

habitual ways of perceiving the world" and as a political tool "encourage[s] change in

creative ways" (127,128). Bertolt Brecht engages in the more critical functions of

comedy in his plays; in Brecht's theatre, comedy becomes an alienation effect that opens

up a distance from which to critically examine events. Terry Eagleton argues, "Comedy

distantiates an action" and "comic distantiation in Brecht is mainly a matter of the estrangement effect" (156-57). This "Comic estrangement allows the audience to 'think

above the action', which clearly entails psychical expenditure; but since thinking itself is

pleasurable, this does not wholly dissipate the comic effect" (Eagleton 157). Comedy,

then, is a means to engage the audience in a critique of the action on stage and their own

laughter. The critical function of laughter is also reflected in Beckett's dianoetic laugh,

"the laugh laughing at the laugh." This meta-laugh forces us to question laughter itself.

The critical function of laughter is particularly relevant to Troubles drama. It forces us to ask, what are we laughing at? This leads to fundamental questions regarding comic visions of the Troubles: how can one be funny? Indeed, how can one laugh amid the carnage and devastations of a civil war? Can we laugh at all? Stuart Marlow suggests that 16 one of the challenges of representing the Troubles on stage is "the difficulty of finding the necessary distance from the claustrophobia, the physical and psychological ghetto of sectarian violence" (147). While humour and laughter throughout the plays by Devlin,

Reid, Jones, and Johnston often creates respite from this physical and psychological ghetto, Reid, through alienation effects often punctuated by humour, and Johnston, by evoking Beckett's meta-laugh, come closest to creating greater comic distance.

Brecht's and Beckett's uses of the traditions of stage comedy and clowns serve as substantiation devices in their theatres. The comic clowns of Brecht and Beckett follow a long history of clowns and fools on the western stage. While fools sometimes serve a critical function in theatre, they also embody the play-spirit central to comedy in its varying manifestations and traditions. Sypher argues that "The province of the Fool is the whole wide circuit of life and death, laughter and tears, wisdom and ignorance" (231). He continues, "He is resilient with a vitality lacking to the tragic hero, who must accept his misfortune and his responsibility with a stoic face, with a steadier logic than the absurd logic of comedy" (232). The fool, the embodiment of the comic spirit, is expansive in his roles and genres: he can be "the seer, the prophet, the 'possessed,' since the madness of the fool is oracular, sibylline, Delphic" and "sometimes his intuition is tragic" (233). The twentieth-century fool can move freely between the comic, the tragicomic, and the tragic realms of life and theatre. He is both seer and critic: "In almost all his roles the fool is set apart, dedicated, alienated, if not outcast, beaten, slain. Being isolated, he serves as a

'center of indifference,' from which position the rest of us may, if we will, look through his eyes and appraise the meaning of our daily life" (Sypher 243). Fools and clowns, as the corporeal manifestation of this multifaceted play-spirit, are the central agents of

Devlin's, Reid's, Jones', and Johnston's comic interrogations of the Troubles.

This manifestation of the comic spirit in clowns and fools follows a long history in Irish literature. Maureen Waters traces the development of modern and contemporary comic characters in Irish literature back to the rustic clown or omadhawn, the rogue, and the stage Irishman of nineteenth-century literature. The omadhawn or "Paddy was made sport of because of his ignorance, his whiskey drinking, his interest in pigs. And so the

Irish peasant appeared on stage and in fiction as a comic character, whose incorrigible ways and talent for 'blarney' became the basic ingredients of farce" (Waters 1). The rogue, "a popular figure in Irish ballads and folktales of the nineteenth century... was typically an outlaw, a highwayman, one who lived on the fringes of the community" (5).

The stage Irishman, "typically a merry, whiskey drinking, pugnacious clown" is exemplified by the comic characters in the plays of Dion Boucicault (6). Waters notes that manifestations of the comic Irishman "must deal with authority whether they are sons, or servants or outlaws" (7). She suggests an important development in the comic

Irishman, and particularly the stage Irishman, with the creation of Christy Mahon. In The

Playboy of the Western World, Synge transforms the "country bumpkin" into "the actual hero of the play" (6). As central hero, Christy poses the greatest threat to authority and

"With Synge we have the first real stirrings of revolution" (8). However, Playboy closely follows the traditional comic pattern and patriarchal authority is reinstated when Christy leaves and his father regains control (8). Tellingly, there is no discussion of comic Irish women in this study. 18

Elizabeth Hale Winkler briefly addresses this silence in The Clown in Modern

Anglo-Irish Drama. The majority of her work addresses male clowns and fools in modern

Irish drama, and she adopts Walter Kerr's view that the clown is the "most primitive, but also the most primary of comic figures" (11). She places Irish clowns in a larger western context, and thus, she is able to address a tradition of female clowns in western literature.

Hale Winkler notes that "There are far fewer female than male clowns in the history of western civilization," which she suggests, "tells us more about the position of women than about the nature of the clown" (43). She notes that "The hag or shrewish wife is the only type of role for female clowns which has been perpetuated through the centuries"

(43). They were most often characterized by their comic subversion, through aggression and wit, of women's traditional, subservient role as "obedient wife" (44). Perhaps female comic characters were also occluded by the underlying subversive, indeed dangerous potential of the female clown and fool.

As an embodiment of social critic, the female clown poses the greatest threat to male hegemony. Frances Gray argues that "The field of comic discourse is perhaps the most fiercely guarded of all against female clowns and female critics" (13). She suggests that "It is the female clown who perhaps embodies the idea of Helene Cixous' punning image of a woman as 'une voleuse de langue'—that is, one who steals the language, and one who also flies with the language" (13). The central manifestation of the comic spirit in the Troubles plays by Devlin, Reid, Jones, and Johnston, generally, takes the form of female clowns, fools, and comedians. All four playwrights in this study include female comic characters that serve to disrupt and destabilize the master male narratives of the 19

Troubles: Frieda in Devlin's Ourselves Alone (1985) and Greta in After Easter (1994);

Dolly in Reid's The Belle of Belfast City (1989) and Sandra and Maureen in Clowns

(1996); Madeline in Jones' and Charabanc's Now You're Talkin' (1986); and Christine in

Johnston's O Ananias, Azarias and Miseal (1988). All of these characters employ comic subversions that are often aggressive and laced with a sharp wit and tongue and that not only challenge but also uproot the core ideologies and beliefs that inform their society.

Reid and Jones also include male comedic, irreverent voices: Brian in Reid's Did You

Hear the One About the Irishman... ? (1985) and Kenneth McCallister in Jones' A Night in November (1994).

The underrepresentation and occlusion of female clowns in both literature and criticism reflects a larger marginalization of women's comedy.10 The history of comedy, like the history of literature, has been a history of male comedy, and this is particularly evident not only in western studies of comedy but also in studies on Irish comedy. While

Mercier, in The Irish Comic Tradition, provides a fundamental basis for the study of Irish and Northern Irish comedy, his teleological view of Gaelic literature is problematic in its suggestion of an androcentric, linear development of the archaic, Irish play-spirit. For the most part, Mercier disregards the contributions of Irish women writers; he looks briefly at

Somerville and Ross, Maria Edgeworth, and Lady Gregory. David Krause, in focusing on a specific time period, presents Lady Gregory as a sole representative of women dramatists. The more recent Comic Tradition in Irish Women Writers attempts to redress

10 Barreca notes that academics often fail to recognize women's comedy as comic. While this is due in part to the evolving nature of comedy and comic forms in contemporary theatre, it is also rooted in the entrenched belief that women lack a sense of humour. She argues that "Women have traditionally been considered objects of comedy because they are perceived as powerless; they are perceived as humorless because it is assumed that they simply refuse to get the joke" ("Introduction" 12). 20 the gender imbalance of earlier studies on Irish comedy. Theresa O'Connor, in her introduction to the collection of essays, suggests a revisionist "frame of reference for discussing Ireland's comic tradition" that is based on the dual-gendered trickster figure

Esu from an ancient Yoruba tale "The Two Friends" (1-2). O'Connor argues that the comic Irish tradition has at its core a dual-gendered trickster figure akin to Esu (2). She proposes that the ancient Gaelic tales of Finn "show a culture trying to devise strategies to mediate between self and other, male and female, the world of being and non-being"

(3). The collection, she suggests, challenges the seemingly androcentric nature of Irish comedy by examining Irish women's contributions to the tradition. In addressing multiple genres, however, the essays tend to focus on fiction and poetry and overlook the rise of women's comedy in modern and contemporary drama. Once again the sole female dramatist addressed in the volume is Lady Gregory, who has come to represent the central female playwright in the established Irish dramatic canon, Ireland's token female playwright.

The limitations of both Mercier's and Krause's works reflect the limitations of the theatre and academia. The marginalization of women playwrights in Ireland and Northern

Ireland is well documented." Northern Irish women playwrights are marginalized by gender and geography. Mark Phelan, in his study of early twentieth-century women playwrights Alice Milligan, Helen Waddell, and Patricia O'Connor, argues that they are

"doubly occluded from the Irish canon, as geography, as well as gender, has placed them

'beyond the pale' of a meta-narrative of Irish theatre historiography that has been

" See Boyle Haberstroh and St. Peter; Fitzgerald-Hoyt; Kearney; Kirkpatrick; McMullan, "Gender" and "Irish Women"; Sihra; White, "Towards" and "Cathleen"; and Williams. 21 profoundly Dublincentric in nature" (124). Tom Maguire underscores the tendency to include theatre in Northern Ireland as chapters within larger studies of theatre in Ireland, as well as a direct failure in the Republic of Ireland to engage with the Troubles. He suggests that "The resolutely nationalist teleology to much Irish theatre historiography and other aspects of public cultural activity has ignored the Northern problem" (Making

Theatre 11). Within this consignment, Northern Irish women playwrights are often further relegated to minor sections within chapters or excluded altogether.12 Helen Lojek underscores this occlusion of contemporary Northern Irish women playwrights and companies within the "hierarchies of academic analysis" by suggesting that "If women's theatre is outside the male-dominated mainstream, Irish theatre is likely to strike English critics the same way; and Northern Irish theatre strikes even analysts from the Republic as fringe" ("Playing" 89).

In the androcentric realms of theatre, publishing, and academia, the commercial successes of Devlin and Reid in London, Jones in London and New York, and the more community-based, less commercial successes of Charabanc and Johnston are continually overshadowed by their male counterparts. Carla J. McDonough argues that "Irish theatre has in some sense exacerbated the political turmoil in Northern Ireland since the late

1960s by casting political struggle as something inherently consumed by manhood"

12 Anthony Roche includes a chapter, "Northern Irish Drama: Imagining Alternatives," in his 1994 book, Contemporary Irish Drama: From Beckett to McGuinness, in which he discusses Anne Devlin, Christina Reid, and Charabanc. Murray, likewise, includes a chapter on theatre in Northern Ireland in his study, Twentieth-Century Irish Drama: Mirror Up to Nation, in which he very briefly addresses the contributions made by Reid, Jones, and Devlin to theatre in Northern Ireland. Nicholas Greene's chapter on Northern Irish theatre in The Politics of Irish Drama is tellingly titled "Imagining the Other" and lists Christina Reid's Tea In a China Cup as a play that addresses the past (235), but he does not mention any other women playwrights in Northern Ireland. (182). The predominance of works by Brian Friel, Frank McGuinness, Stewart Parker, and Graham Reid in academic studies, in performance, and in publication underscores the marginalization of their female counterparts. Academic articles consistently introduce and analyze the works of male playwrights while women playwrights are sparingly mentioned and even more sparingly analyzed. This imbalance is most obvious in a direct comparison between the international recognition and successes of Field Day Theatre

Company and the more local, often unacknowledged achievements of the all-female theatre company Charabanc. Maria R. DiCenzo ("Charabanc") and Helen Lojek

("Playing") both engage in a direct analysis of the varying reasons for Field Day's greater success and recognition and ultimately conclude the essential gender imbalance at the core of Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland's theatrical and academic institutions.

A number of critics, mostly female, have sought to address this gender inequality in Irish theatre criticism. Eileen Kearney in her 1991 survey article, "Current Women's

Voices in the Irish Theatre: New Dramatic Visions," attempts to redress the imbalance and silence of women's plays from publication and criticism. She lists "seventy-four playwrights, almost all of whom have had plays produced in the twentieth century in

Ireland" (231). While she lists playwrights from Ireland, she also includes playwrights writing in Northern Ireland, including Devlin, Reid, Jones, and Johnston. This reflects a tendency among academic critics to define and categorize Northern Irish women dramatists as Irish and include them in larger anthologies and studies on Irish women and 23 theatre.13 While women playwrights in Northern Ireland do address similar themes, tropes, and issues as their contemporaries south of the border, the specificity of writing against the background of the Troubles is rarely addressed in the larger context of Irish theatre studies. In this case, the minority of Northern Irish women playwrights are subsumed and thereby marginalized within a larger discussion of women in Irish drama.

Rebecca Phelan, in Two Irelands: Literary Feminisms North and South, insists on the importance of addressing the distinctive cultural and historical production contexts for women writers in the Republic and women writers in Northern Ireland. Imelda Foley's groundbreaking study The Girls in the Big Picture not only confronts the gender imbalance in Northern Irish theatre but also challenges the Dublincentric nature of theatre historiography and criticism in Ireland. Foley combines personal interviews and analysis to document the significant contributions of Devlin, Reid, Jones, and Charabanc Theatre

Company to theatre in Northern Ireland. Her work signifies an important step in addressing Northern Irish women playwrights within their specific sociohistoric context.

Perhaps the only limitation of Foley's work is her failure to recognize the contributions of

Jennifer Johnston.

Women playwrights in Northern Ireland, then, are multiply marginalized by gender, geography, the androcentric view of the Troubles and its theatrical representations, as well as their strategic, expansive inclusion of a mordant and defiant comic spirit. Women's comedy is consistently undervalued and marginalized in academic criticism. Regina Barreca suggests that "When writing comedy, where the unofficial

13 See Fitzpatrick; Gonzalez; Kearney; Kirkpatrick; McMullan, "Gender" and "Irish Women"; Sihra; Weekes; and White, "Cathleen." 24 nature of the world is explored (to paraphrase Bakhtin) women are damned to insignificance twice over. They are the unofficial discussing the insignificant"

("Introduction" 6). The private nature of women's voices in the public narratives of the

Troubles damns them even further into the margins. Patricia Boyle Haberstroh and

Christine St. Peter argue that "Finding voice amid the din of male-dominated discourses is probably nowhere more difficult than in a war zone" (10). Finding and foregrounding a comic voice is not only more difficult but also more dangerous in a war zone. According to Barreca, women's comedy, which frequently mocks the very norms that traditional comedy serves to reaffirm, is most often deviant ("Introduction" 16), and as such, it can prove dangerous and disruptive to the society in which it is produced. Women's comic disruptions often involve a refusal to adhere to the conventional forms and dictates of comedy. Innes and Mercier both note that comedy is a "highly conventional drama"

(Innes 215) and one that Innes calls "consciously traditional" (215). Women's comedy, according to Barreca, however, "is characterized by the breaking of cultural and ideological frames. The woman writer's use of comedy is dislocating, anarchic and, paradoxically, unconventional" ("Making Trouble" 6). Barreca argues that the rebellious nature of a great deal of women's comedy, which often serves to "intrude, disturb and disrupt. ..is linked to aggression and to the need to break free of socially and culturally imposed restraints" ("Introduction" 6). Aggression plays a prominent role in numerous, more general theories of comedy, and recent feminist theory associates aggression with comedy written by women (Finney 10). Barreca states that "Comedy and anger are two fundamental mainstays of women's writing" ("They Used" 50). Women's aggression is 25 particularly disruptive and dangerous in a society like Northern Ireland where women's loyalty and silence are entrenched in the tribal laws of both Catholic and Protestant communities.

While women's comedy can be disruptive and aggressive, it can also be strategically transgressive and transcendent. Theresa O'Connor, in her introduction to

The Comic Tradition in Irish Women Writers, characterizes Irish women's comic writing as transcending differences through "certain commonalities, most notably a focus on boundaries and a hybridizing vision that engages in witty negotiation with established patriarchal, colonial and nationalist orthodoxies" (4). Northern Irish women playwrights also engage in similar hybridizations, which often seek to cross, even dismantle the boundaries, borders, and divisions that inform the Troubles. Their interrogations of the structures—patriarchal, economic, and masculinist, as well as unionist, nationalist,

Protestant, and Catholic—of Northern Irish society offer counter-narratives to those written by the more powerful and, most often, male voices in Northern Ireland. These comic narratives serve to disrupt and destabilize the absurd and troubled status quo of

Northern Ireland. Barreca notes that "The ending of comic works by women writers do not, ultimately, reproduce the expected hierarchies, or if they do it is often with a sense of dislocation even about the happiest ending" ("Introduction" 12). Troubles plays by women in Northern Ireland most often reflect the darker realities of an ongoing war.

When they do offer transgressive, hopeful endings, they most often deny a reinstatement of the patriarchal status quo and instead offer imaginative, inclusive, and often, though not exclusively, woman-centered visions and spaces. Although they frequently adopt the 26

communal basis of traditional comedy, Northern Irish women dramatists most often

reject the tradition of male-dominated communities in their plays, as well as the scripted

reintegration and return to the status quo that is characteristic of dramatic comedy.

Ironically and strategically, these women make trouble to disrupt and transcend the

Troubles.

Recent feminist studies of comedy have underscored characteristic differences between men's and women's comedy. Gail Finney summarizes the groundbreaking work of Regina Barreca, Judy Little, Susan Carlson, and Nancy Walker and notes that there are characteristic differences between men's and women's comedy (4-5). She lists the following "consensus of characteristics": women tell comic stories while men tell jokes; the central aim of women's humour is communication and the sharing of experiences while men's humour is a means of "self-preservation and demonstration of cleverness"; women's comedy tends to be less hostile than men's; female comedians tend to invoke self-deprecating humour; women's comedy is often nonlinear; and in women's comedy there is often greater "emphasis on recognition rather than resolution and on process than conclusion, leading to a lack of happy endings or closure altogether" (5). While the women playwrights in this study do exhibit most of the characteristics that Finney lists to distinguish women's comedy, they also challenge her generalizations: humour for Devlin,

Reid, Jones, and Johnston is in varying ways a means of "self-preservation"; Reid's and

Devlin's humour is often hostile; and Reid's female stand-up comedian in Clowns tells both jokes and comic stories, and she rarely invokes self-deprecation in her routine.

Finney does make an important qualification: the differences between comedy by men 27 and women will vary according to the temporal, cultural, and national context of a work's composition (5). She emphasizes the need to recognize that comedy and humour exist within and are directly conditioned by specific sociohistoric contexts (9). Perhaps the specific context of the Troubles informs and influences the more malleable and transcendent uses of comedy by Devlin, Reid, Jones, and Johnston.

Carlson expands on Finney's definition of women's comedy by underscoring an essential difference between men and women's comedy: "Women's comedy most often offers a comic world where hope or strength can be generated, while men produce comedy filtered through despair" (305). While women's comedy does not always resemble the traditional comedies of western stage history, Carlson insists that women's comedy remains comedy "because [it] retains comedy's joy in an age of despair" (308).

The dark, often mordant tones of the Troubles plays in this study are punctuated by an underlining hope and joy that filters through even the most tragic moments on stage. Like their predecessors in Irish and Northern Irish literature and theatre, Northern Irish women playwrights invoke a mordant, acerbic humour that profanes the existing hierarchies and divisions in their society. While it is not within the scope of this study to address underlying differences between men's and women's uses of comedy in Northern Irish theatre, it is important to note that Troubles plays by Devlin, Reid, Jones, and Johnston invoke this spark of joy amid the despair and tragedy of the Troubles.

Common also to all four playwrights is their use of the monologue to foreground their comic revisions and retellings of the Troubles. The potential of monologue as a dramatic form is perhaps best captured in its inherent duality as both a convention in 28 traditional theatre and as a mode of deviant discourse. Ken Friedan notes that monologic speech can be traced back to the theatres of ancient Greece and Rome in which it was a central convention and from which it developed in the evolution of institutionalized theatre. Although monologic speech is accepted as a convention in theatrical discourse,

Friedan argues that it is both inventive and subversive:

Monologue may be understood either as a static opposition to communicative dialogue or as a dynamic swerve away from prior conventions of discourse. In the first case, monologue is the factual solitude of speech that is not addressed to another. More significantly, monologue signals the active break from norms of ordinary language and is thus allied with innovation, deviant discourse and creativity. (20)

For Friedan, the study of literary and dramatic monologues reveals a "history of creative deviations" (19).

The word monologue comes from the Greek monos meaning one or alone and logos meaning speech. It is not to be confused with a soliloquy, which comes from the

Latin solus (alone) and loqui (speak). Although the two terms are interchangeable in everyday usage, the soliloquy is technically a type of monologue, though a monologue can be distinguished from a soliloquy. Like the soliloquy, the monologue may take the form of a speech spoken by a character alone on stage or in the presence of others, but, unlike the soliloquy, other characters may overhear the monologue. The monologue can also take the form of a speech addressed specifically to the theatre audience.14 While a dramatic monologue can be introspective, even cerebral at times, the presence of the theatre audience underscores the public, performative nature of the form.

14 The aside is a classic example of this: by convention, it is a short speech addressed to the audience and not heard by other characters. 29

While a dramatic monologue is formally a long speech by a single character within a traditional play, an entire play may take the form of a monologue, such as in monodramas and one-person shows. Jordan R. Young makes an important distinction between the monodrama and the one-person show: the latter is most often the work of an actor who creates and performs the act themselves; by contrast, "One-character plays, or monodramas, are generally the creation of playwrights rather than actors looking for a showcase vehicle" (25). Martin Harrison clarifies this distinction: "Unlike the one-hander and monodrama, which tended to be dramatic terms, most one-man shows were originally showcases in which individual variety artists would display the full range of their skills" (177). The varying forms and purposes of the solo show, however, suggest a greater overlap between the development of the contemporary theatrical monodrama and the solo or one-person show and its variations. Young notes that "One-person shows have taken on a myriad of forms over the years—impersonations, anthologies, adaptations, recitals and autobiographical monologues, among others. But not all can be conveniently labeled; some overlap and many others defy easy categorization and description due to the very nature of theatre" (23). Similarly, it is often difficult to establish clear generic demarcations between contemporary monodrama and the solo or one-person show. The shared ancestry of comic monodramas and one-person shows—both have developed from eighteenth-century British "entertainments" and early twentieth-century American

"showcases" (Young 130)—further suggest the interconnectivity between the two forms.

Deborah R. Geis notes that Brecht and Beckett "changed the ways we look at theatrical monologue to a greater degree than any other twentieth-century dramatists" 30

(23). She argues that the performance of a monologue in modern and postmodern drama, and most notably in the work of Beckett, "is unaccompanied by insight or change; the monologue explores the realm of private speech, but that private speech is ultimately narrated and theatricalized" (27). The traditional physical space of realist theatre is transformed through monologue into narrative space. This is particularly pronounced by the sparse or even nonexistent settings that characterize contemporary monodramas.

Monologues, and monodramas in particular with their bare backdrops, are often indicative of the isolation of the speaker from others, their community, and the world at large. Geis, however, notes a contradiction in this definition of the monologue "by the presence, in the theatre, of the audience" (7). The works of Brecht, as well as studies in semiotics and performance theory, have highlighted the role of the spectator in the production of meaning in a theatrical performance. The presence of the audience is essential to the reception and interpretation of a monodramatic performance. As Keir

Elam notes, "It is with the spectator in brief that theatrical communication begins and ends" (96-97).

In the public space of Northern Irish theatre, monologue enables marginalized voices to enter into dominant discourse and challenge the very structures that have ensured their traditional exclusion. The monologue serves to challenge the hierarchy inherent in the linguistic structure of language; those who control discourse from a subject position maintain the power to speak, define, and interrupt. Dialogue is firmly rooted in traditional Western hierarchy; where dialogue takes place between two individuals whose difference is determined by class, race, or gender the end result of the 31 power struggle through discourse is predetermined. Marginalized voices in a dialogue with 'centred' or dominant voices are restricted by their position as other. The monologue, however, openly defies this positioning in language literally by denying the response of another. Bakhtin notes that "The monologue is accomplished and deaf to the other's response; it does not await it and does not grant it any decisive force" (qtd. in

Todorov 107). In this case, monologue enables the speaker to control discourse without interruption from either characters on stage or the spectators in the theatre auditorium.

One may argue that dialogue is central to any forward movement in finding peace between the two communities in Northern Ireland; however, a form of dialogue does take place between the monologist and their audience.

The use of direct address, which is characteristic of contemporary monologue, also creates a bond with audience members. This is particularly the case with comic monologues in which part of the work of the comic actor is to connect to his or her audience (Drohan 148). This connectivity creates a level playing field between actor and audience. Simon Callow suggests that in an aside "a character is addressing his peers"

(qtd. in Drohan 148). This is also the case in a monodrama where the connection established in an aside is extended throughout an entire performance. However, this connection also suggests collusion. Drohan notes that "As in Shakespeare, asides are very often where subtext and self-examination take place. Collusion is established in these instances" (149). Again, monodrama extends and perhaps heightens this collusion, as the comic actor connects with an audience of peers and draws them into his/her inner world and reactions to the surrounding Troubles. Dramatic monologues, monodramas, and solo shows, although not peculiar to

Northern Irish theatre, are popular conventions among many of Ireland's and Northern

Ireland's dramatists. The verbal nature of Irish and Northern Irish theatre, which is firmly

rooted in the traditions of storytelling in Ireland north and south of the border, created an

audience that is accustomed to the transformation of action into words and of physical

settings into narrative space. Maguire suggests that there is "an emphasis on the

subjective experiences of the conflict, particularly addressed in story-telling modes of

performance" {Making Theatre 162). Through the inclusion of monologues within

traditional plays, Devlin, Reid, and Jones, in her work with Charabanc, posit their female

characters within this long tradition of storytelling. The monologue becomes a means of

comic telling for their characters. For Devlin's women it is a mode of retelling and

revision, while for Jones and Charabanc monologue creates an important connection

between the women on stage and their community of listeners. Reid, who also uses

monologue as a form of telling, plays with the form by blurring the lines between stand-

up comedy and dramatic monologue.

Anthony Roche notes that storytelling in the form of monodramas has also

emerged in contemporary theatre throughout Ireland and Northern Ireland ("The 'Irish'"

137-38), while Maguire detects the rise of monodrama in Troubles plays (Making

Theatre 163). Maguire goes on to state that the "development of monodramatic performances represents the essence of story-telling in performance" (162). Nonetheless,

in the plays of Jones and Johnston, monodramatic performance is often more than just storytelling. The focus on subjectivity and being in Johnston's monodramas has led to the 33 creation of singular, meditative voices and deeper ontological explorations reminiscent of

Beckett. Jones blurs the lines between theatrical monodrama and the solo show in A

Night in November. Moreover, for Jones, whose work is firmly grounded in community theatre and touring, the economic advantages of the monodrama help her to reach wider audiences. While these advantages may have also influenced Johnston's adoption of the monodrama, the concision of the form itself corresponds with her focus on individual psyches, as well as her characteristically condensed narratives. Ultimately, however, through their emphasis on personal, comic narratives, the monologues and monodramas of Devlin, Reid, Jones, and Johnston not only enter a long tradition of storytelling and humour in Northern Irish drama but also serve to foreground the lives, experiences, and views of those too often silenced in the dominant, public discussions of the Troubles.

Anne Devlin's humour is most often irreverent and defiant. Like her comic predecessors in Gaelic and Irish literature, nothing is sacred, and she engages in the desecration of such republican household gods as Cathleen Ni Houlihan, the Virgin

Mary, and Bobby Sands.15 Chapter one discusses the profane comic spirit in Devlin's

Troubles plays, Ourselves Alone and After Easter. The central characters of the two plays—Frieda in Ourselves Alone and Greta in After Easter—embody a defiant, comic spirit reminiscent of the deviant play-spirit, studied by Mercier and Krause and

15 Bobby Sands was one of the republican prisoners who took part in the hunger strikes at the Maze Prison in Northern Ireland in the early 1980s. The hunger strikes were the result of five years of protest by republican prisoners against the British government's withdrawal in 1976 of paramilitary prisoners' Special Category Status. The original special status specified that political prisoners did not have to wear standard prison uniforms or take part in prison work. They were housed separately with their paramilitary factions and were allowed additional visits and parcels. Sands was the first prisoner to die on hunger strike, and he has taken on an iconic status in the republican community similar to that of Patrick Pearse following Easter 1916. 34 emphasized by Huizinga and Parker, but also suggestive of a feminist tradition of fools that challenge the androcentric republican and Catholic myths and traditions that

perpetuate the Troubles and the troubled lives of women in West Belfast.

Chapter two examines comic devices in the Troubles drama of Christina Reid.

Tea in a China Cup (1983) and The Belle of Belfast City represent female characters that search for their identity within and against the Protestant, unionist, working-class family and community within which they live. Several of Reid's plays include Catholic perspectives as well: Theresa in Tea in a China Cup, the Raffertys in Did You Hear the

One About the Irishman...?, and, most notably, all of the youths in Joyriders and its sequel Clowns (1996). Reid adopts the traditions of Brechtian epic theatre, vaudeville, and stand-up comedy in her interrogations of the links between comedy, sectarianism, and colonialism in Northern Ireland.

Chapter three analyzes Marie Jones's Troubles' plays with Charabanc, as well as her work with DubbleJoint theatre company. The communal base in which Jones works lends itself to multivalent comedy and comic possibilities. The laughter of community theatre is often one of recognition. Mary Moynihan and Paul Kennedy suggest that "The audience comes in ready to be entertained, and they laugh as they recognize their neighbour on stage now dressed as a tramp or a lover or a policeman; they laugh together in anticipation of a show that has been created within their own community and they laugh as they recognize their own stories and real-life situations now dramatized onstage"

(120). They go on to say that "There is a strong bond between the performers and the audience as they cheer on their neighbours, friends and relatives. This bond is a unique 35

feature of community based performances and you can almost see the invisible threads

connecting the audience to the performers, where everyone is raised to one level and are

working together" (120). The communal nature of theatre and comedy strengthens this

bond, this hope of working together. This is particularly important if we accept

Critchley's theory that comedy creates a space not only to laugh together but also to

imagine alternatives to the present.

Jones' early work with Charabanc includes distinctly feminist comedies in which

women's voices, experiences, and stories are foregrounded. In Now You 're Talkin' and

Somewhere Over the Balcony (1988), Jones evokes comic and carnivalesque devices,

including irony and parody, to underscore the absurdity of Northern Ireland and its

Troubles. The polyvocality of Jones' work with Charabanc is reflected not only in their

collected methods of creation but also through their staging of divergent voices and their

implementation of multifarious comic forms and devices. While Jones' and Charabanc's

polyvocal plays challenge a static reading of Northern Ireland and its women, they also

highlight the difficulty of resolution in a war-torn heteroglot. Jones' later Troubles play

with DubbelJoint A Night in November moves away from a woman-centred drama into

the more androcentric, masculine Northern Ireland of football, sectarianism, and

hooliganism. In this monodrama, Jones also moves more fully into the realm of carnival, adopting and intersecting polyvocality and liminality to suggest greater possibilities for

Northern Irish and Irish identities beyond the traditional static binaries and labels that inform and perpetuate the Troubles.

Chapter four examines the existential explorations inherent in Jennifer Johnston's 36

Troubles monodramas, Mustn7 Forget High Noon (1989), O Ananias, Azarias and

Miseal, and Twinkletoes (1993). Monologue in Johnston's plays, as in Beckett's theatre,

focuses on inner consciousness and being; however, Johnston sets her ontological explorations within the recognizable, if inescapable landscape of a troubled Northern

Ireland. Johnston comes closest of all the playwrights in this study to fully capturing the spirit of Beckett's dianoetic laugh, the conscious, mirthless laugh "that laughs at that

which is unhappy." The genius of Beckett, Critchley maintains, "is that he makes us laugh and then calls us into question through that laughter" (49). Part of Johnston's achievement is in capturing the tragicomic, intricate, and complicated existence of her characters in the intimate and compact form of the monodrama. Johnston introduces a distinctive voice into the current theatrical narratives on Northern Ireland. Although

Johnston presently resides in Derry, Northern Ireland, she was born in the Republic and insists that she is Irish and not Northern Irish. I have included Johnston in this study of

Troubles drama by Northern Irish women because she consistently addresses the contemporary civil war in Northern Ireland both directly and indirectly in her novels and plays. While it is not my intention to label Johnston Northern Irish, it is my intention to underscore the sociohistorical context within and against which she writes and also to address a voice too often overlooked in previous studies on theatre of the Troubles.

From interviews with women living amid the Troubles, the one constant facet in their stories and experiences, regardless of class, religion, or politics, is humour

(Fairweather, McDonough, and McFadyean; E. Shannon). This humour is described variously by Fairweather, McDonough, and McFadyean, in Only the Rivers Run Free, as 37 acidic, angry, and vibrant and underscores not only the recurrence and commonality but also the diversity of women's humour in Northern Ireland. This polyvocal, multiplicitous comic spirit is also evident throughout the Troubles plays by Northern Irish women and reflects the open, expansive, and malleable nature of comedy itself. It is the open nature of comedy that fully captures the incongruities, inconsistencies, absurdities, and tragedies of twentieth-century Northern Irish existence. Sypher argues that "Nothing human is alien to comedy. It is an equivocal art" (213). He suggests, "If we now have trouble isolating comedy from tragedy, this is not because comedy and tragedy are identical, but rather because comedy often intersects the orbit of tragic action without losing its autonomy. Instead, comedy in its own right, boldly and illogically, lays claim to some of the values traditionally assigned to tragedy alone" (213). Comedy, unlike tragedy, is an open form that is both adaptable and changeable (Sypher 218-19). As such, comedy is notoriously difficult to define, but it also allows for changes and expansions not fully permitted by tragedy. Sypher derives his discussion of the openness of comedy from

Bergson's theory of the comic spirit as "a living thing" (Bergson 61). Innes argues that

"As the most socially dependent of all dramatic forms, the definition of comedy shifts continually," and he notes that "the change in the modern era has been particularly extreme" (215).

The polyvocal and mutable nature of the comic is evident in the Troubles drama by contemporary Northern Irish women. No set definition or category can capture the diversity and multiplicity of its manifestations in their work. Rather, adopting a more expansive theory and historiography opens fields of possibilities in comic expression: as a living thing, the comic spirit is malleable in diverse hands and contexts. By borrowing freely from various, overlapping traditions, women's comic interrogations of the

Troubles constitute a genre in their own right. The uses of comedy in Troubles plays by women serve to interrupt, disrupt, and re-interpret the dominant myths and ideologies in

Northern Irish society and culture. Barreca argues that "Comedy is a way women writers can reflect the absurdity of the dominant ideology while undermining the very basis for its discourse" ("Introduction" 19). Women's comedy and humour in contemporary

Northern Irish theatre dramatize the absurdities of the Troubles and disrupt the androcentric ideologies, myths, and categories—unionist, nationalist, Catholic,

Protestant, Irish, and British—that inform and perpetuate the conflict and marginalize women's voices and experiences. Women's plays about the Troubles are a significant and public contribution to theatrical narratives in contemporary Northern Ireland. They are marked by an ancient, subversive, and macabre wit, a contemporary mordant humour, a feminist joy, and an essential play-spirit that underscore the absurdities and tragedies of their troubled society and captures hope amid despair.

As a final introductory note, the primary focus of this dissertation will be on published plays by Devlin, Reid, Jones, and Johnston. While this creates regrettable limitations, as there are Troubles plays by Jones in particular that remain unpublished, my decision to concentrate on the texts of the plays in my analysis requires that I restrict my focus to those that are available in published form. (Un)Making (the) Trouble(s) in the Plays of Anne Devlin

The fools and trouble-makers, thai's what they are, a fine peaceful little country here. What do they want to go making trouble for. (Devlin, "Passages" 15)

Anne Devlin is an established playwright and screenwriter whose work has been produced throughout Europe and North America. Devlin's settings are often grounded in

West Belfast, a working-class, Catholic area in the city and the seat of republicanism in

Northern Ireland. She dramatizes the voices of this community and more specifically the women of West Belfast. For Devlin, she tells us in an interview, writing is an act of repossession: "The writer's task is to reinterpret all the time" (Cerquoni 111, 119). Devlin reinterprets the Troubles from the perspective of Catholic women, and thus, she gives voice to a group of women doubly oppressed by their gender and religion. Through these voices Devlin offers vital alternatives to the master narratives of the republican and

Catholic communities. The former are founded on the republican ideal of a united

Ireland. Their cause focuses on an end to British colonization and oppression, most famously captured in the popular "Brits out" slogan. The resolute conviction of many republicans in the justness of their cause informs their belief in the necessity of force and the inevitability of a violent campaign against their oppressors in achieving their political goals. Devlin's deconstruction of these master narratives involves adopting the humour that is central to Northern Irish life and literature. In a further act of repossession, she imbues her mordant humour with a specifically irreverent, feminist voice. Comedy in

Devlin's Troubles plays stands in defiance of the tragic situation of Northern Ireland. For

Devlin's female characters laughter and humour are a means of survival, defiance, and a 40 way to envision hope and unification for themselves and their divided homeland.

In her two Troubles plays, Ourselves Alone (1985) and After Easter (1994),

Devlin strategically adopts the forms and devices of Western, Irish, and feminist comedy to unmake the Troubles. Devlin uses profane humour and comic devices to interrogate sacred institutions, such as republicanism and Catholicism, as well as to counterbalance the tragedy of the Troubles. Devlin's comedy is most often derisive and defiant, and she diffuses the power and menace of the Troubles by underscoring the absurd. David Krause argues that "the desecration of Ireland's household gods" is central to the comic Irish tradition (The Profane 11). Anything too sacred must be profaned and thereby critically challenged. Following this tradition, Devlin engages in the desecration of republican and

Catholic household icons, including Cathleen Ni Houlihan (Mother Ireland) and her spiritual sister the Virgin Mary. The dissemination of Cathleen and Mary is most urgent for nationalist and Catholic women, bound as they are by Woman/Mother as a symbol for

Ireland. Devlin has stated in an interview that she "was always very interested in plays that... give me an alternative perspective and bring humour into tough subjects—subjects that are about political icons that are not challenged" (Cerquoni 119). In Ourselves Alone,

Devlin uses profane humour and feminist comedy to deconstruct the sacred tenets and entrenched political ideologies of the republican community, while in After Easter she moves beyond the traditions of comedy through a hybridization of tragedy, comedy, and romance to create a mythic, feminist comedy that both challenges the patriarchal nexus of the Catholic Church and attempts to unmake the historical tenacity of the Troubles. In

Ourselves Alone and After Easter the central characters, Frieda and Greta respectively, 41 are feminist fools and troublemakers who employ humour to challenge the systemic continuation of the Troubles as well as offer new perspectives and new hope. Ultimately,

Devlin's iconoclastic humour contests and interrogates the intransigent, androcentric politics that perpetuate both the Troubles and the continued subjugation of women's voices and lives.

Devlin was born to a Catholic family in Belfast, and she writes about this area in her plays, television scripts, and short stories. She lived briefly in Andersonstown, the setting of Ourselves Alone. Her father, Paddy Devlin, a Belfast Catholic trade union activist, as well as a founding member of the Northern Ireland Civil Rights Association in

1968, spoke out against Irish nationalism and paramilitary activity (C. Shannon 243-44).1

Anne Devlin's critique of nationalism in her writing reflects her father's criticism. Paddy

Devlin played an important role in the civil rights marches of the late 1960s; he promoted the famous March on Derry and strove to protect the students from attacks by militant

-y loyalists in the early stages of the march (243-45). Anne Devlin, then a student at the

University of Coleraine, took part in this civil rights march. She was one of the students injured at Buntollett Bridge, a few miles outside Derry, when the marchers (mainly students) were attacked. Catherine Shannon notes that "Devlin was knocked unconscious into the river and hospitalized for a concussion" (245). With the growing violence and

1 Although he was a member of the Northern Ireland Labour party early in his political career, he also helped to found the Social Democratic and Labour Party in August 1970 and served as chief whip in the power-sharing Assembly of 1973-74 (C. Shannon 331). Shannon notes that "he was expelled from the SDLP in 1977 following his public criticism that the party's original commitment to socialist principles was being undermined by a growing emphasis on the 'Irish dimension', i.e. the unification goal of traditional Irish Nationalism" (331). 2 The People's Democracy march to Derry in January 1969 protested the continued oppression of the Catholic majority by the Protestant minority. 42 sectarian rioting, Devlin and her father adopted a belief "that Northern Ireland began a steady descent into madness in 1969" (245). For father and daughter, and many others, the Troubles were a form of psychosis, and Devlin would adopt this trope in her writings.

The incident at Buntollett Bridge, as well as a violent telephone conversation, prompted

Devlin to emigrate in 1976.3 She has stated in an interview that she left due to a growing fear for her safety:

It is not that I suddenly decided to go and live out of Ireland, out of Belfast, and from the safety of somewhere a refugee in the South West of England decided to write about the North of Ireland. I did not do that. I was sort of driven away. There were levels of violence that caused me to be afraid. I could no longer endure that, so I moved. (Cerquoni 111)

She goes on to state that she might have left anyway—that she had since 1969 been drawn to the image of a "swinging London"—but it was the Troubles and "seriously physical reasons" that drove her to emigration (112).

Emigration gave Devlin the necessary distance to confront and write about the

Troubles. Although many of her narratives are firmly rooted in her experiences in

Northern Ireland, it was in London that Devlin established herself as an important voice in both British and Northern Irish drama. Devlin started her career as a writer of short stories, television scripts, and radio drama before directing her talents to theatre. She has written several screenplays for television, radio plays, and a book of short stories entitled

The Way-paver. Devlin's television scripts include The Long March (1984), Naming the

Names (1984), The Rainbow (1988), A Woman Calling (1982), and Venus de Milo

Instead (1987). In addition to original screenplays, Devlin has adapted D. H. Lawrence's

3 Devlin refers to this telephone conversation in her short story "Five Notes After a Visit." 43

The Rainbow for BBC television and Wuthering Heights for Paramount Pictures.

Devlin's first stage play, Ourselves Alone, was initially performed on October 24, 1985 at the Liverpool Playhouse Studio and then at the Royal Court Playhouse. The positive critical response to the play ensured that it was moved to the Royal Court Theatre

Upstairs in London in November 1985 and then to the main Royal Court Theatre in

August 1986. It has since been produced in Northern Ireland and throughout North

America. The play's strong indictment of republicanism might explain its success in

Britain, as the material would have been palatable to a mid-1980s British audience.

Devlin's second stage play, After Easter (1994), was first performed nearly a decade later by the Royal Shakespeare Company at the Other Place, Stratford. The play was well received and critically acclaimed. She also co-wrote a stage play, Heartlanders, with

Stephen Bill and David Edgar, which debuted at the Birmingham Repertory Theatre in

1989. She has received a number of awards and widespread recognition for her writing.

In 1982, Devlin won a Hennessey Literary Award for her short story "Passages," later adapted for television as A Woman Calling. She received the Samuel Beckett Award for her teleplay The Long March in 1984, the Celtic Film Festival Prize for Naming the

Names, a television adaptation of her short story, and the San Francisco Film and

Television Best Drama Award for her play The Venus de Milo Instead. Devlin was also awarded the Susan Smith Blackburn Prize in 1985 and was co-winner of the George

Devine Award in 1986. Ourselves Alone was shortlisted for two Laurence Olivier awards

(West End Play of the Year and Most Promising New Comer) in 1986. Mary Trotter attributes Devlin's play writing success in England and abroad as emerging from her 44

relationship with the Royal Court and her work for television ("Women Playwrights"

121).

Academic critics often focus on the emergence of women's voices, subjectivity,

and narratives in Devlin's plays.4 Sara E. Stenson notes that "Devlin's specific focus on

women's lives has drawn sustained interest by scholars" who "find her depiction of the

domestic powerful and evocative" (92). Along with this focus on women's voices, critics

also tend to address the mythical and religious elements embodied in the dreams and

visions of Devlin's plays5 as well as Devlin's use of irony in subverting republican

mythology and Catholic iconography.6 Theatre critics, for the most part, tend to overlook

the dark humour in Ourselves Alone, and, like their scholarly counterparts, they focus

instead on Devlin's dramatization of women's voices and lives. Several reviewers,

however, note the humour and comedy in the original performances of After Easter at the

Theatre Upstairs. John Peter, in his 1994 review of the play, claims that "Devlin's writing

is sharp, subtle, brutal and funny" (697), while Paul Taylor suggests that After Easter

"works best in its many mordantly comic moments" (698). Nevertheless, some critics are

disparaging of Devlin's comedy, labeling it "extraneous" (Macaulay 699) and

"inconsequential" (Wardle 700). Despite the tendency among both theatre and scholarly

critics to disregard the seditious, comic aspects of Devlin's theatre, Brendan MacGurk

recognizes the dark, mordant, and rebellious humour in her plays, suggesting that

Ourselves Alone "includes a shallow kind of gallows humour" (55). Ashley Taggart

4 See Clutterbuck; Cottrea; Cousin; Godiwala; Kurdi; Lojek, "Difference"; MacGurk; Rea; Trotter, "Women Playwrights"; and Wood. 5 See Clutterbuck; McKenna; and Sakellaridou. 6 See Foley; Llewellyn-Jones; Rea; Roche, Contemporary; and Taggart. places Devlin's work in a long history of humour and comedy in Northern Irish theatre.

For the most part, however, critics tend to overlook or dismiss not only Devlin's adoption and subversion of the forms and devices of Western, Irish, and feminist comedy but also her strategic foregrounding of comedy to critique her society.

Comedy is the nexus of political resistance and personal hope in Ourselves Alone-, the women's survival and continuance resides in their laughter and humour. The comically derisive moments of the play offer alternative perspectives and resistance to

both the tragedy of the Troubles and the fierce seriousness of the republican men and their cause. Devlin presents three diverse women whose varying experiences and perspectives defy any monolithic understanding of republican women. Their multitudinous actions and words proffer diverse political possibilities and often serve to question the entrenched politics of both the republican community and the Troubles.

Josie, an active member of the IRA, directly contests the assumption that women are apolitical, while Donna reflects both the public acquiescence and the private resistance of many women in Northern Ireland. Frieda, the most defiant and feminist voice in the play, consistently makes trouble to undermine the androcentric political landscape that limits and confines her. Frieda's predicament and multifarious, often incongruous actions underscore not only the difficulty of women's subjectivity in the patriarchal world of

West Belfast but also the potential for political and personal choices against the entrenched belief systems that inform the Troubles.

Ourselves Alone records the lives of three women—two sisters, Frieda and Josie, and their sister-in-law, Donna—in West Belfast of the early 1980s in the aftermath of the 46 hunger strikes and amid growing violence. The three women's personal dreams, as well as their struggles to build and sustain intimate relationships with the men they love, are in direct conflict with the political struggle of the republican community in which they live.

Josie takes an active involvement in the republican activities overseen by their father,

Malachy. Her dedication to the cause, however, is also informed by her love affair with

Cathal O'Donnell, the leader of their unit and a man who is already married. Frieda, who defiantly and comically resists the men and their cause, is banished by her father and moves from the patriarchal and violent world of her republican home to her friend, and later her lover, John McDermot's flat in a more neutral area near Queen's University.

McDermot, a member of the Worker's Party, appears to offer a chance for a more peaceful and egalitarian relationship and home; however, he proves to be as misogynist and violent as Malachy. Frieda, unable to find her voice in this violent and androcentric world, chooses emigration over oppressive silence. Donna, married to Frieda and Josie's brother, Liam, acts as a mediating voice and presence between the two sisters. Donna remains committed to her imprisoned husband, who is serving time in prison for his involvement in the IRA. The central plot involves the arrival of Joe Conran, a potential

IRA volunteer, whose British background has been called into question. Josie, given the task to interview Conran, begins an affair with him. The plot reaches its climax once Joe is exposed as an informer, and it is revealed that Josie is pregnant with his baby. The play dramatizes the diversity of women's responses to republicanism and offers brief moments of sisterhood that transcend their personal and political differences; however, the women's relationships with one another and with the men are consistently overshadowed 47

by the republican world in which they live and survive.

The realistic form of Ourselves Alone reflects not only the documentary style of

many early plays about the Troubles but also an urgent need to record the lives and

voices of a marginalized and silenced group of women. In the Author's Note to Ourselves

Alone, Devlin writes that she "set the play in Andersonstown because once, I used to live

there—and I still do" (7). Catherine Shannon notes that Devlin was living in London

when she wrote Ourselves Alone, but "An extended stay in Belfast in 1983 enabled her to

frame her strong critique of Irish republicanism in scenes, dialogue and plot that replicate

closely the conditions after the 1981 hunger strikes, which triggered a dramatic rise in

popular and eventually electoral support for the hundreds of Provisional Sinn Fein" (247-

48). This was a time when the nationalist cause, and in particular the political wing of

republicanism, Sinn Fein, was gaining electoral support.7 Tensions were high and loyalty

to the cause and community were enforced. This political backdrop is reflected in the

opening tableau: the play opens in a republican club on whose walls are mounted the

tragic and iconic pictures of the dead hunger strikers. However, the main domestic space

is Donna's home, where the women seek refuge from their repressed lives. As Shannon

notes, the play serves in many ways as an important historical document (although as she rightly states, it is important to acknowledge the playwright's bias, motivation, and limitations) (255). Critics suggest that the realistic setting of Ourselves Alone is confining to both the women in the play and the possibility of imagining alternatives. Helen Lojek

7 Sinn Fein is the main nationalist political party in Northern Ireland. Its central objective during the Troubles was an end to British rule in Northern Ireland and the establishment of a united Ireland. It is often considered the political wing of the Provisional IRA. 48 argues that Ourselves Alone "mounts none of the challenges to theatrical realism frequently associated with feminist plays. Its set is realistic; its action is linear; its closure is firm" ("Difference" 65). However, this reading does not take into account the glimmer of hope offered by the final reference to dawn and Frieda's self-affirming choice to emigrate to an independent life in London. Lojek goes on to state that Devlin's "decision to adopt a radical feminist interpretation, rather than to use the feminist perspective to enrich her portrayal of human complexities, inevitably limits her audience. The failure is part political and part aesthetic..." (66).8 Against such criticism, Devlin suggests that possibility lies outside the physical rooms of naturalism and instead resides within language itself and in the more the poetic moments of the play (Cerquoni 108-09).

Possibility, then, rests in the mythic language that transcends the walls of the play's realistic form and setting.

In addition to this poetic space, possibility and hope are also encompassed by the comic language and shared laughter of the female characters. Women's humour and laughter are central to Devlin's critique and ultimately offset the serious and tragic context of the Troubles. In her introduction to the Faber and Faber edition, Devlin writes,

"I began this play with two women's voices—one funny and one serious—and then I found I had a third—the voice of a woman listening" (7). Frieda is the comic voice and spirit in Ourselves Alone; her playfulness, wit, and sexuality place her in a tradition of female clowns and feminist comedy. Elizabeth Hale Winkler notes that although male clowns and fools traditionally dominate the world stage, female clowns do find their most

8 Not all critics attack the limitations of Devlin's form. Margaret Llewellyn-Jones, in defense of Devlin's form, argues that the play is not "entirely restricted by its realist approach" (84). 49

common manifestation in the woman (usually a hag) who openly challenges traditional

female decorum (43). While Frieda is no hag, she does embody a sharp wit and sharp

tongue that challenge the standards of morality and decorum of the republican cause.

Devlin has noted that to relieve the tragedy and seriousness of Josie, she included the

comic voice of Frieda: "[Josie has] got an awful negative side...—she hates the word

fun! The only way I can distance myself from her position is to write comedy" (qtd. in

Foley 73). Devlin further notes that Frieda is the comic spirit who reappears throughout

her work and manifests fully in Ourselves Alone: "I have a character, Frieda, who continually surfaces in my work, obviously in different ways: she is a kind of comic voice that plays jokes at things that are regarded as very sacred in political terms. I would

use humour as a political weapon in that way" (Cerquoni 119).

Frieda, as the comic spirit, is essential not only in making the dark material palatable and "bringing] humour into tough subjects"9 but also as the voice of resistance in the play. Unlike her sister, Josie, who willingly participates in the androcentric activities of the IRA by planting bombs and interviewing potential candidates, Frieda openly opposes republicanism and violence. Although Frieda was once involved in the cause, she now believes that "Nationalism is always the last resort of people who've failed to achieve anything else" (33). This is particularly so for Northern Ireland that at the time had failed to achieve either peace or stability between the country's two warring sides. Catherine Shannon calls Frieda the "authorial voice" in the play due to her

9 Margarete Rubik states that Devlin's humour "makes the subject matter go down more readily" (23). This is problematic because it dismisses the humour as the sugar that coats the pill and as mere entertainment. While there is certainly an element of this, Rubik simplifies Devlin's—and by extension other playwrights'—uses of comedy and humour. Rea states that "throughout the play Frieda's exploits largely provide comic relief from the grim events of the main plot" (206). resistance to republicanism (249). Frieda's is also the clearest feminist voice in the play, and she articulates the view that an independent Ireland does not necessarily mean equality for Irish women:

And when there's a tricolour over the City Hall, Donna will still be making coffee for Joe Conran, and Josie will still be keeping house for her daddy, because it doesn't matter a damn whether the British are here or not. (30)

Frieda's seemingly apolitical view about the situation in Northern Ireland is actually a firm feminist stance against a society that whether occupied or unoccupied is still ruled by men. It "doesn't matter a damn" to the women's lives because the basic structure of

Northern Irish society is patriarchal. Frieda's resistance is both serious and comic and becomes confusing for the newest recruit to the cause, Joe Conran. When he first meets

Frieda, he tells her, "I'm not exactly sure when you're serious and when you're joking"

(29). This reflects the confusion and criticism invoked among the male characters, audience members, and critics of both genders. As a woman and a feminist Frieda challenges the traditional boundaries and expectations of comedy.

Frieda's importance—particularly her political voice—is indicated by both the laughter (inclusive and responsive) of the young women and the frowns of the men during the initial performances. Devlin suggests that her use of comedy as a political weapon ensured that "Frieda in Ourselves Alone was terribly popular at the Liverpool

Playhouse with younger people in the audience and younger women, but very frowned upon as a character by male members of the audience" (Cerquoni 119). Frieda was also very popular among the young female spectators in Belfast. By contrast, the men in the audiences at the productions in England and Northern Ireland, like the male characters in 51

the play, were suspicious and dismissive of Frieda's rebellious humour. Devlin depicts

how one man after a performance in Derry came up to her and proclaimed that Malachy

was right to hit Frieda "because she was so provocative" (Cerquoni 120). While this

certainly does not reflect the majority of male opinions in the audience—and Devlin

happily points this out—it is indicative of men's suspicion and fear of women's humour.

Regina Barreca argues that this suspicion is merited because "Comedy is dangerous;

humour is a weapon... [and] comedy by women is about de-centering, dis-locating and

de-stabilizing the world" ("Introduction" 14-15). Perhaps the man at the Derry

performance—like the male characters in the play—recognized the danger that Frieda

and her politically comic act pose for male hegemony and power.10

Through Frieda, Devlin subverts not only republican and Catholic expectations of

Woman and the historical, comic representations of women on stage but also the

traditional limits and expectations of many critics (regardless of gender) in their

understanding of sexuality and comedy. Theatre reviewers and academics disagree over

Frieda's comedy and importance. While critics, for the most part, tend to overlook or

dismiss Frieda's seditious humour in Ourselves Alone, a few, including Brendan

MacGurk, have recognized the potential subversiveness of Frieda's humour. MacGurk

calls her "the critic of the male establishment, the court jester, the rebellious iconoclast"

(59) and seems closest to recognizing the power and strategy of Frieda's humour."

10 Frieda's warm reception at the initial performances in Washington suggest that culture, as well as the distance of an American audience from the Troubles, can make the comic material more accessible. Frieda's humour and rebellion are less (or simply not) threatening and dangerous for a Washington audience, removed as they are from Northern Ireland. 11 Helen Lojek argues that Frieda is "the most engaging presence in Ourselves Alone" and "of the major characters [she] alone takes personal risks in order to prevent the injury of others ("Difference" 61). Dimple Others have dismissed Frieda as flighty and inconsequential. Michael Billington, in his review of the initial Royal Court performances, downplays Frieda's position by calling her "a bouncy, would-be singer" (1177), while Christopher Murray dismisses Frieda as

Josie's "flighty sister" (194). Tellingly, male commentators tend to be less fierce in their criticism of Frieda than many of their female counterparts. Ann Rea argues that "Nobody heeds [Frieda's] criticism of masculine oppression and repeatedly her frivolity and flirtatiousness, although part of her challenge, come across as a lack of seriousness"

(206). Margarete Rubik has labeled Frieda "ignorant" and "promiscuous" and as "the hairdresser who wants to be a great singer and a new Marilyn Monroe, [and] is ridiculous enough in her aspirations" (23).12 We can compare Rubik's criticism to John Barber's use of the terms "pert," "sexy," and "neutral" to describe Frieda in his review of the Royal

Court production (1176). The label "promiscuous" is perhaps the most telling and indicates a suspicion of women's humour and overt sexuality, while the terms employed by Barber dismiss the power and danger inherent in Frieda's defiant sexuality. Rea,

Rubik, and Barber underscore an apparent "unseriousness" in the highly sexualized

Frieda. Frances Gray argues, "...like sexuality—indeed with sexuality—laughter has been closely bound up with power" (6). This is particularly the case in comic drama where women have traditionally served as the object of both the male gaze and male laughter (Gray 9). A number of feminist theatre critics have pointed to a new movement in contemporary drama towards an open exploration of women's sexuality and

Godiwala, while acknowledging Frieda's role as a "freespirit," undermines her position by labeling her "apolitical" (266). 12 Although Rubik does concede that Frieda's personal commitments offer the most viable alternative to the men and the Troubles (23). subjectivity: the physicality of theatre offers the ideal space in which to analyze "the complex conjunctions of self and sexuality," and "This contemporary reconsideration... provides an important new perspective on comedy's very old focus on the physical and the sexual" (Carlson 246-49). While Frieda represents a problematic figure for those critics who continue to equate female sexuality with women's traditional position as object, her humour and sexuality also underscore a developing subjectivity that is as dangerous as it is powerful.

Frieda's resistance and subversion is more dangerous and significant because it is comic. It seems paradoxical then that female critics are disparaging of Frieda, the female fool, insisting that she lacks the seriousness necessary to promote real change. For these critics, Frieda's resistance is ineffective because it is not austere. However, Frieda's unmasking of republicanism is in fact very earnest and consequential. Barreca argues that

"feminist humour is serious" because it seeks to challenge the system and literally and metaphorically "bring down the house" {They Used 182-85). Frieda's power resides in her refusal to take the men, and patriarchal authority itself, seriously. The male characters recognize Frieda's subversion and react to it with anger and violence. Unlike Josie and

Donna, who comply with the expectations of the men, Frieda refuses to accept their definitions or their cause. Also, while Josie and Donna are verbally threatened, Frieda is the only woman on stage that is physically beaten by the men. Unlike theatre critics, the male characters recognize the danger inherent in Frieda's dissidence. They interpret her independent and life-affirming actions as a threat to their hegemonic view of womanhood, and they respond to Frieda's deviancy with anger and physical violence. For 54

her defiance, Frieda is beaten first by her father, Malachy, and then by her lover, John

McDermot. Catherine Shannon notes that "Oral material as well as official studies have

shown that women in heavily-armed areas of the north were more vulnerable to sexual

harassment, exploitation and domestic violence, owing to the easy availability of guns"

(249). In addition, disobedience or acts that were deemed traitorous were often punished

within the community.13 When Frieda refuses to submit to her father's control by

consorting with John McDermot, who openly calls the IRA "bastards" (38), Malachy

uses violence to regain authority:

(Malachy comes in, followed by the Second Man.) FRIEDA: Oh fuck! (Frieda takes John's arm and braces herself to confront Malachy.) MALACHY: What's he doing here? FRIEDA: He's with me. MALACHY: Get him out of here! FRIEDA: No, no. Wait! (McDermot and Frieda are dragged apart.) SECOND MAN: Have you no control over your daughter? (McDermot is pushed roughly towards the door by Gabriel and the Second Man. They exit. Malachy has caught Frieda by the wrist to restrain her from following. He now pushes her across the room.) MALACHY: You stay—(Frieda is struck on the back of the head by Malachy.)—away from him! (Frieda remains holding her head, momentarily stunned.) You'll not make a little boy of me! I'm sick to death of hearing about you... All I get is complaints... bringing that hood in here. FRIEDA: (Recovering) What do I have to do or say, Father, to get you to leave me alone— MALACHY: I'll leave you alone alright. I'll leave you so you'll wish you'd never been born. (He makes a race at her. She pushes a table into his path.) FRIEDA: Oh, Mammy. Mammy. (He attempts to punch her in the stomach.) (38-39)

13 The most common punishment for women who betrayed the cause through relationships with those at odds with republicanism—usually Protestants or members of the British army—involved a tar and feathering ritual in which the accused woman was stripped, covered in tar and feathers, and chained in a public area. 55

Malachy understands how greatly his daughter's defiant words and actions reduce his authority in front of his men, and he attempts to both dominate and control her through violence. The brutality of this scene underscores the extent of Frieda's transgressions against the absolute, non-negotiable rules regarding women's loyalty and obedience in the republican community. In her feminist interrogation of republicanism, however,

Devlin also essentializes gender roles by vilifying the men as uncompromising, violent brutes. There are no positive male characters to balance this one dimensional portrayal.

While this is problematic, it nonetheless reveals a private, harsh reality in West Belfast rarely discussed publicly during the Troubles. As Imelda Foley argues, "Violence [in

Northern Ireland] is the sole means of problem solving and an assertion of male domination and control over lives that might otherwise trespass the boundaries defined by the men. Violence is the means by which male hegemony is maintained" (83). Frieda's actions and words, both serious and comic, directly threaten patriarchal authority, and thus, for her transgressions she is both physically and emotionally punished.

Devlin consistently destabilizes the patriarchal nexus of republicanism through

Frieda who defiantly makes trouble from the very first moments of Ourselves Alone. The play opens with the stage in darkness and a spotlight on Frieda as she sings a celebrated republican song, "The Men Behind the Wire." She longs to perform her own songs but is forced by tradition and setting to sing a republican favourite:

FRIEDA: (She sings the first verse of 'The Men Behind the Wire'.) Armoured cars and tanks and guns came to take away our sons— DANNY: (Stops.) Frieda! Do you have to sound so pleased about it? Armoured cars and tanks and guns! FRIEDA: But the tempo's fast and lively. DANNY: Absolutely. You have to work hard against the tempo. Again! (She sings. She stops...). (14)

Danny criticizes her upbeat version, saying that one must "work hard against the tempo" to truly capture the tragedy of the piece. This reflects the mixture of tragedy and comedy in the play: the tempo of the music is upbeat (like Frieda's spirit) while the words are tragic (like her situation and that of Northern Ireland). Frieda is accused of sounding pleased; and she is, although it is not over singing the required song and rather over the prospect of singing one of her own. In addition, Frieda's position as mere sexual object is undermined and her position as subject is affirmed by the joke she tells during this scene.

Frieda teases the young man carrying boxes with sexual innuendos:

FRIEDA: ... Hey wee fella, what have you got in your box FIRST MAN: {Reading off the lid) Cotton wool balls. FRIEDA: I always thought there was something funny about you. FIRST MAN: (On his way out) See you wee girl, come the revolution, you'll be up against the wall! FRIEDA: Well, I hope it's in the nicest possible way. (14)

In this moment, Frieda gains power through humour. The first man appears angered by her sexual innuendo regarding the cotton wool balls and responds with a threat. However,

Frieda's final statement is reminiscent of Mae West, and, like her comic predecessor,

Frieda here has the last laugh.14 Gray notes that traditional, male-authored comedy

"positions women not simply as the object of the male gaze but of the male laugh and doubly removed from creativity" (9). She argues that "It is through seizing comic power as and where they can that women have been able to create their own meanings and their

14 West was critiqued and censored by American critics, directors, and censors for her overt sexual humour. Contemporary feminist critics have since recognized the power and defiance of West's distinctly female humour. It represents the kind of humour that women have been sharing but has been ignored or deemed unfunny in comparison to mainstream, male humour. own laughter" (11). The men in the club do not laugh: they appear to miss or simply ignore Frieda's humour. However, Frieda's final line in the exchange ensures that she at the very least has the last laugh.15

Devlin uses Frieda's sexualized humour, along with Josie's politics, as a strategy counter to the traditional representations of womanhood in republican and Catholic iconography. By being both sexy and funny, Frieda openly refuses to assume the symbolic role of woman, as embodied in the republican figure Cathleen Ni Houlihan and the Catholic icon the Virgin Mary. Through these two figures nationalist rhetoric and

Catholic teaching serve to confine the role and lives of women to pure, desexualized mothers and maidens. In W. B. Yeats' and Lady Gregory's play, Cathleen Ni Houlihan,

Cathleen claims that "Many a man has died for love of me" (8), but she also avows her chastity: "With all the lovers that brought me their love I never set the bed out for any"

(9). Elizabeth Butler Cullingford, in her interpretation of the latter line, argues that

"Although the old woman [Cathleen in Yeats' play] is metamorphosed into the springtime bride, it is the shedding of male blood, not the emission of male semen, which accomplishes the miracle" (12). Moreover, Rea notes that "Cullingford describes what she calls the 'collapsing [of] Kathleen [ni Houlihan] into Mary' by Irish nationalist

Patrick Pearse as an example of how nationalist ideological constructions of motherhood seek to control women's sexuality" (211). Catholic, nationalist women are expected to unconditionally support the cause and the men through their faithfulness and chastity.

15 Mae West was famous for saying, in defense and celebration of women's comedy, "she who laughs last, lasts." This underscores the use of comedy and laughter by female comics and fools as a weapon of survival. 58

Josie resists these prescriptions through her affair with Conran, and as an active member of the IRA she challenges the assumption that republican women are voiceless and apolitical. Nevertheless, while Josie may play a more active role in the cause than most women, her words and actions are dictated by the men. Donna recognizes the loss of personal voice in Josie's words: "I'm looking at you but it's him who's talking" (16). The

"him" is Cathal O'Donnell, Josie's married lover and the leader of the IRA sect in which

Josie, her father, and her brother work. Josie may not take on the desexualized and silent role of the Virgin Mary, but through her role as recruiter for the republican cause she is aligned with Yeats' and Gregory's portrayal of Cathleen Ni Houlihan.16 It is Josie who asks the tough questions and officially recruits Joe Conran by welcoming him into the

"tribe" and thereby calls at least one son of Ireland to arms. However, unlike Yeats'

Cathleen, who as the embodiment of Mother Ireland calls her 'sons' to fight, Josie recruits Joe under the watchful eye of O'Donnell and her father, and thus, she becomes a pawn for the men and their nationalist cause.

Devlin further underscores the symbolic exploitation of women in the republican movement through Frieda's and Josie's Aunt Cora. At the age of 18, while storing ammunition for her father, Cora was disfigured in a resultant explosion. Cora, as Frieda tells us, is "blind and deaf and dumb, and she has no hands" (29). Now a maiden aunt, she embodies the silent, chaste, and dutiful woman, and she is deliberately placed "out at the front of parades every so often to show the women of Ireland what their duty should

16 In Cathleen Ni Houlihan Yeats and Gregory immortalized the equation of Woman and Ireland and perchance promoted the republican cause. Elizabeth Butler Cullingford notes that "even the cool-headed Bernard Shaw acknowledged to Lady Gregory; 'When I see that play I feel it might lead a man to do something foolish'" (12). Yeats also questions the political implications of the play in his 1938 poem, "Man and the Echo": "Did that play of mine send out / Certain men the English shot?" (Selected 204). 59 be" (29). Through emphasizing the humanity and reality of Cora's loss, however, Devlin subverts her iconic status. For Frieda, in particular, Cora's reality is a reminder of what can happen when a woman gives her entire self—literally her hands, skin, sight, hearing, and voice—to the cause. Frieda insists that if Josie is "not careful she'll finish off like my auntie Cora" (29). MacGurk argues that although Devlin denies Cora as symbol on one level, "she herself falls into the trap of utilising the female body of Cora for symbolic or abstract purposes" (57). However, Devlin never physically presents an embodied Cora on stage, and thus, it seems impossible for her to use Cora's body for symbolic purposes.

Moreover, the "abstract purposes" MacGurk mentions are strategic in that Devlin creates an ironic version of Cathleen Ni Houlihan (Rea 211-12). Cora, at the age of eighteen,

"was supposed to have been a beautiful girl" (30), and thus, she can be interpreted as a reflection of the young woman that Cathleen transforms into at the end of Yeats' and

Gregory's play. However, Cora's transformation is from a young woman, beautiful and vibrant, to a disfigured maiden aunt who can neither care for herself nor literally call the sons of Ireland to arms (she is mute). Cora represents the many women who have been denied a life and a voice by the Troubles.

Devlin foregrounds Frieda's sexuality and verbosity to destabilize Catholic and republican ideals of womanhood as embodied by Cora. Frieda's open resistance to these ideals is manifested through her words, actions, and her body: she wears a revealing dressing gown, colours her hair (for her act), drinks, smokes, and sleeps with John

McDermot in defiance of the strict codes and expectations of her father, brother, and the republican movement. Frieda's appearance and overt sexuality stand in stark contrast to 60

Cora, much like her humour stands in stark contrast to Josie's intensity. Frieda's uninhibited sexuality is neither frivolous nor demeaning, and instead, it a strategic and active form of resistance against republican attempts to control female sexuality. Frieda compares herself to Marlene Dietrich and Marilyn Monroe—much to the amusement of

Josie and Donna—and in doing so aligns power with sexuality and in the figure of

Monroe with comedy and sexuality. Marilyn Monroe, Frieda tells us, "didn't pass any exams" (21), but she became one of the most famous and popular comedic stars in mid twentieth-century Hollywood. Susan Carlson argues that "The changing balance of power in contemporary comic plays by women depends on a theatrical recasting of women's sexuality and of their options for community" (162). Frieda recasts Northern Irish women's sexuality by emulating Hollywood starlets, while her attempts to create a community include an offer to dye Donna's hair. This may seem an insignificant act in the shadow of the Troubles, but it is an important bonding ritual for the women, while the shared laughter over the reference to Monroe creates a connection between Frieda and

Donna. This hope for an all-female community, however, ultimately fails: Josie and

Frieda spend much of the first scene in Donna's flat arguing over their political differences; Donna decides that dyed hair might make her husband, Liam, think she is cheating; and just when the women finally begin to create some semblance of a community over a bottle of wine, they are interrupted by the arrival of the men and their republican business. Malachy creates immediate division between the women by favouring Josie and calling Frieda "that creature in the tinfoil" and his "other daughter"

(26). He also attempts to strip the women of any power by reducing them to children and 61 offering them money for sweets.17

Nevertheless, Frieda continues to resist these paternal interruptions. Even with the violence she encounters, Frieda refuses to succumb to either fear or the men. When

Malachy and Joe arrive unexpectedly at Donna's, Frieda mocks the women's frantic tidying of the house. Also, she openly admits to smoking while the other women try to hide the alcohol and cigarettes, and she defiantly argues with her father after he threatens her (25). Frieda's most blasphemous act in the play is in response to her father's violence.

She proclaims to both Malachy and the audience that Bobby Sands was a wife beater:

They didn't condemn him. They said he beat his wife!... They say when he was dying she was so afraid of him she wouldn't go to prison to see him. In fact she wouldn't go near him until she was sure he was definitely dead. (39)

Sands, whose picture hangs among the ten dead hunger strikers in the club at the start of the play, is a Christ-like figure for many republicans, and any word spoken against him is interpreted as an act of treachery and even outright blasphemy. Nonetheless, through

Frieda's defiant words, Devlin reminds us that domestic violence is embedded in the culture of republicanism in Northern Ireland. Even the great martyr of the contemporary struggles, Bobby Sands, the man who gave his life for Ireland, hit his wife. Here, Devlin challenges and rebukes a movement that makes a hero out of a wife beater. In this instance, the women are victims not only of the larger Troubles (and the threats from unionist paramilitaries) but also of domestic violence within their homes. Ironically,

Frieda's rebellious act of leaving her abusive father leads her to the equally violent and

17 Frieda's attempts to bond with the other women also fail as she moves from one patriarchal centre (the republican club) to another (McDermot's house). 62 oppressive site of McDermot's flat, where Frieda, like Sands' wife, is beaten by her lover. Paradoxically, Frieda is both a wise fool and a foolish fool: wise in her resistance to a cause that brutalizes women and a fool for John McDermot's persistence. This paradox underscores the difficulty of women's subjectivity and safety in the violent space of the Troubles.

Devlin's critique of republicanism is further embedded in the title of the play.

"Ourselves Alone" is an ironic and deviant appropriation of Sinn Fein, the political party aligned with republicanism.18 Anthony Roche calls the line "one of the hoariest phrases in the country's political lexicon," a line that "is still very much alive in contemporary

Northern politics describing the political party representing those who wish for a 32- county Irish Republic, still six counties short of completion, and who continue to see violence as a legitimate part of the struggle" (Contemporary 237). Numerous critics have pointed out that the phrase is assumed by Devlin to underscore just how alone the women are in the republican neighbourhoods of West Belfast. As Roche notes, Devlin has revised the slogan "most traditionally associated with militant republicanism and reassigned it to women" (Contemporary 237). By reassigning it to women, Devlin appropriates a slogan held sacred by the republican community. The women are alone because their fathers, lovers, and brothers are consumed by the cause. However, a further level of irony is attached to the title because the women, physically, emotionally, and psychologically, are never really by themselves. There are only three scenes (and literally only a part of these scenes) in which the women are alone on stage. Any individual or

18 "Sinn Fein" from "Sinn Fein Amhain" literally translates as "Ourselves Alone." 63 shared moments between the women are continually interrupted by the men, who ultimately disallow female bonding in the physical spaces of the play. Moreover, although absent, the men are present in Josie's continual repetition of their words and ideologies: when Josie argues with Frieda she repeats the slogans and rhetoric of the androcentric republican cause. In addition, Donna's dreams are invaded by the devil (a metaphor for her husband) during the one moment when she is alone. While this nightmare heightens our understanding of Donna's fear and oppression, it also reflects

Devlin's tendency to vilify her male characters as evil, even daemonic oppressors. When

Donna awakens she immediately listens for the clattering of bin lids (the signal for an approaching invasion of the British army into Catholic neighbourhoods) and is physically interrupted from her solace by the arrival and intrusion of the British army into her home, yet another oppressive presence in the women's lives.

Devlin emphasizes the intrusive, interminable presence of the men and the

Troubles in women's lives: even beyond the confined, indoor rooms of the pub and

Donna's house, the women are unable to find solace. Frieda's attempt to regain a moment of fun from her childhood is also interrupted but this time by members of the RUC

(Royal Ulster Constabulary), the police force in Northern Ireland. During the only outdoor scene in the play, Frieda tries to recreate a childhood game of catching falling leaves with John McDermot, but their attempt at "normalcy" is interrupted by the two policemen. The latter have responded to reports from local residents who claim that

Frieda and John are causing a disturbance. It seems that childhood innocence and fun are alien and suspect to both the policemen and the local residents, who confuse the leaf- 64 catching game as a possible threat to the community. The potential for enjoyment and laughter is impossible in war-torn Northern Ireland, and the policemen mistake Frieda's insistence on continuing her game as another instance of making trouble:

SECOND POLICEMAN: Go on home now. Before you cause any more trouble. MCDERMOT: Come on Frieda. FRIEDA: Trouble? Is it trouble to want to be happy? Do you not know about catching leaves? Do you not remember? (67)

Frieda's final question is ironic and underscores the role of memory in the Troubles. The continuation of sectarianism relies on a long memory of oppression, distrust, and violence between the Protestant and Catholic communities. This turbulent history has left no space for innocence and amusement in either the nation's memory or its present. It seems that not only Josie but everyone else as well "hates the word fun." Or at the very least, they have forgotten what it is.

Against this troubled, joyless present, Devlin represents childhood memories as the narrative and mythic space in which the women transcend the Troubles. In the final moments of the play, Frieda recalls a scene from their childhood in which the political divisions in the play were nonexistent:

FRIEDA: ... (Pause. Looks away from Donna straight ahead.) I remember a long time ago, a moonlit night on a beach below the Moumes, we were having a late summer barbecue on the shore at Tyrella. Among the faces at the fire were Josie, Donna, Liam, and my father and mother were there too. And John McDermot was a friend of Liam's. DONNA: I remember. (90)

The three young girls, unbeknownst to the men, go skinny dipping, "leaving the men arguing on the beach" (90). Frieda recalls a moment of possibility and freedom: "...we 65

sank down into the calm water and tried to catch the phosphorescence on the surface of

the waves—it was the first time I'd ever seen it—and the moon was reflected in the sea

that night. It was as though we swam in the night sky and cupped the stars between our

cool fingers" (90). The calm of the water and the young girl's escape into the night are

juxtaposed with an image of the quarrelling men. This moment of peace and calm,

however, is interrupted when the men realize the young girls' transgression:

FRIEDA: ... And then they saw us. First Liam and then John, and my father in a temper because we'd left our swimsuits on the beach. And the shouting and the slapping and the waves breaking over us. We raced for cover to another part of the shore. We escaped into the shadows and were clothed again before they reached us. We lay down in the sandhills and laughed. DONNA: I remember. (90)

The shared laughter among the young girls, as well as the memory for the adult Frieda

and Donna, offer an alternative, personal history to the public narrative of sectarianism

and hatred that now divides Northern Ireland. This is a memory in which John

McDermot—who, in the present tense of the play, is beaten by Malachy's men for being a traitor to the republican cause—is accepted as a friend despite political differences.

Moreover, the young girls' laughter is in stark contrast to Malachy's "shouting," and suggests both hope and resistance. Carlson notes that women's laughter most often captures a communal experience:

Women's comedy provides laughter not only for the audience, but also for the characters... and laughter for the characters has become an acknowledged mark of togetherness, of control. Even in plays less group- determined, the conscious reliance on laughter remains for the characters—especially the women—a standard sign of triumph. In plays less clearly comic, even those that include death, laughter remains a signal of individual triumph and female-to-female connections. (231) She goes on to state that laughter in plays by women "has become an expression of power and a vocalization of community" (232). Frieda's monologue, punctuated by Donna's refrain, "I remember," becomes a means of recollecting the women's deeper and longer ties through childhood play and laughter. Donna's position as the "woman listening"

(Devlin, Ourselves Alone 7) reflects her personal resistance against her public acquiescence: Donna quietly, privately takes part in Frieda's more public remembering.19

Frieda's act of telling foregrounds the solidarity of their communal experience, and this solidarity is literalized by the young girls' escape from the men to another part of the shore. The direct address of Frieda's monologue not only places her narrative within a long tradition of storytelling but also creates a connection with the community of listeners embodied in the theatre audience. Through direct address Frieda extends the community created on stage into the theatre as a whole.

The young girls' escape in Frieda's narrative also foreshadows her decision to leave Andersonstown and thereby flee the Troubles through emigration. Despite this momentary possibility for Frieda, the communal hope for the three women exists firmly in their pasts rather than their futures. Any hope for a present community of women is left unrealized by the departure of Josie with her father and Frieda's emigration to

London. The future in Andersonstown looks grim for both Josie and Donna: Josie's continued loyalty and submission to her father, despite her pregnancy, and the final image of Donna awaiting Liam's return underscore the relatively limited choices for

19 Donna's private resistance is also dramatized by her dream of Liam as the devil, while her public acquiescence is reflected in her final attempt to reunite with him. Despite Donna's relationship with another man, when Liam leaves to avoid arrest she tells him, "I'll be here... Come back when it's safe" (88). 67 women in this patriarchal, repressive, and violent community. In this early play, it appears that the only real escape from the Troubles is through exile. As Frieda tells

Donna, "It is Ireland [that she] is leaving" (90). The threats from her father, McDermot, and unknown brick-throwers may have forced her out, but it is Ireland and its Troubles that she is really leaving. Frieda's statement also suggests that she is leaving the whole of

Ireland and not just the north. While this recalls the original 32-county Ireland prior to partition, it also suggests that greater distance is needed than a relocation to the Republic of Ireland will afford. Frieda's move reflects Devlin's own experience and highlights the physical separation needed to truly find one's voice as a woman and an artist. Frieda's voice, indeed her life, depends on her leaving: "I'd rather be lonely than suffocate" (90).

There is poignant hope in Frieda's choice of loneliness over suffocation. This hope is further underscored by Donna's final line: "How quietly the light comes" (90).

Literally, and perhaps metaphorically, a new day is beginning for Frieda; this glimmer of hope, however, only exists in exile. Ultimately, the personal subsumes the public and the political: even Josie's politics is eclipsed by her new role as mother, which problematically reduces Josie to her biology. While Devlin appears to abandon a more public, political vision for Northern Ireland through the women's final choices and actions, her ending captures the arduous challenge, perhaps impossibility, of hope for the province in the turbulent political climate of the mid 1980s. Nevertheless, the final image of the first light of dawn also captures the moment between day and night, a liminal space and time in which both potential and possibility reside. Judy Little notes that "Liminality describes a threshold (limen), a transition, a borderline area or condition," and ultimately, 68 it offers "the most ambiguous, most potentially anarchic phase of ritual, and the most creative" (6).

Devlin has stated that she is, like Frieda at the end of Ourselves Alone and Greta at the start of her second Troubles play, After Easter, "definitely in between Britain and

Ireland, between these two shores" (Cerquoni 122). Devlin's psychological position gives her distance and perspective from which to examine and interrogate the complexities of the Troubles. Likewise, Northern Ireland inhabits a space between Britain and Ireland,

Catholic and Protestant, nationalist and unionist. This liminal space, while a physical site rather than a cerebral state, is clearly conditioned by the varying identities that surround and inhabit the province. Northern Ireland as a concept—both the north of Ireland and the province within the national boundaries of the United Kingdom—reflects and influences

Devlin's psychological, liminal position. The theatre itself has been labeled a liminal space, a site in which narrative possibilities are limitless. Margaret Llewellyn-Jones, in her study Contemporary Irish Drama and Cultural Diversity, states that the "borderline terminology [of exile] resonates with Foucault's idea that theatre may be a heterotopic space, a site in which 'all other real sites [that] can be found in a culture, are simultaneously represented, contested or inverted [...]'" (123). The theatre as an imaginative, "heterotopic space," while clearly distinguishable from the historical and geographical site of Northern Ireland and Devlin's liminal perspective, becomes a space in which alternatives for the Troubles can be imagined.

Devlin aligns these varying liminal sites in After Easter, and thereby, she creates a space in which to imagine more. Greta, who physically resides in England and travels 69 from there to Northern Ireland, psychologically and spiritually inhabits an in-between space. Greta tells her sisters that "I left Ireland in 1979, but I never arrived in England. I don't know where I went" (16). In the heterotopic space of theatre, Greta's story becomes a means of representing, contesting, and inverting her troubled life and home. Although

Greta's liminality appears to have left her homeless, bereft, and to the men around her, crazy, it also gives Greta insight and vision that the other characters lack. Paradoxically,

Greta is at once both an agnostic and a visionary: she is caught between a distrust of the

Catholic Church and religious-inspired visions. The latter challenge her lack of faith, consign her to a mental institution, take her on a physical journey back to Belfast as well as a spiritual journey into herself, and ultimately offer her a vision of a renewed, resurrected Northern Ireland. From one perspective, Greta is lost and crazy, while from another viewpoint—specifically that of the younger generation of women in the play—

Greta is a visionary, perhaps even a new prophet of her society.

Written nearly a decade after Ourselves Alone, After Easter continues Devlin's exploration and revision of the Troubles. Less fierce in its criticism of the situation in contemporary Northern Ireland, After Easter—often viewed as a sister piece to Ourselves

Alone—includes a vision that offers an alternative to the violence in Northern Ireland.

The play at once adopts and interrogates Catholic religion and mysticism, combining the latter with Celtic spirituality to create this alternate vision. Devlin also adopts and subverts the traditions of western comedy. Through a hybridization of tragedy, comedy, and romance, Devlin creates a feminist comedy in which she interrogates the role of the

Catholic Church in the subjugation of women's voices, along with the continuation of the 70

Troubles. Greta, a wise fool, is the central voice of comic resistance in the play. Like

Frieda, Great is multifarious in her actions and reactions and thereby also resists any monolithic reading of Catholic women. Through Greta, as well as the diverse perspectives of her family, Devlin dramatizes an array of political, religious, and cultural possibilities beyond the standard Catholic, nationalist, and republican labels too often associated with the communities in West Belfast. Moreover, through deconstructing the labels—Catholic, Irish, English, nationalist, insane—that confine Greta and her country to their troubled history and present, Devlin begins a process of unmaking the Troubles within the more expansive and propitious realms of the comic, the carnivalesque, and the mythic.

Once again, Devlin focuses on the lives of three sisters from West Belfast. The sisters in After Easter are older than the women in Ourselves Alone, and two of the sisters have emigrated to England. There is an evident development in form, characterization, and comedy in After Easter. While Devlin has maintained the three sister structure of the play, the patrilineal, linear frame, and hierarchy of Ourselves Alone is replaced by a matrilineal, circular pattern in which realistic scenes are imbued with visions, nightmares, and a talking corpse. The narrative revolves around Greta's journey home and into herself. Having left Northern Ireland many years before, Greta is experiencing a crisis in which she questions her identity, her religion, and her home. The crisis is spawned by the birth of her third child, and she is diagnosed as suffering from postpartum depression and a consequent psychosis. The play follows Greta's physical and psychological journey to

Northern Ireland during a temporary release for the Easter holidays from the psychiatric 71 facility where she is being treated. Greta travels home from London to Belfast with her two sisters, Helen and Aoife, for their father's funeral. Although a lapsed Catholic, Greta experiences a number of religious visions that force her to face her past, her father's death, and the Troubles and help her to finally find her own voice. Through arguments, storytelling, and humour, Greta reconnects with her two sisters, their younger brother

Manus, and their overbearing mother. The Troubles are always present in the background of the more personal scenes between the family members, and this setting suggests that

Greta's crisis must be read in the larger political context of late twentieth-century

Northern Ireland. In one morbidly comic scene, Greta and her family take refuge from the sectarian violence outside their home by hiding under the table upon which their deceased father lies. Their stories and arguments culminate in a scene in which the father's corpse, left alone on stage with Greta, comes to life and reaches for her throat.

Greta's final journey back to London, where she and Helen throw their father's ashes into the Thames, completes her psychological journey towards self-discovery and her physical and emotional journey home to her son.

In After Easter, Devlin continues the mordant and iconoclastic interrogation of contemporary war-torn Northern Ireland. However, her focus is no longer republicanism; instead, she uses comedy to question the role of the Catholic Church in the Troubles and in the continued oppression of Catholic women. Devlin's interrogation reflects a growing criticism of the Church since the 1980s. Catriona Ciutterbuck notes that "The Catholic

Church was under critical review in Ireland north and south in the 1980s and 1990s"

(111). Devlin's interrogation of the Church also follows an extended tradition of anti- 72

clericalism and profane comedy in Irish writing that, according to Krause, begins with the

"Dialogue between Oisin and St. Patrick." Oisin initiates a long line of profaning the

sacred from a defeated position; Oisin and his successors enter defeated, but it is their

spirit, "their ability to live cheerfully," and with hope, that triumphs (The Profane 23).

Greta, a defeated hero at the beginning of the play, is also a wise fool.20 Robert Hills

Goldsmith notes that "Far back in the racial memory of man was a taboo that set apart the divine madman or the fool as a kind of seer" (6). Like ancient wise fools, Greta is deemed mad by some and a prophetess by others. Maureen Waters, in The Comic

Irishman, notes that "In many primitive cultures the madman has been regarded as a

visionary," and within the Irish context specifically Suibhne (Sweeney), a comic Irish

fool, was destined to torment and madness but at the same time "gifted with the powers of prophecy and poetry" (78). As an heir to Sweeney, as well as the tradition of wise fools on the world stage, Greta is equipped with both the insight and the visions that the other characters lack (and that the men fear and the women, at least Elish and Aiofe, envy). As Gray notes, "The outsider role is that of the clown or the Fool, the outsider who never ceases to remind those inside that there is a world elsewhere, who renders the existing order incongruous by surviving outside it" (35). For Greta this "world elsewhere" exists in the liminal space of her visions. She is able to see beyond the limited perspectives of her society, while her need for personal unity reflects the need for public communion in Northern Ireland. Greta's search for self then is not the personal search for a voice like Frieda but instead a larger search for wholeness and change for the

20 This is a further development from Frieda's comic clowning in Ourselves Alone. 73 communities of Northern Ireland. Through Greta, a visionary and a wise fool, Devlin

uses irreverent humour to envision new hope for her characters and for Northern Ireland

beyond the traditional labels, structures, and forms of the Troubles.

In After Easter Devlin moves beyond the realm of realism and into a form that allows for alternatives not imagined in Ourselves Alone. She states in her programme note that After Easter is a "quest play" (qtd. in Cottreau 187). The quest—or pilgrimage—of this unlikely hero also follows the Easter story of birth, death, and 0 I resurrection. Elements of the comic form are in fact mixed with romance and a tragic context to create a hybrid genre—a feminist comedy—that leads to renewal and rebirth for Greta and Northern Ireland. The central criticism from reviewers of the initial performances focused on the lack of coherence and structure in the play. Alastair

Macaulay calls After Easter an "ambitious mess" (699), while Benedict Nightingale suggests that it "isn't just one play, but two, three or four, linked by a character who is herself pretty inscrutable. It is all tangents and no centre" (700). In fact, Devlin's hybridization of romance (summer), comedy (spring), and tragedy (winter)—her

"ambitious mess"—coincides with Northrop Frye's categorization of the genres into a larger mythical cycle that follows the seasonal calendar. Frye notes that the various genres do in fact overlap, and Devlin amplifies this overlap by freely mixing elements of romance, comedy, and tragedy in her play. Rebirth and resurrection are central to the comic spirit and to Greta's quest, and they are particularly evident in the title's reference

21 Deborah Cottreau demonstrates how After Easter closely follows the phases that Frye deems characteristic of the quest narratives (212-7). However, she does not address the comic elements that are so integral to Devlin's play. 74 to the Easter story. Frye argues that "Comedy has much the same structure as the central

Christian myth itself: with its divine son appeasing the wrath of a father and redeeming

what is at once a society and a bride" (185).22 Bakhtin argues that comedy's close connection with medieval Christian festivals was captured in the form of carnival, namely the "feast of fools," the "feast of the ass," and "Easter laughter" (Rabelais 5).

Devlin enters into the traditions of comedy and carnival, but she revises both the structure of comedy and the Christian myth to include a deviant, questing, and questioning daughter who utilizes and challenges the tools of Christianity to suggest a new society and a new myth. Redemption in After Easter does not include a "son appeasing the wrath of a father and redeeming what is at once a society and a bride," but instead, Devlin foregrounds a daughter challenging the patriarchal and limited structures of Catholicism and redeeming a society through reintegration with her son. Frye, in Anatomy of

Criticism, notes that rebirth is typically linked with the feminine: "In rituals and myths the earth that produces rebirth is generally a female figure and death and revival or disappearance and withdrawal of human figures in romantic comedy generally involves the heroine" (183). Also, Easter holds much significance in Irish and Northern Irish history. The title recalls the original Easter 1916 Rising and its aftermath.

After Easter is closest to Frye's fifth phase romances, which do not avoid life's tragedies and instead contain them. In romance, the "action seems to be a movement from a 'winter's tale' to spring, and from a lower world of confusion to an upper world of order" (184). Moving towards the realm of romance and quest, the play also embodies the

22 Maria Kurdi and Geraldine Cousin have suggested that Greta is a Christ-like figure. 75 comic; Greta's irreverent comedy and her sacrilegious visions lead us into the realm of

romance in her final myth. One might argue that the play is more a romance than a comedy because it continues after comedy ends, when "the hero is carried into a higher state of identity" than the social and comic world allows (Hamilton 14). Nevertheless, the elements of comedy are integral to the play and pervade Devlin's interrogation of the

Troubles. Traditional comedies begin with the protagonist outside and at odds with the community. At the start of the play Greta has been labeled insane, literally removed from the community and placed in a psychiatric ward. Her journey is a quest, but it also follows the traditional arc of comedy in which Greta's sanity is confirmed and she is reintegrated into a new, matrilineal community.

While the British male voices in the play deem Greta psychologically unstable and place her in a psychiatric unit ('outside' the community), her apparent psychosis can also be interpreted as an expression of personal resistance and political activism. The play begins with an image of Greta sitting on the ground and the sound of a bus screeching to a halt. When the lights come up it is revealed that Greta is in a doctor's office. We also discover that Greta has been admitted to the mental facility for sitting in the road in front of a bus. This act of "madness" in the more political context of Northern

Ireland can be interpreted as a protest. As Greta tells us in her opening monologue, "I have often found when you can't do anything else you can always sit on the road. It's better than screaming. It makes everyone else scream" (1), and when you make others

23 Elaine Showalter argues that madness in women can be reinterpreted as protest: "But since the 1970s we have had a feminist discourse which has offered a new perspective on Ophelia's madness as protest and rebels against the family and the social order; and the hysteric who refuses to speak the language of the patriarchal order, who speaks otherwise, is sister" (qtd. in Cottreau 204). 76 scream you are guaranteed their attention. On a personal level, her action is in response to her husband's affair with a "rich art critic" (3-4). As Cottreau notes, she sits down in front of a bus and "demands a divorce. In retaliation, George has Greta committed 'to a mental hospital' and expects to receive custody of their children" (203). On a more public level, Greta's personal protest recalls the sit-ins that Devlin herself took part in during the civil rights marches in the late 1960s. Greta's desperation equals not only the desperation of the marchers but also the desperation of the Troubles themselves. In Ireland this act would be conceived of as political, but in England it is deemed madness. As Greta rationally points out to Dr. Campbell in the opening scene, her protest is misconstrued as insane because of math:

Look, if I sat down on the road with twenty people I'd have been arrested. Because I sat down on the road on my own it was a suicide attempt. Confirms what I've always suspected—the difference between insanity and politics is only a matter of numbers! (3)

Greta, who took part in a march as a student, states that the experience made her smile and feel "as if everything was centred in one place and it started to move, and it started to make me smile, and I kept trying not to smile; but the smile kept coming until I couldn't hold it back any longer and it grew and grew so big" (1). This is not the smile of a madwoman but of a young girl inspired by the energy and hope of these early marches.

Helen, Greta's sister, also stresses the minute difference between politics and insanity later in the play: "In England they lock her up if she's mad but let her go if she's political.

In Ireland they lock her up if she's political and let her go if she's mad" (47). Greta clearly tells her sisters while they are still in England that "the whole point is to resist"

(16). Greta admits that she is "breaking the rules" (13), and although she is confounded 77 by the visions, she is conscious and strategic in her actions and words.

Despite Devlin's consistent undermining of Dr. Campbell's diagnosis, a number of critics pointedly adopt the insanity prognosis proffered by the British men in the play.

Charlotte Headrick suggests a correlation between Greta's madness and the Troubles:

Greta's madness is a metaphor for the violence of the North and her healing in the play is Devlin's hope for her own country, her own time, her own generation. Greta's madness manifested itself in her messy life and the multiple threads of the play are metaphors for the 'whole of Ireland.' She is Ireland and her madness is the dysfunction not only of one individual but the dysfunction of a divided country. (2)

While this equation of psychosis and Northern Irish society reflects Devlin's—and her deceased father's—perception of the Troubles as a kind of madness, Headrick's reading is problematic. By suggesting that Greta "is Ireland," she adopts the traditional patriarchal equation of Woman (Greta) and Ireland. Greta is not Mother Ireland, and she openly resists any labeling, including Eire's Catholic embodiment the Virgin Mary.

Calling Greta mad also restates the limited views of her doctor and her husband and overlooks Devlin's strategic use of "madness" in After Easter. It is not Greta who is mad and rather the world she inhabits. John Peter, in a Sunday Times review following the play's premiere performances, succinctly captures Greta's position: "[Devlin] writes about a mad world full of incurably sane people who ought to be in straitjackets" (697).

Greta is incurably sane and the voices she hears lead her to an even saner future: one in which peace, communion, and desegregation are part of Northern Ireland. Greta's words and actions are actually the sanest in the play.

Moreover, to dismiss Greta as mad is to overlook the clear political resonances and strategic resistance in Devlin's rejection of the traditional social constructs of 78 motherhood. More specifically, rather than reading Greta's rejection of her child as indicative of postpartum depression, one can also view it as an act of resistance. Through

Greta's aberrant, unmotherly act, Devlin challenges the roles that society and the Catholic

Church expect women to assume. When the Doctor asks Greta if she still thinks she is the

Virgin Mary, she defiantly and humourously announces, "Och, I think everyone is the

Virgin Mary" (2). This heretical statement not only suggests an inclusiveness that is denied by the Catholic Church but also interrogates the Church's insistence that all

Catholic women emulate the Virgin Mary. In the first instance, Greta denies the Church's prescription that only chaste, pure, devoted Catholic women can be likened to the Virgin

Mary (but never really be her), while her line, when set against the reality that Catholic women Northern Ireland are expected to become the Virgin Mary, forms a statement of protest and resistance. Through Greta's blasphemy—that she thinks everyone (male and female alike) is the Virgin Mary—Devlin ridicules the Catholic prescription for Irish women that they emulate Mary. Greta's inclusion of everyone regardless of gender underscores how ludicrous, in fact insane, this ideal is. Her statement seems crazy to the

Doctor because no one can be the Virgin Mary. Later, after the doctor exits, Greta mutters, "I never thought I was the Virgin Mary anyway. I just hope to Christ I'm not

John the Baptist" (5). The doctor has got it wrong, as the newspapers later misinterpret

Greta's act of communion at a bus stop in Belfast, and Greta comically and consciously pokes fun at the doctor's mistake and her predicament, hoping that she doesn't literally lose her head or actually lose her mind. Geraldine Cousin suggests that the apparition that

Greta sees at Helen's apartment "positions Greta as a kind of Virgin Mary" and that 79

Greta's response to the doctor implies that "If all women are the Virgin Mary, then all are special" (188). However, her reading disregards the use of Mary by the Catholic Church and the Catholic communities in Northern Ireland to oppress women, deny their sexuality, and maintain their passivity and subservience.

Devlin not only challenges the definition of madness but also the traditional binaries, labels, and borders that perpetuate the violence in Northern Ireland. Greta consciously resists the strict identifying markers—"mad," "Irish," "Catholic"—that are used to define her. She is unhappy with the singularity of her Irishness and embraces the broader spectrum of numerous nationalities: "I'm English, French, German" (12). She also denies any singular religious affiliation: "I am a Catholic, a Protestant, a Hindu, a

Moslem, a Jew" (7). Through Greta's mutable identity, Devlin suggests a hybridity that resists the definitive binaries that divide the two communities in Northern Ireland.

However, Greta's husband and her doctor are unable to understand her resistance as anything more than the ramblings of an ill mind. They are limited by their inability to think beyond the rational binaries of the corporeal world: sane/insane, Irish/English,

Protestant/Catholic, and nationalist/unionist. As Greta tells us, her husband George "was repelled. He thought he'd found a radical secular emancipated woman, and instead he'd got a Catholic mystic" (26). As a Marxist historian George sees the world in terms of its history. George's Marxism reflects the static tradition of understanding Northern Ireland solely in terms of its extended history of division and violence. Greta comically juxtaposes her visionary status against George's rational historicism and ultimately a historicism that informs and cements sectarianism in Northern Ireland. Greta's visions proffer an important and necessary alternative to the racial memory of oppression and division.24 Ultimately, her visions and actions are iconoclastic and aimed at all labels and borders that promote difference and segregation.

Greta's comic resistance, nonetheless, is most specifically aimed at Catholicism and reflects Devlin's interrogation of the Church's role in the subjugation of women. As

Greta tells her father's corpse, her rebellion began at an early age. She recalls the time she was expelled from a Dominican school after an encounter with a nun: "She said,

'You're not the sort of girl we want in this school.' So I tried to pull off her veil" (60). As an adult and an agnostic Greta recognizes the patriarchal nexus of the church and openly mocks and ridicules its male hierarchy by calling priests "men in skirts" and accusing them of "usurping our [women's] function" (29). Greta's suspicion of the clergy manifests itself in her first vision: she dreamed of an old man with a pointed beard and dressed like a priest in a long soutaine who watched her 'birth' from the corner of the room. In her vision, the old priest tries to smother her; here, Devlin dramatizes the

Church's continued silencing of women's voices. A voice tells Greta to turn around and as she does so she can breathe once again. The image indicates a turning around and also a turning away from the faith that smothers the lives and voices of Catholic women in

Ireland and Northern Ireland. Chris Wood notes that "The most pervasive form of

Patriarchal control in After Easter is the Catholic Church. While Irish women make staunch Catholics, the people who make important decisions regarding religious matters tend to be men" (306). This is underscored by Elish's unempowered position as a nun in

24 Devlin has talked of After Easter itself as a vision, as "a gift. A Blessing. I received it; I did not will it" (qtd. in Cottreau 199). 81 the Church "because [she] is a woman" (Devlin, After Easter 29). Greta's dream is also a comic disruption of the patriarchal control in her life. Freud suggests that "The very incongruity of the dream world is comic" (Sypher 198). Based on Freud's theories of the close relationship between the comic and the dream, Sypher argues that "The joke and the dream incongruously distort the logic of our rational life. The joke and the dream are

'interruptions' in the pattern of our consciousness" (200). Through such unconscious disruptions, Greta is able to reject the persistent control of the Catholic Church in her day to day existence. Despite this rejection, Greta's visions are ironically grounded in

Christian faith and customs. By turning around and rewriting the central myths and teachings of Catholicism, Greta actually begins a process of re-envisioning Catholic spirituality, and she combines this with Celtic spirituality to envision a new narrative for

Northern Ireland. Through Greta's seemingly paradoxical appropriation of a religion in which she does not believe, Devlin not only underscores the personal and political possibilities of a more fluid spirituality but also recalls the early hybridization of Catholic and Celtic religions in pre-modern Ireland.

Devlin's deconstruction of the Catholic Church and its authority in Northern

Ireland involves a strategic appropriation and reinvention of the rituals and customs—the tools—of Catholicism. Despite her lack of faith and disdain for the Church's hierarchy,

Greta seeks guidance from Elish, as both her cousin and a nun. Elish, who believes Greta has reached a "state of Grace," urges her to rejoin the Catholic Church and faith. She believes that Greta should have been a nun; however, since it is too late for this path,

Elish advises Greta to think of herself instead as a nun who exists and works outside the traditional walls and structures of the church and convent:

If you cannot be a nun in a convent at least you can be a nun in the community. We have a great many married women with large families who are our nuns in the community. The Mothers—they are the real harvesters of souls. You can be one of those. (28)

Elish's biblical metaphor foregrounds the role of mothers in the creation and growth of devout Christians; however, her harvest metaphor is rendered ironic in the violent context of the Troubles. Following the murder of nine people in a Donegal pub in a sectarian retaliation Greta asks, "Is this the harvest" and thereby recalls Elish's words. The equation of death and the harvest evokes the Grim Reaper as the true harvester of souls in the Donegal pub and in the troubled and violent communities of Northern Ireland.

Geraldine Cousin argues that "Greta's response to the killings is an attempt to become a

'harvester' not of souls but of lives" (193). The life-affirming role granted Greta by both

Elish and Cousin, however, is problematic: Elish's equation of women and the harvest and Cousin's interpretation of Greta as a harvester of lives reaffirm the traditional, essentialist equation of women and motherhood. The latter, in particular, detracts from the political and subversive irony of Greta's question.

Devlin continues her appropriation and revision of Catholic ritual by having Greta refuse the roles suggested by Elish and instead boldly adopt the position of community priest. In one of the most potentially blasphemous acts in the play, Greta steals a chalice from the local church and offers communion at a bus stop in Belfast. She not only defies the laws of the church but also transcends their holy prescriptions by taking communion physically out of the church and onto the streets. Greta at once adopts and subverts the act of communion, extending it to a larger community and the larger issue of peace in 83

Northern Ireland. Later in the play, it is revealed that the chalice was never consecrated, and, to the relief of her mother, the act becomes merely a theft rather than all out blasphemy. This comical moment of revelation underscores the fact that Greta's act is removed from the physical environment and conventional practices of the church's hierarchy. Whether the chalice has been consecrated or not is irrelevant to Greta; her action is not to offer Catholic communion, and rather, it is symbolic of the need for greater social and secular communion in Northern Ireland. Devlin, through Greta's irreverent act, secularizes and literalizes the act of communion, calling forth the etymology and pre-Christian meaning of the word.25 Furthermore, Greta's action is not intended to celebrate Catholic communion in the streets but rather to highlight and condemn the Church for its hypocrisy over simultaneously promoting both peace and the continued segregation of schools; the latter ultimately breeds sectarianism among younger generations in Northern Ireland. Her resistance is strategic and political. Though the newspapers wrongfully record that she is protesting for the ordination of women priests, she is not labeled insane—as in England—and instead is given a political voice.

Greta's is an act of communion in a war torn society: a means, however small and misinterpreted, of bringing together a divided society.

Devlin also adopts and revises the carnivalesque through Greta's irreverent act of communion. Greta, through her actions, attempts a literal communion between a people divided by religion, history, and politics. During carnival all people normally divided by

2S The word communion is derived from two Latin words 'com' and 'mums.' The word munus is taken from the Sanskrit MU which means a tie, bond, or link. The ancient Romans defined a munus as a public task or act that is performed by a citizen for the community (Perri). In addition, communio in Latin means sharing and participation. 84 the barriers of caste, property, profession, and age were considered equal. This created a special type of communication and community that was impossible in everyday life

(Bakhtin, Rabelais 10). However, the carnivalesque was most often governed by the church and provided only temporary liberation from social structures (10). Greta is searching for something more sustained and sustaining than the church organized carnival, and thus, she removes her act from the church itself (both its physical space and its blessing). Greta's act of communion is reminiscent of the Feast of Fools in which lower orders of the church took on the roles and ceremonies of the higher orders.

However, Devlin revises the carnivalesque itself: she creates her own Feast of Fools by dramatizing Greta in the role of community priest. Although Greta has been "ordained" by Elish as a nun out in the community, Greta amends this ordination to priestly status in defiance of the laws of the church, and thus, she gives Elish more power than traditionally held by a nun. Inversions are central to Greta's defiance and Devlin's revision. Rather than sitting down in the bus lane again, Greta finds a solution to the

Troubles by offering communion to those standing in the bus queue. Greta, against

Helen's suggestion that she is ill, defiantly states, "I'm not ill. I acted deliberately... I issued a statement" (48-49). She says she "wanted to stop the killings" (49). After the newspapers have misinterpreted Greta's actions she adopts their version and defiantly blasphemes, "If a woman can be a priest, God can be female" (307). Greta speaks out against a patriarchal church in which God has always been imagined and represented as male and in which those who serve Him in the most powerful positions in the church have always been men. While Greta's actions appear inconsistent with her original 85 political goal of public communion, Devlin, through this apparent contradiction, makes a clear connection between two patriarchal sites: the Catholic Church's refusal to ordain women is consistent with the male hegemony that informs both Catholicism and the political landscape of the Troubles. Greta's actions are at once paradoxical, theatrical, subversive, and carnivalesque, and they suggest possibility. Like Frieda, Greta makes great trouble, and, through Greta's actions, Devlin not only highlights diverse political possibilities but also opens a site in which to imagine alternatives.

While Devlin grounds Greta's visions in Catholic mysticism, she dramatizes

Greta's actions, in response to these visions, as a secular attempt to find peace in both her own life and in Northern Ireland. In more secular terms a visionary is one who is able to see beyond the present, corporeal situation and perhaps imagine new alternatives. The younger generation of women in the play, Elish, Aiofe, and Helen, recognize the possibilities embedded in Greta's visions. Helen and Aoife, rather than believe that Greta is simply mad, attempt to understand and interpret her vision of the star constellation:

AOIFE: What star constellation do you see? GRETA: Sure how would I know? I don't get information, I just see things. AOIFE: Describe it. GRETA: There were seven stars—in an arrangement. AOIFE: The Plough! You saw the symbol of the Irish Citizen Army!26 HELEN: No! AOIFE: Yes. GRETA: I hate all that stuff. I really hate it. HELEN: It's nothing to do with the Citizen Army. It could have been the

26 The Irish Citizen Army (ICA) was established in 1913 for the protection of workers from the police during organized demonstrations. It was made up of trained trade union volunteers, including James Connolly and Constance Markiewicz. The ICA under the leadership of Connolly and Markiewicz took part in the Easter Rising of 1916, an armed, nationalist uprising to end British rule in Ireland. 86

Pleiades. The seven sisters.27 (14-15)

Aoife's nationalism informs her interpretation of the constellation as the Plough, while

Helen's explanation suggests a feminist, mythological analysis of Greta's vision.

Although the sisters do not agree in their interpretations, they at least move beyond the

insanity prognosis by attaching more political meanings to her visions. Through Helen's

and Aoife's different analyses, Devlin dramatizes the political possibilities open to Greta.

Moreover, by aligning Irish nationalism and feminism through the two sisters, Devlin

resists any suggestion that the two are in essence mutually exclusive, and she heightens

the connection between the sisters through their personal and national subjectivity. Helen

jokingly tells her sisters that "I don't have visions, I have sex!" (16). Here, Helen creates

an inclusive bond with Greta in an attempt to underscore how she deals with the loss of

self she also experienced through emigration. Humour and bonding between the sisters, and later within the family, helps to restore Greta to a subjective position from where she can tell her story.

Devlin further dramatizes the bond between Greta and her siblings through their shared profane sense of humour. Aoife, the devoutly religious and nationalistic sister, also engages in impious humour. Aoife expresses and aligns her desires for extramarital affairs with her faith and devotion to God: "I just say, 'I know I'm married to you, God, but would you mind if I had a wee fling with so and so... if it happens it is yes, if it doesn't, it was no" (68). Maria Kurdi makes a connection between Devlin's Aoife and the ancient Aoife, a heroine in Celtic legend:

27 The Pleiades are a star cluster also known as the Seven Sisters. In ancient Greek mythology the Pleiades are the seven daughters of Atlas and Pleione. 87

Aoife arrives on stage early in the drama with a fractured wrist due to a quarrel with her husband which infuriated her to chase him with a carpet cleaner—a highly comic echo of the legendary woman-warrior Aoife's ability to fight, whom even Cuchulain could defeat only by means of a trick. (102-03)

In the figure of Aoife, Devlin literalizes a connection between Catholic faith and Celtic spirituality and humour. Kurdi also notes that the sisters often use comic remarks and cliches to cover their personal wounds (103). Their brother Manus, nationalistic like

Aoife, uses irony to interrogate the Troubles. MacGurk notes that Manus ironically employs the language of the paramilitaries in his call for peace: "Forget 1690! Forget

History! Remember—the pursuit of happiness is a 'Right of Man'" (54). This is an important alternative to the historicism that informs George's worldview. Manus is neither a nationalist nor a republican and rather an Irish culturalist: he embraces Irish cultural tradition as a positive force. Devlin separates Manus from the other male, patriarchal voices in the play by having him reveal his homosexuality, and thus his difference, to the family in the latter stages of the play. Devlin's use of Manus' sexuality to differentiate him, however, is problematic and reflects her tendency to essentialize gender and sexuality. The foregrounding of Manus' sexuality is particularly problematic in the context of Northern Ireland in the 1990s, where his homosexuality—still viewed by the churches, both Catholic and Protestant, as an aberration and a sin against God— inevitability eclipses his Irish culturalism and his humour. His sexual orientation becomes the nexus of his difference. However, Manus' humour and his celebration of Irish culture best reflect Greta's irreverent attempts to create a hybrid spirituality that is inclusive rather than exclusive. Helen, the youngest sister, also uses irony and humour. Helen, the 88 wealthy top girl now living in London, ironically accuses her mother of having "cash registers for eyes" (8). Here, Helen voices the critique of capitalism most evident in the characterization of their mother, Rose.

Rose is an object of satire and more specifically of Devlin's criticism of the role of capitalism in the continuation of the Troubles. Charles Spencer writes that Doreen

Hepburn, who played Rose in the initial performances, "gives a superb comic performance as the dour and disapproving mother..(698). While this captures the comedy of Rose's character, it glosses over the context and irony of her dourness and disapproval. Although a God-fearing Irish Catholic, Rose is first and foremost a businesswoman. She is an Irish, comic Mother Courage, more concerned with her business than her daugher's sanity. Although she worries how Greta's blasphemous, public act of communion will be seen by the Catholic Church, she is most concerned not that the family will be excommunicated but rather that Greta's actions will harm Rose's business dealings with the church. Rose has been trying to secure the franchise for the local school uniforms and fears that Greta's actions will jeopardize her transactions with the local parish:

Are you joking? You steal a chalice full of communion wafers from the altar and give them out around town like confetti and then you make a statement criticizing religion in schools! I might as well close the shop! Are you trying to put me out of business? (49)

Rose is neither interested in Greta's purpose nor does she care that Greta "criticized all the churches" in Northern Ireland and not just the Catholic Church. Rose is most concerned with her business and not the desegregation of schools or the end of the

Troubles. The absurdity of Rose's obsession over her trade is further highlighted by her response to the altercation between Manus and the soldiers. Rose, ever the businesswoman, is more anxious about the delivery of the communion veils than her son's safety when he supposedly defies a roadblock. Her response to the ensuing confrontation between Manus and the British soldiers is to declare, "Och, what is it now—is there no peace?" (50). The irony of this statement is that the peace Rose wants is to get on with her business of making money and not the greater peace for Northern

Ireland. Greta actually defuses the situation with the soldiers by opening the box and revealing its contents—communion veils. She does so as one of the British soldiers looks on bemusedly. He sees the humour and irony of this potentially explosive situation over a box of communion veils, which is literally innocence concretized. Greta restores peace to the moment, and the soldier's grin suggests his recognition of the absurdity of both the immediate situation and the larger situation of the Troubles. Moreover, Rose's loyalty to the Catholic community is outweighed by economics. She has decided to stop buying handmade Christening gowns from a local Catholic woman in favour of cheaper, mass produced gowns from a Protestant business. Devlin ironically suggests that economics may be the one facet that can cross the cultural and political divides in Northern Ireland.

However, Rose's self-involved and self-possessed reactions underscore the pull of capitalistic gain over any suggestion of a new community.

Devlin's interrogation of capitalism through the figure of Rose, along with

Greta's spiritual collectivism in the act of public communion, intimates that socialism may be a political possibility for Northern Ireland. Rose's capitalism is clearly set against her husband Michael's democratic worldview. In the most darkly comic scene in the 90 play, the Wake scene, Michael's corpse underscores the importance of equity and democracy:

MICHAEL: I'm not a Communist—I just believe that the universe is democratic, that's all... GRETA: Democratic? MICHAEL: Everything equals everything else. I don't believe in hierarchies. (59)

Michael emphasizes the equality that is needed to create a peaceful, communal Northern

Ireland. Political communism, however, is challenged by Michael's blatant rejection of the label, as well as by the limited scope of George's Marxist historicism. Moreover,

Devlin has already revealed that political communism is not the answer: the brutality of

Northern Ireland's troubled reality undermines communism's theoretical and idealist vision of equality and community. John McDermot's violence against Frieda in

Ourselves Alone and Michael's attempts to strangle Greta from his coffin underscore how violence is embedded in the male culture of Northern Ireland.

Tellingly, Devlin foregrounds macabre humour to dramatize not only the absurd and violent context of the Troubles but also the possibility of communion among the family members. During the darkly comic wake scene, Greta's family aptly gather around

(and under) Michael's corpse into some semblance of a community. Vivian Mercier argues that "The Irish propensity for macabre humour may easily be traced to the world- renowned Irish wakes, at which merriment alternates with or triumphs over mourning, in the very presence of the corpse" (49).28 Devlin stages a wake that begins as a somber

28 The grotesque (reproduction) and the macabre (death) are traditionally joined in the Irish wake. Maureen Waters notes that "well into the 19lh century funeral games, including kissing and mock-marriages, evidently originating in obscure rites of fertility, were as essential a feature as the keen or ritual crying of the mourners" (70). 91 moment in which Greta watches over the corpse of her dead father to a moment that literal izes the terror embedded in macabre humour when the onstage corpse sits up and begins to speak. This would be no surprise to Northern Irish audiences who are used to the tradition of talking corpses. It is characteristic in Irish and Northern Irish plays that the corpse is not only present on stage but also talks to the living characters.29

Nevertheless, English and American audiences, well versed in the horror genre, might have been at least spooked by Michael's first words and his attempts to strangle his daughter. This scene, set against growing violence in the streets outside, underscores both the terror and absurdity of the Troubles. We are forced to question why Michael tries to strangle his daughter as we must question why the violent Troubles continue. Moreover, the image of the father's corpse on the table while the family seeks refuge beneath it is comic in its absurdity.

The dark comedy of this scene is further underscored by the dialogue between the various family members. Devlin uses wordplay to explain Rose's bitterness towards and physical abuse of Greta and Manus as children:

GRETA: But why did she beat us and not the others? HELEN: Because you said everything he felt. AOIFE: It wasn't that. It was because you two looked more like my daddy. She used to call him Kate. Then she'd say (pointing to Greta) Duplikate and Triplikate (pointing to Manus). (67)

Maria Kurdi notes that there is a liberating humour here "that derives from a playful

29 Talking ghosts and corpses are no strangers to the Irish stage. At the end of Brendan Behan's The Hostage a dead soldier rises and leads the cast in a song that parodies "Abide with Me." In Stewart Parker's Pentecost a dead woman, Mary, returns to talk to live characters in play. The talking corpse on the Irish stage is reminiscent of the tradition of Irish wakes. Sean O Suilleabh6an records that the corpse at a traditional Irish wake is viewed as the host. The corpse remains the centre of attention, not only in the stories told but also in the games that are played. In fact, the corpse could be made to dance, smoke a pipe, and play a hand of cards (31-32). 92 gender confusion" (106), while the discussion of physical abuse reflects the violence inside and outside the family home. Amidst their bickering over the father's corpse, a growing laughter seems to bring the family closer together. The moment is indicative of how people survive the Troubles. In addition, this humourous verbal sparring reflects the tradition of flyting popular in modern Irish theatre;30 however, rather than two verbal opponents, an entire family engages in a verbal sparring match. In the end, the family's infighting is subsumed by the growing violence in the streets. As the fighting outside intensifies, Rose calmly gets under the table and states, "Now isn't this nice? Who's going to tell us a story?" (68). Rose's request for a story is not necessarily absurd—this is common at Irish wakes—and rather the circumstances that encompass the request is peculiar. Later, Rose repeats her happiness over their absurd reunion: "This is nice isn't it. We're all together again" (70). Amid the insanity of the Troubles time spent together under the table is treated as quality family time. The absurdity of the situation is made manifest by Michael whose corpse lies in a coffin on the table: he is either protector or crusher should the house be hit. Helen further highlights the inanity of the situation by refusing to join Rose: "This is ridiculous. There's no way I'm getting under the table"

(69). However, the growing violence outside, and specifically the sounds of shots being fired, forces them all under the table and into a moment of bonding and togetherness not yet witnessed in the play. The father's death, combined with the violence in the streets, creates the closest visual image of a community on stage. Devlin's wake scene recalls

30 Flyting is an extended and vigorous verbal debate. Krause describes flyting as "the verbal contest of farcical insult and ridicule that can be found in Greek and Roman comedy, in Beowulf, in Chaucer and Shakespeare, in the early Gaelic poetry of Ireland and Scotland, in the medieval [Irish] 'Dialogue between Oisin and Patrick' and the sixteenth-century 'Flyting of Dunbar and Kennedie,' and flourished in the native folk narrative of practically every country" (The Profane 267). 93

Joyce's renaming of the Irish funeral as a "funferall" in Finnegan's Wake and his belief that 'wake' implies rebirth (Mercier 49).31

Rebirth is not only suggested by the family's reunion but also by Greta's return to

England following her father's wake. Back in London, Greta continues her comical, profane revision as she and Helen spread the rest of their father's ashes into the Thames.

The burial ends with Greta's exclamation, "Words! So do I cast out all devils!" (72). Her words echo the lines commonly used in religious exorcisms to cast out demons. For

Greta, the devils are those who perpetuate the cycle of violence in Northern Ireland. In her programme notes, Devlin quotes Gilbert and Guber: "The woman writer must exorcise the sentences which bred her infection in the first place; she must overtly or covertly free herself of the despair she inhaled from some 'Wrinkled Maker,' and she can only do this by reversing the Maker's text" (qtd. in Cottreau 219). In this scene, Greta achieves an exorcism by revising Wordsworth's "Composed Upon Westminster Bridge,

September 3, 1802" while laying her father to rest. Devlin rewrites and recontextualizes the poem to comment on and interrogate England's continued presence in Northern

Ireland:

Earth has not anything to show more fair—than the new Ml6 building over there. (She tosses into the Thames some of her father's dust.) Dull would he be of soul who could not pass by a sight so touching—as the homeless on Westminster Bridge. (She scatters more ashes.)

The city now doth like a garment wear— (Sound of horse hooves coming towards them.) The police cars in Trafalgar Square, the soldiers in the House of

31 Imelda Foley calls this scene "a Joycean joke on Devlin's part" (99). 94

Commons. (Sounds of hooves gets closer.)

Silent bare—ships, towers, domes, theatres and temples lie open to the Irish. (71)

Devlin amends an important section of this British colonial text by revealing Britain's responsibility and role in the Troubles. The irony here is that while the final images do

"lie open to the Irish"—the Irish immigrants in particular—the borders that define nations mean that Britain will never truly be home for either Greta or Helen. Moreover, the images of the M16 building (the centre for British intelligence) and the soldiers in the

House of Commons reflect the continued presence of the British army on the streets of

Northern Ireland and the role of the British government in the Troubles. Devlin reverses

"the Maker's text" by rewriting it in the present.

Devlin continues her revisions by refusing a return to the patriarchal community and status quo characteristic of comic endings. Catriona Clutterbuck suggests that "Greta, in the end, finds a way to re-enter the community without relinquishing her role as prophet" (118). However, Greta does not re-enter the community existent at the beginning of the play—the hierarchical community in which Dr. Campbell and her husband, George, are in control. Rather, she begins her entry into a new community through shared moments with her sister Helen. It is here that Greta hears a new beginning:

GRETA: Listen, can you hear that baby? Listen! Where could a baby be at this time of the morning? And so near? (Big Ben strikes five.) HELEN: That's not a baby, that's a clock. GRETA: No, I've got a baby's voice in my ear—oh dear. I'm doing it again aren't I? HELEN: It's not saying anything religious, is it? 95

GRETA: Oh no. It's just a baby laughing. (74)

The baby's laughter suggests a renewal and looks forward to Greta's reunion with her son in the final scene. This hope is further underscored by Helen's personal revelation at the end of the play that she should have used her power not to "seduce and dominate" and instead to "create and free" (73). This optimistic, life-affirming statement, however, is problematic in feminist terms. Through Helen's choice of creation over seduction, Devlin unwittingly reproduces the traditional, essentialist representation of women as either mother (Mary/creator) or whore (Eve/seductress). Moreover, in the context of Northern

Ireland, Devlin's focus on women's creative power reiterates the essentialist stereotype that women are fundamentally mothers and peacemakers. The latter image, in particular, undermines women's complex and disparate roles in the Troubles. Devlin, however, also refuses the heterosexual status quo that often reduces women to objectified stereotypes.

When two British policemen threaten to interrupt and end the sister's moments of revelation, Helen defuses the situation by telling them "We're getting married tomorrow"

(72). Helen both calls forth and challenges the traditional comic ending: the words

"celebrating" and "married" conjure the traditional comic ending, while the use of the pronoun "we" confuses its heterosexual conventions and morals. Moreover, this scene, like Ourselves Alone, ends with an image of dawn, as the sisters "sit looking at the rising sun in the east" (74). However, the dawn in After Easter is not the mere glimmer of possibility that Frieda can only perceive in exile, and rather, it encompasses a broader hope for both Greta and Northern Ireland.

Devlin, like many women playwrights, refuses a concrete comic ending, and 96 rather, she moves her ending forward into the realm of more mythic and openended beginnings. Rachel Blau Duplessis emphasizes the need for women comic writers to

"write beyond the ending" (qtd. in Barreca, "Making Trouble" 8). In After Easter, Devlin literally writes beyond the ending of her first play: the image of dawn that begins Frieda's exile in Ourselves Alone changes in After Easter to a full sunrise that ultimately leads to

Greta's final monologue. Having called to mind and subsequently denied the traditional comic ending, Devlin creates a cyclical pattern that returns us structurally and through tableau to the beginning of the play. The play ends as it began with Greta speaking a monologue. However, Greta's final monologue and a "traditional empty chair near the storyteller" (75) in the final tableau position her as a seanachie, a time-honoured Irish storyteller, rather than a confined madwoman. As seanachie Greta literally returns to the beginning by telling a new creation myth that encompasses both Celtic and Christian mythology and masculine and feminine principles and finally suggests a way to thaw the ice that covers Northern Ireland:

Greta is at home, rocking a baby, telling it a story. The traditional empty chair is placed near the storyteller.

GRETA: After Easter we came to the place. It was snowing in the forest and very cold into the fifth month. My mother and I were hunting. But because of the cold we couldn't feel anything or find anything to eat. So we sat down by the stream. I looked up and saw it suddenly, a stag, antlered and black, profiled against the sky. It stood on a ridge. This stag was from the cold north. It leapt off the ridge and down into the stream. It leapt through hundreds of years to reach us. And arrived gigantic in the stream. My mother was afraid, but I saw that it was only hungry. I took some berries from my bag and fed the stag from the palm of my hand. The stag's face was frozen and I had to be careful because it wanted to kiss me, and if I had let it, I would have died of cold. But gradually as it ate, its face was transformed and it began to take on human features. And then the thaw set in—I could hear the stream running, and the snow began to melt. 97

I could hear all the waters of the forest rushing and it filled my ears with a tremendous sound. (Pause.)

So I got on the stag's back and flew with it to the top of the world. And he took me to the place where the rivers come from, where you come from... and he took me to the place where the rivers come from, and where you come from... and this is my own story. (75)

It is through Greta's final monologue that Devlin truly reverses and re-envisions "the

Maker's text," creating a story that literally frees the frozen land and suggests an imaginative alternative for Northern Ireland. Through Greta's story, Devlin rewrites the

Judeo-Christian Bible to encompass Catholic, Celtic, and matrilineal/feminist spirituality.

The "we" in the first sentence of the monologue is comprised of mother and daughter and the setting is the frozen north. The reference to Easter invokes the hope embedded in the

Easter story and Christ's resurrection. However, the image of the stag and berries invokes an earlier pagan form of communion. Margaret MacCurtain, in "Moving Statues and Irish

Women," comments on the appropriation of Celtic spirituality by Irish women:

Many Irish women who have left the devotional practices of their youth are now genuinely seeking a spirituality that meets both their search for a god who is not patriarchal, and for a continuing revelation of god's presence in the world not in opposition to past traditions but evolving out of them. In Ireland it is to the Celtic models that the feminist search is turning more and more. (209-10)

Devlin's revision of the creation story is a search for a feminist spirituality that does not embrace a pre-Christian, Celtic Utopia and rather one that recognizes the hardships and realities of the Troubles. Ultimately, Greta's monologue suggests the need for a new kind of communion: a communion that can melt Northern Ireland, frozen as it is by more than three decades of violence and hundreds of years of internal strife.

Devlin's is a comic and mythic vision that suggests renewal, hope, and 98 community. She rejects the traditional comic ending of celebration and marriage, and

Greta does not return to her husband. Instead, the community in the final moments of the play is comprised of herself and her son and by extension the audience. In the tableau of the onstage community, Devlin engages in one last irreverent image: she adopts the Pieta in which Mary holds her infant son, Jesus. This recalls the doctor's question "Do you still think you're the Virgin Mary?" at the start of the play. This Pieta-like tableau is a final answer to the doctor's question. Greta, a flesh and blood woman, cannot possibly be, emulate, or become the mythical Mary. Moreover, by embracing both Christian and

Celtic mythology, Greta is not the silent, sacrificial Mary, and instead, she is the voice that offers hope and change for Northern Ireland. The stage directions state that "Greta is at home, rocking a baby, telling it a story" (75). This image of Greta, rocking her young baby in her arms, reconceptualizes the Pieta-like tableau in republican iconography in

Northern Ireland in which Mary holds a dying Jesus. Catherine Shannon notes that "Until a few years ago, a mural depicting an Irish mother holding her dead Provisional IRA son in a Pieta-like portrait was carefully maintained on a west Belfast gable wall, providing a visual reminder of the centrality of the sacrificial motif within republican tradition"

(251). Devlin, by revising this image, rejects the sacrifice of mother and son, and instead, she suggests a new beginning based on hope, springtime, and life rather than blood and death. Here, Devlin openly challenges the image and theme of sacrifice that is central to republicanism: Christ as saviour, Mary as silent mother, and both as martyrs.32 The final

32 Earlier in the play, when Manus confronts the British soldiers and displays "a streak of martyrdom," Aoife reminds him that it is more important to live and tell one's story than to die for a cause (Wood 306). 99 image positions Greta as the authorial voice. As she tells her son and the audience in the final lines of the play, "This is my own story" (75), and it is a story that offers rebirth and hope. Devlin creates new imaginative possibilities through language, humour, and myth, and in doing so, she looks forward to the beginnings of the peace process, which began the same year the play was first produced.33

Telling stories is central to Devlin's writing. She has said that "Storytelling for me is a way of solving a mystery" (Cerquoni 121). The women's narratives at the end of

Ourselves Alone and After Easter suggest alternatives to the history of violence and segregation prevalent in the master narratives of Northern Ireland. Both plays end with mythical images—three girls swimming and Greta's creation story—and Devlin emphasizes this connection in an interview (Cerquoni 118). Possibility and hope for

Devlin and her female protagonists exist in narrative, whether reflections of a happier past or visions of a new beginning. Through making trouble and telling new stories,

Devlin offers not only an unconventional perspective of the Troubles but also imagined alternatives. While recalling the great storytelling tradition in Ireland, Devlin also emphasizes the need for new stories to replace the older and bloodier ones. Furthermore, she openly embraces the tradition of comic storytelling in Ireland to counter the tragedy

33 The peace process was initiated by the republican and loyalist ceasefires in 1994. On August 31, 1994 the IRA declared a complete cessation of all military activity. This was followed by the declaration of a ceasefire by loyalists paramilitary organizations on October 13, 1994.The IRA's ceasefire, in particular, made it possible for Sinn Fein to participate in multiparty peace talks; prior to this, Sinn Fein had been barred from such talks because of its association with the IRA. The peace process officially began on December 9, 1994 when publicly announced talks took place between Sinn Fein and British officials. The future talks, however, encountered several setbacks, including the cessation of the IRA's 1994 ceasefire, failure by the paramilitary groups to meet disarmament deadlines, suspension of the Northern Irish Assembly (the locally elected government formed under the Good Friday Agreement), and the re- imposition of direct rule from Britain. Despite these setbacks, the peace talks garnered new hope and commitment in the 1990s for an end to the Troubles. 100 and underscore the absurdity of the Troubles, and through foregrounding the often humourous voices of Catholic women, she gives voice to a muted community. Devlin's feminist interrogation of the Troubles, however, leads also to a problematic, essentialist dismissal of men: while the women in her plays are diverse, engaging, and at times offer creative alternatives to the violent, intractable world of the Troubles, Devlin's men are too often vilified as static propagators of oppression, violence, and war.

Devlin's focus on women from West Belfast also includes a notable silence that is rarely addressed by critics. This silence comes from the voices of the Protestant communities who are conspicuously absent from Devlin's two plays on the Troubles. The only Protestant voices in Devlin's Troubles drama are, perhaps, the unnamed RUC officers in the leaf-catching scene in Ourselves Alone. In the 1980s, the majority of the

RUC were Protestant, and yet even this fact is glossed over by Devlin's representation of the RUC officers as nameless symbols of a repressive organization. The lack of

Protestant voices in Devlin's theatre is perhaps understandable given that the playwright's experiences and settings are firmly grounded in the Catholic communities of

Northern Ireland. Devlin attempts important border crossings, but they are initiated solely by Catholic women. While Greta's public act of communion in After Easter is directed at everyone standing in the bus queue and her spiritual journey denies the traditional binaries of Catholic/Protestant, her use of the tools of the Catholic Church in attempting to create a community is problematic as it involves only one side of the divide. Likewise,

Devlin's focused interrogation of republicanism in Ourselves Alone unintentionally but unavoidably silences Protestant women's experiences and perspectives. Despite this 101 silence, Devlin's profane interrogations proffer important, and often irreverent, counter- narratives that challenge the hegemonic myths and ideologies of the republican and

Catholic communities in Northern Ireland. The most captivating and irreverent women in

Devlin's Troubles plays are comic fools. According to Goldsmith, the primary function of the stage fool was to entertain, but he also served as the licensed critic of the play's other characters, a detached observer, and commentator on the plays events (6-20).

Devlin's female protagonists are critics and commentators on their troubled society.

Moreover, Frieda and Greta, rather than detached observers, take an active and central role in the plays' events. Ultimately, Devlin unmakes the Troubles through wise fools that are multivalent and thereby open up political and comic possibilities beyond the entrenched political landscape of Northern Ireland and specifically the patriarchal site of

West Belfast. 102

Did You Hear the One By the Irish Woman?: Comedy and Comedians in the Plays of Christina Reid

You can't keep the Irish down. We 're a nation of comedians. (Reid, Clowns 343)

Christina Reid is an accomplished playwright and screenwriter who came to prominence in the 1980s. Reid's Troubles plays span from the early 1980s to 1996 and thus encompass the central years of the conflict up to and beyond the 1994 republican and loyalist ceasefires that would eventually lead to the peace talks in Northern Ireland.

As such, she directly engages in an analysis and interrogation of some of the most violent years of the Troubles. Reid, however, has stated that she is "worried about the trend to portray Ireland through its violence so all you can see are the Troubles and you lose sight of the people" (qtd. in Roll-Hansen 390). By focusing on people in her plays, Reid presents a variety of perspectives that challenge any monolithic reading of Northern

Ireland, its people, and its conflicts. Although the majority of Reid's dramatic repertoire is grounded in her experiences growing up in a fiercely Protestant and unionist working- class family in Belfast, it is difficult and problematic to suggest that she is the voice of either Protestant working-class Belfast or its women. Such a limited perspective overlooks Reid's refusal to confine her playwriting to a specifically Protestant, unionist, or even female perspective. Although a number of her plays on the Troubles foreground the experiences of working-class Protestant women, Reid includes Catholic and English voices to balance her dramatization of the conflict. The inclusion of varying viewpoints challenges the tendency to view the Troubles in terms of the binaries—

Catholic/Protestant, unionist/nationalist, and English/Irish—that inform both the 103 stereotypes and the sectarianism still pervasive in Northern Ireland. Reid's most direct challenge is against the master narratives of the unionist, Protestant community that

preach their right and duty to defend the maintenance of a British Northern Ireland. Reid

foregrounds and combines marginal voices—including Protestant and Catholic women

and youths—with a humour and wit that is often deviant, iconoclastic, and in varying

ways, offer resistance and hope against this contentious and violent context.

The polyvocal nature of Reid's plays is mirrored by the adoption and subversion of varying dramatic forms and techniques, including gritty tragic realism, intertextuality,

Brechtian alienation techniques, as well as comic devices from the traditions of vaudeville and stand-up comedy. Although it is difficult to categorize Reid's dramatic repertoire, comedy serves as a central thread and device in many of her plays. Her staging of humour is itself polyvocal and challenges any singular, set reading of comedy and its role in Northern Irish life and the Troubles. Over her career, Reid has demonstrated that comedy is a complex and powerful political tool, which can be—indeed, has been—used to both perpetuate and dismantle the Troubles. For instance, Reid foregrounds women's humour that is derisive, bawdy, and alternatively exclusive and inclusive in Tea in a

China Cup (1983) and The Belle of Belfast City (1989). However, Reid also recognizes the darker side of comedy, which often acts as an excluding, racist weapon in Northern

Ireland. In Did You Hear the One About the Irishman... ? (1985) she uses stand-up comedy to delve into the even murkier tradition of racist and violent humour at the root of sectarianism and colonialism. Reid is also directly influenced by her knowledge of and high regard for the work of Sean O'Casey. She has noted in an interview that "I love 104

what [O'Casey] does, particularly in those early plays: he breaks your heart while making

you laugh" (qtd. in McDonough, "Christina" 301). In Joyrides (1986) Reid presents a

dark, ironic humour that recalls O'Casey's Dublin trilogy, in which he dramatizes the

first troubles in Irish history.

Reid's interconnectivity of politics and comedy invokes not only O'Casey theatre

but even more specifically Brecht's epic theatre. Like Brecht, she borrows from the

traditions of music hall in The Belle of Belfast City and the history of stage clowns

through her use of comedians in Did You Hear the One About the Irishman... ? and

Clowns (1996). Brecht's exposure to the comedy of the music halls in the early twentieth

century, as well as his close friendships with two professional clowns Karl Valentin and

Charlie Chaplin helped to create his epic theatre. Joel Schechter points out:

Brecht told Walter Benjamin that the cabaret clown [Karl Valentin] more or less invented epic theater while advising him on a production of Edward II in 1924. Brecht was in Munich adapting and directing Marlowe's tragedy, and he asked Valentin, 'one of his closest friends,' for comments on the battle scene. Valentin said that the soldiers are scared, they're pale; Brecht chose to show this condition by giving them chalk- white faces—faces Valentin and other clowns wore in circus and cabaret. The unfamiliar, startling appearance given to Brecht's soldiers in Edward II was the start of epic theatre. (93)

For Brecht laughter and thought are intimately linked (Eagleton 157) and they are strategically combined in his theatre. Likewise, Reid combines laughter and thought not only to entertain and instruct but also as a means to directly confront her audiences with their laughter and by extension their complicity in the events on stage. While Reid's use of Brechtian devices underscores the sociopolitical context of the Troubles, they also create A-effects that are often punctuated by humour. Through comic voices and 105

techniques, she at once interrogates and transgresses the divisions in Northern Ireland

literally, metaphorically, theatrically, and humourously. This transgression is most

evident in Clowns, in which Reid foregrounds a female stand-up comic to interrupt and

irreverently re-script the Troubles. Although Reid often foregrounds women's humour, it

is inclusive humour itself—male and female, Protestant and Catholic—that has the power

to change.

Reid was born in 1942 into a working-class Protestant, unionist family. She was

raised in Ardoyne, a predominantly Catholic and nationalist neighbourhood in North

Belfast. Despite the large number of Catholics, the Ardoyne Road is part of the major

route for the Orange Order marching season.1 The close proximity of the two

communities led to a large number of incidents at the height of the Troubles, particularly during the marching season. The Ardoyne, however, before and during the Troubles was a mixed area where the Catholic and Protestant working-class communities co-existed.

Although Reid was born into a Protestant family, and was surrounded by the ideologies and traditions of unionism and Protestantism, she was also exposed to the Catholic,

nationalist community and a first hand witness to the growing violence and discontent on both sides of the sectarian divide. Reid, though many of her plays are centred upon and

"sort through" (McDonough, "Christina" 300) the ideologies and loyalties of her

1 The origins of the Orange Order date back to the battle for power between Protestantism and Catholicism in the seventeenth century, which culminated in the Battle of the Boyne in 1690 and William of Orange's defeat of James II. The Orange Order is the largest Protestant organization in Northern Ireland. Its aim is to defend Protestant civil and religious liberties, as well as uphold Protestant and unionist hegemony in Northern Ireland. Each year on the 12th of July, Orangemen take part in celebrations and marches in honour of King William and the Battle of the Boyne. The parades were originally peaceful; however, since the beginning of the Troubles, they have come to symbolize bigotry and sectarianism for many in Northern Ireland. The original parade routes often pass through predominantly Catholic neighbourhoods, and consequently, this has often led not only to protests but also violence between the Catholic communities and the Protestant marchers. 106

Protestant heritage, is not a representative voice of the Protestant community. Although

wary of labels, she has stated that she considers herself Irish (Delgado viii). Moreover,

Reid's politics, as reflected in her plays, most often conflict with the unionist and

Protestant traditions of her childhood. Evenhandedness in her plays is reflected in her personal politics: "I have an Ulster Protestant Unionist background, but now I am much more left wing and I don't support the Unionists at all. What they have done here is indefensible... I personally think the nationalists have a very valid gripe, but most of my family doesn't" (E. Shannon 216). Set against this early exposure to the public and political divisions in Northern Ireland are Reid's more private experiences with her mother, grandmother, and aunts. Reid has stated in a 1983 interview with Kerry

Campbell that "All the greatest influences in [her] life were women—women talking, telling stories and jokes, all the sort of uninhibited humour that happens where there are no men about" (qtd. in McDonough, "Christina" 300). Reid's early matrilineal experiences are captured in a number of her plays: she often dramatizes female-centered sites dominated by an "uninhibited humour" that at times offer an alternative view and open challenge to violence, sectarianism, and the politics of Protestant, unionist, and masculinist Ulster.2 In an interview with Elizabeth Shannon, Reid has stated that she does not call herself a feminist because she is against labels of any kind (215-16).

Nevertheless, through acts of telling, particularly by deviant and witty working-class

Protestant and Catholic women, Reid creates dissident, resistant, and often feminist

2 Historically, Ulster is one of the four provinces of pre-modern Ireland. The province is composed of nine counties: Antrim, Armagh, Down, Fermanagh, Derry, and Tyrone, which make up present day Northern Ireland, and Cavan, Donegal, and Monaghan, which are part of the Republic of Ireland. Northern Ireland is commonly referred to as Ulster by unionists and the British media. 107 voices that challenge male hegemony in Northern Ireland.

Reid began her writing career later in life. Carla J. McDonough suggests that economics, rather than any sustained loyalty to family and community, led to Reid's early silence: her working-class Protestant background would have left little of the leisure time needed to begin and develop a writing career ("Christina" 300). Reid's script for her first stage play, Tea in a China Cup, was the runner-up in the 1982 Irish TimesfUYV

Women's Playwriting Competition and attracted the attention of the Lyric Theatre in

Belfast. Subsequently, Reid was invited to become writer-in-residence at the Lyric during the 1983-1984 season. Although Reid's writing career began late, it has been prolific. Her radio plays include The Last of the Dyin' Race (1986), My Name, Shall I Tell You My

Name? (1987), The Unfortunate Fursey (1989), and Today and Yesterday in Northern

Ireland (1989). The Last of the Dyin' Race was performed on television in 1987. She has also written episodes for the television series Streetwise and Pie in the Sky. Reid's stage plays include Tea in a China Cup, Did You Hear the One About the Irishman...?,

Joyriders, The Belle of Belfast City, Lords, Dukes and Earls (1989), and Clowns. Reid's most recent plays, The King of the Castle (1999) and A Year and a Day (2007), were written for the youth theatre group Connections. Reid moved to London in 1987 and in

1988 became writer-in-residence at the Young Vic. Reid's radio play My Name, Shall I

Tell You My Name? was produced on the stage in 1989. Reid won the Thames TV

Playwright Scheme Award in 1983 for Tea in a China Cup, the Giles Cooper Award for

Best Radio Plays of 1986 for The Last of the Dyin' Race, and the Ulster TV Drama

Award in 1980 for Did You Hear the One About the Irishman...? 108

Although theatre and drama critics have received Reid more positively than Anne

Devlin, there is still a tendency to overlook her work in mainstream criticism. Despite her

direct engagement with the Troubles and the social politics of Northern Ireland, D. E. S.

Maxwell in an article on Irish political theatre consigns Reid's Tea in a China Cup "to a

subsidiary list" (DiCenzo 176). Maria R. DiCenzo argues that Maxwell's relegation of

Reid's play, along with Charabanc's Somewhere Over the Balcony, underscores the

limitations of his survey of political drama (176). Other critics emphasize the politics of

Reid's theatre by addressing how her adoption and subversion of anti-realist and

Brechtian techniques speak directly to a political agenda.3 While critics disagree about the kind of politics Reid engages, most recognize the humour in her plays. The most often used term among critics to describe Reid's humour is "sardonic."4 Maria M.

Delgado, in her introductory essay to Reid's Plays: /, notes that "The humour displayed

by many of the women in Reid's plays, especially when no longer under the watchful eye of prying men, is presented as subversive and challenging" (xviii). Reviewers also "tend to agree that her treatment of characters is balanced and unsentimental" (McDonough,

"Christina" 302). McDonough argues that in Reid's plays, "humour becomes, for many of her characters, a survival tactic" ("Christina" 301). While many of her characters use humour as a means of survival, and their humour is often sardonic, rebellious, and challenging, the summations offered by the vast majority of critics fail to address the

3 Diderick Roll-Hanson addresses the politics of Reid's play through an examination of the play's anti- realism and its difference from social realism. Joanna Luft interrogates the politics of tea drinking and the discourse that surrounds it as a Brechtian gestus. Lisa Fitzpatrick suggests that Reid's "Brechtian dramaturgical style reflects upon the shaping of the characters by their environment... This dramaturgical structure ruptures naturalist expectations, while the use of direct address breaks down the fourth wall" (237). 4 Roche {Contemporary 230); Roll-Hansen (391). 109

complex and strategic treatment of humour and comedy in Reid's plays.

Reid's Tea in a China Cup foregrounds a matrilineal narrative that spans the years

1939 to 1972 and confronts, through laughter and storytelling, the silences, myths, and

traditions of the Protestant community. The present tense of the play dramatizes the close

but often contentious relationship between Beth and her mother Sarah, who is dying of

cancer. These moments between mother and daughter are interspersed with flashback

scenes in which the male members of the family leave for war, the older women laugh,

talk, and drink tea, and Beth shares alternating moments of confusion and enlightenment

with her Catholic friend, Theresa. Reid critically examines, through her central character,

Beth, the loyalties that simultaneously oppress Protestant women and prolong the violent

conflict. She grapples with the loyalties and silences expected of these women in the

more public and gender-mixed spaces of Belfast, particularly reflected in the dialogue of

the elder generations of women in the play. The various comic scenes present humour

and laughter that alternatively sustain and challenge the sexism and sectarianism

prevalent in the Protestant community. The complexity of the women's humour—both its

power as a form of resistance and survival and its limitations when used to reinforce the

myths and stereotypes that sustain the Troubles—is particularly evident in the scenes

between the three generations of women. Reid dramatizes a shared laughter and

continuity that underscores their identity as Protestant and unionist women at the exclusion of other, Catholic voices. However, the relationship between the protagonist,

Beth, and her childhood Catholic friend, Theresa, presents a shared and inclusive laughter

that crosses and subverts the sectarian divide. Moreover, the movement between London 110 and Belfast, and between past and present on stage, underscores the endurance of Beth's and Theresa's humour, laughter, and friendship.

Beth's humour and its distance from the traditions and conventions maintained and celebrated by the older generations of women—in particular, Beth's mother Sarah, her grandmother, and her great aunt Maisie—are staged in the first scene of the play. An initial tableau is presented of a very ill Sarah lying on a velvet couch "listen(ing) to and watch(ing) the Orange band as it passes by with great enjoyment" (3). Sarah soon closes her eyes and begins to sing along with the passing band, taking an exuberant part in a ritual that at once celebrates the Protestant community and exacerbates sectarianism. The stage space inhabited by Sarah is firmly set in a Protestant house and the Protestant tradition. The song being played offstage, and to which Sarah at first listens and then sings along, underscores the hatred felt by the Protestant community towards

Catholicism: "...for we'll get a great big rope and we'll hang the bloody Pope, on the 12th of July in the morning" (3). Anthony Roche suggests that "Sarah's carnivalesque enjoyment conveys... the personal and communal view rather than the overtly political or demonised perspective of the 12th of July" (Contemporary 234). However, the carnivalesque is complicated by the song's target, its direct link to the conflict, and the present tense of the play. Sarah's (and the song's) irreverence is directed at the head of the enemy community and thereby underscores and maintains the hatred that informs the conflict between Protestants and Catholics. The play is set in 1972, one of the most violent years in the history of the Troubles. Moreover, the tableau and the accompanying song underscore the siege mentality and the celebrations of the Battle of the Boyne, Ill

which lie at the heart of Protestantism and the controversial and often violent marching

season in Northern Ireland.

Reid undermines this initial tableau through the opening, darkly comic scene in

which Sarah's daughter Beth purchases a burial plot for her dying mother. Reid

foregrounds the macabre through Beth's opening line, "I want to buy a grave" (3), and

her jokes regarding death and sectarianism. Beth, nervous throughout her encounter with

the council clerk, uses humour to deal with an obviously difficult and unsettling task;

however, her humour also underscores and questions the sectarian divide. The arrangement of the new cemetery reflects this segregation:

CLERK: The new cemetery is divided in two by a gravel path. Protestant graves are to the right, Catholic graves to the left. Now what side would your mother want? BETH: The right, definitely the right. (5)

Upon learning that the new cemetery has been divided between Catholic and Protestant graves and a gravel-path border clearly established between the two, Beth irreverently asks, "What happens in a mixed marriage... do you bury them under the gravel path?

(The Clerk is not at all amused by this sort of levity.) Sorry... it was only a joke..." (7).

Beth's levity reflects not only her nervousness over the advanced purchase of her mother's grave but also her disbelief over the division in the cemetery itself. The existence of a segregated graveyard, as well as the clerk's response to Beth's humour, underscores the gravity and pervasiveness of sectarianism; it is evidently a division that continues even after death. Beth's humour, nevertheless, highlights the absurdity of this division. Moreover, Beth introduces the problem of mixed marriages in Northern Ireland and suggests a possible space for meeting: beneath the gravel path. Neither set in stone 112 nor by concrete, the gravel path with its dirt and loose stones suggests a liminal and movable space that is not defined by denomination or set loyalties. It is perhaps even a place where changes and transgressions can occur. Beth's distaste for the traditional divisions that exist beyond the path is later highlighted when she tells her mother about the plot:

SARAH: And were you able to get a plot near the old cemetery? BETH: Right at the wall... do you know if you'd been a Catholic, you'd been out of luck. SARAH: How do you mean? BETH: The new cemetery is segregated. Prods to the right, Fenians to the left. The Protestant graves are alongside the old cemetery. Sarah finds this very funny. She laughs delightedly. SARAH: God, isn't it great to know that you'll be lying among your own. Beth's face contorts and she turns her head away. (8-9)

Sarah is elated by the separation and the fact that she'll "be lying among [her] own" and away from the fenians.5 She appears consciously overjoyed about the inequalities and the

Protestant hegemony that exists even after death. Beth, however, registers her disgust for the persistent division and hatred by contorting her face and turning her head away. Her response, as well as the close link between a dying Sarah and the Protestant tradition, underscores the death of the staunch Protestantism and unionism maintained and celebrated by the older generations on stage. Even Sarah's loyalty to her faith and community are undermined by her acceptance of Theresa into her home later in the play.

The macabre humour evident in the opening scene between Beth and the council clerk is set against a later scene in which a much younger Beth witnesses the ritual of

5 The term fenian historically refers to members of the Fenian Brotherhood and the Irish Republican Brotherhood, organizations that sought Irish independence during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. The term fenian is still widely used in Northern Ireland, but it has become a deprecatory term used by unionists to refer to all nationalists and Catholics. 113 laying out the dead performed by her grandmother and great aunt Maisie. Maisie is particularly impious and disrespectful in her abuse of the corpse, Granda Jamison, calling

him an "oul bugger" and insisting that he died on purpose on the twelfth of July just to cause trouble (34). This scene also affords the older women, and in particular Maisie, the opportunity to speak their minds. Maisie, in her diatribe against Granda Jamison, directly addresses the corpse, something she as a loyal Protestant woman could not have done had he still been alive. At one point, Maisie speaks openly of Granda Jamison's "favourite trick" of instigating an argument in hopes of physical retaliation and retribution in court:

.. .Lifts up the corpse by the hair and speaks with a mixture of fury and glee. Do you hear me, you skittery ghost? Worth every penny [to see him lying on the pavement]. This time it's you who's getting the summons... from your maker. Beth runs out panic-stricken. Maisie releases the corpse and laughs. (36)

Maisie is at once irreverent and reverent: she mishandles and mocks the dead man even as she acknowledges God as the final judge for his sins. Maisie's laughter suggests a power (and final laugh) over the corpse. Sarah, in the present tense of the play, laughs at the memory of Beth's retreat in terror that day. Despite this youthful fear, Beth inherits the macabre humour of her great aunt in her dealings with the clerk. Moreover, she later embraces the tradition of laying out the dead taught to her by her grandmother and great aunt: after Sarah's death she performs the rituals of death by covering the mirrors as her grandmother had done on the day that Granda Jamison died. Beth's actions dramatize the role of women as the keepers and bearers of familial rituals. Moreover, Granda Jamison's coffin is part of a tradition of "boxes" in Reid's plays. Imelda Foley notes that "the box" is a recurring image in Reid's repertoire: "Bodies come home in boxes and bodies leave 114 the house and the street in boxes" (62). These references to coffins not only underscore death as a cycle of life and ritual overseen by the women but also symbolize the prevalence of unnecessary deaths that result from war and specifically the Troubles.

Reid often combines the women's primary ritual in the play—tea drinking—with their humour and laughter. A number of critics have focused on the importance of the custom of tea drinking in Reid's play. Joanna Luft suggests that the ritual of drinking tea, along with the social discourse that accompanies it, "both exemplifies and critiques the social relationships of the women themselves and the traditional values that they eternalize" (215). In addition, Luft proposes that the gestus of tea drinking underscores the contradictions embedded in the ritual and the female characters' values: "At the same time that tea perpetuates hostility and divisiveness, it underlines the women's solidarity and strength" (215). Following Luft's theory of tea drinking as a social gestus, the humour and laughter that accompany the women's afternoon tea and social discourse is a central part of this gestus. According to Brecht, "Language is gestic when it is grounded in a gest and conveys particular attitudes adopted by the speaker towards other men"

("On Gestic Music" 104). In the play, the women's laughter accompanies a discourse that clearly conveys the Protestant women's attitudes towards one another and their Catholic neighbours. Moreover, their laughter, like their tea drinking, paradoxically highlights divisiveness and solidarity: at the same time that it reinforces divisions between the two communities and perpetuates the Troubles, it also creates a shared bond between the

Protestant women. Both laughter and tea have a restorative effect: their connection is dramatized in the moment that Beth and Sarah decide to drink tea and together proclaim 115

"in a china cup" and laugh (9). Brecht argues that "The social gest is the gest relevant to society, the gest that allows conclusions to be drawn about the social circumstances"

("On Gestic Music" 104-05). Laughter in the play is communal and social, but it is also ambivalent, both challenging and reinforcing the ideologies of the masculinist Protestant society in which the women prepare and drink tea.

The ritual of tea drinking is encompassed not only by shared laughter but also the passing down of cultural customs and traditions. After deciding to drink tea, Sarah tells

Beth, "You mind it now, you mind all the old family stories, tell them to your children after I'm gone" (10). However, the shared traditions and stories that the older women teach to young Beth during the ritual afternoon tea include not only family stories but also unquestioned loyalty and the communal myths that sustain the sectarian divisions between Catholics and Protestants. Sarah's bigotry is highlighted in her response to the young Beth's blackened face when she returns from playing outdoors:

SARAH: She looks like one of them street urchins from the Catholic quarter. MAISIE (cleans Beth's face and says): .. .there now, that's a bit more Protestant looking. BETH: Are all Catholic children dirty? MAISIE: I never seen a clean one yet. BETH: Why are they dirty? GRANDMOTHER: It's just the way they are. They're not like us. (23)

The dirty Catholics are set against the respectable, clean Protestants. Lisa Fitzpatrick argues that Reid's women "silence themselves in the name of respectability" (327).

Loyalty to one's religion and caste is central in the Protestant, unionist communities.

Protestant women are expected to remain loyal to their communities and cause and thereby ensure the maintenance of unionist power in Northern Ireland. Silence maintains 116

the status quo, which inevitably ensures the continued repression of women and is further

reflected in their invisibility within the Church, the community, and its public customs.6

The older women teach Beth that silence, respectability, and loyalty are

inseparable. When the young Beth suggests a similarity between their family and

Catholics regarding hand-me-downs, Sarah quickly reprimands and silences her:

BETH: Mammy made this dress out of one of her old skirts. SARAH: Don't you ever go sayin' that to strangers. BETH: Why? SARAH: Because you just don't, that's why. I don't know where I got her at all. She hasn't the sense she was born with. (24)

In actuality, Beth exhibits greater sense than the older women in her ceaseless and open questioning of the myths that her elders uncritically accept and utilize to define themselves against their Catholic neighbours. Her inquisitiveness suggests that from a

very young age Beth is already questioning the traditions, expectations, and myths by

which Protestant women live. She also forces the older women, the keepers of the communal traditions and loyalties, to explain themselves. Maisie, exasperated with

Beth's inquisition, responds, "Why? Why? I swear to God, that one was born asking questions" (25). However tiring to her great aunt, Beth's incessant questions reflect unwillingness among the younger generation to unthinkingly accept and follow the traditions and tenets of their communities. As Rebecca Phelan notes, "Beth is part of a generation that is no longer willing to turn a blind eye to the inequities of Northern Irish

6 Unionist customs and celebrations, in particular, reflect this invisibility: "The strong male culture and bonding rituals of Unionist hegemony, like the Orange Order and the Masons" (Sales 145) meant that women until recently have been excluded from the various groups, parades, and celebrations that represent and celebrate the Protestant, unionist communities. Like the Orange Order, the Masons, or Freemasons, are a fraternal organization; they are closely aligned with the unionist communities and women are excluded from joining the organization. 117 society, regardless of how difficult it might be to confront them" (88-89). The various scenes between Beth and her Catholic friend, Theresa, further stage Beth's unwillingness to unquestionably accept her communities' customs and beliefs.

The encounters between Beth and Theresa pose an important counterpoint to the scenes with her mother, great aunt, and grandmother. Their meetings take place in the more neutral territory of the street and public office where they exchange and confront the myths taught by their respective families and communities. In the playing space of the theatre, their interactions take place stage right—the same space in which Beth and the

Council Clerk discuss burial options for Sarah. The public spaces, separate from the home where their differences are emphasized, represent a common ground where Beth and Theresa—as young girls, adolescents, and women—meet as equals, with similar confusions, views, and even myths about each other's community. In a flashback scene,

Theresa and Beth, both aged eighteen, meet at Northern Ireland's Civil Service recruitment office where Theresa is attending an interview. Their ensuing dialogue challenges the myths of difference taught to the girls by underscoring a striking similarity between the fabrications used to distinguish and divide the two communities:

THERESA: You know, I reckon I've as good as got one of the three jobs that's going here today. BETH: How do you make that out? THERESA: Well I was here early, I've seen all the other candidates going in, and they were all definitely Prods. I'm the only Tague here. BETH: How would you know what they were? THERESA: By the look of them. Your eyes are closer set? Did nobody ever tell you that? BETH: I was always told that the Catholics are the ones with the close-set eyes. (40) The girls have been fed the same myths about the enemy community; these 118

commonalities directly undermine the stereotypes presented to the younger Beth by the

older women in her family. The adult Beth, in the present tense of the play, also

challenges and mocks her mother's reliance on the family customs and beliefs, calling

them "old wives' tales" and relating to the audience one of the great family "legends":

I took whooping cough when I was eight months old. My grandmother wrapped me in a blanket and carried me to the gasworks, where she held me over the waste gas outlet until I'd choked and spluttered and coughed up all the infection. It's one of the family legends, how I was at death's door until the Belfast Corporation Gasworks saved my life. (33)

The use of the waste gas outlet would most likely seem appalling and dangerous to a

contemporary audience, especially given the fact that Sarah is dying of cancer. Ironically,

what supposedly and miraculously cured young Beth's whooping cough may actually be

killing Sarah. Beth steps out of the scene and tells the family story directly to the

audience. Through this break in the fourth wall, as well as Beth's insistence that these are

tales and legends, Reid confronts audience members with what seems to be an

incongruous "old wives tale" and thereby prompts them to recognize the absurdity of the

numerous myths that have informed Beth's identity.

The elder women's attempts to teach Beth the cultural familial myths and

traditions are also bound up with their efforts to teach the young girl how to become a

good and chaste Protestant woman. Loyalty to one's community for Protestant women is

intrinsically bound to respectability and a silencing of sexuality, sexual needs, and anything associated with "bodily functions" (Reid, Tea 28). The older women in the play are complicit in the silencing of Protestant women: the maintenance of loyalty means silent acceptance of the myths and traditions that ultimately confine and repress them. 119

This silent respectability, however, leads only to confusions, misconceptions, and

ironically, an enduring bond between Beth and Theresa; the girls connect through a

shared misunderstanding of their budding sexualities, as well as the other's community

and religion. The meetings between the prepubescent Beth and Theresa underscore a

striking similarity between the Catholic and Protestant communities' equation of silence

and female sexuality; their religious differences are subsumed by the more pressing

commonality of adolescent confusion. As Beth tells us, "We knew nothing. We found it

impossible to get an accurate answer to anything relating to bodily functions" (28).

McDonough notes that "The Calvinist ideology of woman as temptress, the fallen woman

[that informs Beth's Protestant upbringing] shares with Catholicism the desire to keep

sexuality enshrouded in mystery or to keep young people, especially girls, 'innocent' of

the knowledge of sexuality" ("I've Never Been" 184). Reid couples the silencing of

sexuality with a troubling connection between women, sexuality, and the perpetuation of

the Troubles. The myths that Theresa and Beth learn about their maturation are bound up

with the myths and misconceptions that have led to and maintain the Troubles and the

troubled lives of women, both Protestant and Catholic. Anthony Roche argues that what

emerges in the conversations between Beth and Theresa, and most notably in their talk of

"masculine nuns and rapacious landlords[,] is the extent to which political fears are expressed in terms of sexual deviancy" {Contemporary 235). The myths meant to teach

them to be "good girls" also instill fears about sexuality and the enemy community and

underscore a larger link between the political status quo, sectarianism, and sexual

repression. 120

Ultimately, it is through shared laughter, as well as shared confusions and fears over their budding sexuality, that the Protestant Beth and the Catholic Theresa find common ground. For Beth and Theresa, laughter and shared adolescent confusions not only underscore their lack of knowledge as young girls about their bodies and sexuality but also provide moments of bonding and liberation as young women. Frances Gray points out that comedy and sexuality are natural bedfellows: "Like sexuality, laughter has been sometimes highly valued, sometimes denigrated; but like sexuality—indeed with sexuality—laughter has been closely bound up with power" (6). The repression of sexuality is most evident in Sarah's attempts to explain the onset of menstruation to her daughter, Beth:

SARAH: Well, once a month... when you start to grow up... to become a young woman... you get... you get... a drop of blood comes out of there... BETH: {startled) Blood? SARAH: Now there's nothing to worry about. It happens to all women... it's just part of growing up... it doesn't do you any harm... it comes for a few days and then it goes away again... until the next month. When it happens, you tell me, you don't go telling your father or our Sammy, do you hear? (29)

The ellipses in the text underscore not only Sarah's embarrassment and difficulty in explaining menstruation to her daughter but also the silences that encompass female bodily functions in the Protestant community. Sarah's insistence that Beth keep the onset of her menstrual cycle a secret from the men in the family further suppresses Beth's budding sexuality. The silences denoted by the ellipses—what is not spoken—only serve to further confuse Beth. McDonough suggests that the inclusion of a discussion on menstruation and sex in Reid's play is radical and dissident when one considers the 121

taboos regarding women's bodily function in public and private discourse in Ireland

("I've Never Been" 186). Their shared confusions regarding menstruation create an even

deeper connection for Beth and Theresa:

Beth steps into the light. She is not in a uniform, just a dress and cardigan. She also is carrying a schoolbag.

THERESA: Mine started last night, just when I was getting ready for bed. BETH: Now we're both grown up. THERESA: Yes. BETH: Did your mammy cry? THERESA: No. But she told me I wasn't to wash my hair while I had it or put my feet in cold water, or the blood would all rush to my head and I'd die. Did your mammy cry? BETH: A wee bit. She said, 'God help you, child, this is the start of all your troubles.' THERESA: My mammy calls it the curse. BETH: I wish somebody would tell us what it's all about. I mean, if it's going to bring us some sort of trouble, do you think we should know? THERESA: Sure they never tell you anything. (30)

The explanation given to Theresa by her Catholic mother is as cryptic and confusing as

Sarah's and merely serves to reinforce the myths and the resultant confusion and fear that

enshroud menstruation. Theresa and Beth are disempowered by the regulation of and

silences surrounding sexuality; nevertheless, they are also empowered through the

moments they share in their mutual attempts to understand puberty. Martin Hoyle, in a

review of the London premiere at Riverside Studios in 1984, notes that "Beth, the

narrator, acted with Caroline Embling's warmth and integrity, convinces in her loyal,

bemused friendship with Catholic Theresa. The latter [is] played with cheerful wryness

by Theresa Boden." He suggests the best moments of the play are captured in the

"individual relationships" on stage (926). The "bemused," wry encounters between Beth

and Theresa not only make the menstruation scene more accessible but also subvert the 122 silence and taboos surrounding female maturation and sexuality.

Beth, despite her childhood inquisitiveness, never fully transgresses the Protestant equation of silence and respectability, and she appears to have less autonomy than

Theresa. The differences between Beth and Theresa in the present tense of the play reflect the varying public and political roles allowed unionist and nationalist women during the Troubles. There has been a greater history of civil disobedience within the

Catholic neighbourhoods since 1969 in Northern Ireland, which has allowed for more active involvement and resistance by Catholic women (Ward and McGivern 583).

Protestant women, though seemingly more privileged as part of the systemically dominant community in Northern Ireland, are actually more silenced than their Catholic counterparts. Theresa, as a Catholic now living abroad in London, is also a peripheral figure in the play. This marginal space affords her a freedom denied the Protestant women on stage; Theresa is more bawdy and open in her defiance than Beth. She tells

Beth that she "was called after a saint" (43) but ironically "spent half my time [at school] in the sin room... where girls got sent for bad behaviour. One of the nuns told me that even when I wasn't behaving immodestly I looked as if I'd like to" (39). Theresa also ridicules one of the central rules of sectarianism—no fraternizing with the enemy— during the first encounter between herself and Beth in the play: "Excuse me missus, could you direct me to the Sandy Row? I've a date with a big sexy Orangeman" (7).

Theresa's transgression is apparent when it is later revealed that she is Catholic. The

Sandy Row is a staunchly Protestant and unionist suburb in East Belfast, and thus, it is a place where Theresa, a Catholic woman, would not be welcomed, particularly for a date 123

with one of their loyal Orangemen. Theresa also had a child out of wedlock and openly

invites Beth to start a life together of "delicious sin and debauchery" (42) in London.

Theresa's candid and humourous comments suggest that she has more freedom as a

Catholic woman than the Protestant Beth, who is far more silenced and self-silenced.

Nevertheless, Theresa is also silenced by her community; she is forced to keep the birth

of her illegitimate child a secret lest she embarrass her mother.

Theresa's humour continues with her present of The Invisible Man to Beth before

the latter marries. The book's title foreshadows Beth's husband's absence from their

honeymoon, Beth's life, and the stage itself. Nevertheless, it further underscores the

absence of the men due to both world wars and the Troubles. There is also irony in this

gift, since it is traditionally the women, and particularly Protestant women, who have

been absent and silent in the public discourses in Northern Ireland.7 Reid's play ends this

suppression by giving voice to both Theresa's and Beth's experiences. McDonough

suggests that both women, "In their cheerful determination to move beyond their

mistakes to make the best of things... [,] capture the strong spirit that so many

sociological studies of Northern Ireland women document—the philosophy that we'd

better laugh so as not to cry" ("I've Never Been" 187). While certainly true, the humour

shared between the two women is more defiant than just a means of survival or coping.

Beth and Theresa's shared laughter challenges the traditional boundaries and silences that

7 Aunt Maisie, the spinster aunt, whose sexuality is silent and nonexistent in the discourse of the play, is an interesting counter to Theresa, the single mother who must hide her child from the prying eyes and ears of "proper" Northern Irish society. Theresa and Maisie are both highly irreverent and comical figures: as the maiden aunt and Catholic woman they speak from the margins of the Protestant community and this in itself affords them more freedom to speak their minds. Theresa's humour, however, includes a bawdiness and openness about sexuality denied aunt Maisie. 124 divide and oppress women in Northern Ireland. Beth's interactions with Theresa offer a common ground and friendship that suggest an alternative to the loyalties that silence them, as well as hope for peace between their respective communities.

The border crossings initiated and maintained by their friendship create a lasting bond that transcends the strict loyalties that divide their two communities. As such,

Beth's interactions with Theresa are a betrayal of her community, particularly because they take place in the public realm. Fitzpatrick suggests that Beth's "revelation of family secrets in her role as the author/narrator of the drama, are a profound betrayal" (238). To speak out in any way is to betray the cause: "Radical protest of any form has always been associated—rightly or wrongly—with Republicanism in many eyes, so a stand by

Protestant women for their own rights as women would within Loyalist circles be immediately equated with 'subversion' of the status quo and as such treated with suspicion" (Ward and McGivern 584). Perhaps Beth's betrayals are even more profound because they are spoken in the very public space of the theatre and in direct address to the

n audience.

Nevertheless, these acts of betrayal ultimately break the silence that confuses the young Beth and confines her adult self. The act of telling becomes central to Beth's release from the myths and traditions that have limited her choices and life. In the end,

Beth neither completely adopts nor abandons her heritage. Rather, she keeps part—but only part—of the tradition alive by taking with her the one tea cup and saucer from the

8 Reid's public interrogation of respectability and loyalty in the form of theatre is itself a betrayal and underscores the irony of its success in Northern Ireland among both Catholics and Protestants spectators. Nevertheless, Reid explains that her success and safety, despite such public betrayals, are due to the fact that "The theater is middle class here and there is no sectarianism in it. The paramilitaries aren't interested in the theater, thank goodness" (E. Shannon 216). 125

Belleek China tea set that symbolized for her mother their identity as Protestants. Luft suggests that Beth, by separating the china set, changes its meaning: the tea set, and in

particular the single cup and saucer, have become a new symbol of Beth's renewed self

and sexuality (210). Moreover, by telling her story, Beth moves beyond the traditions that her mother cherishes and that perpetuate the divisions in Northern Ireland. Reid reminds us that hope lies with the younger women. During the final moments of the play, Beth walks off stage smiling and singing the skipping song she and Theresa sang together as children. The ending underscores not her relationship to the familial traditions and myths and instead her relationship with Theresa, which offers hope for a renewed relationship and dialogue between Catholic and Protestant women.

The hope expressed through the younger generation of women in Tea in a China

Cup is continued in the matrilineal narrative of The Belle of Belfast City and is most notably expressed by the young Belle. In this later play, Reid introduces a dangerous and iconoclastic humour that crosses generational divisions and offers a direct challenge to the dominant, master narratives and politics of Protestant, unionist Ulster. The most rebellious and bawdy character in the play, and the least compliant to the customs and expected loyalties of the Protestant community, is Dolly, the play's 77 year old matriarch.

In The Belle of Belfast City, Belle, Dolly's granddaughter, visits Northern Ireland for the first time in her young life. Belle, who was born in England to an African-American,

Baptist father and a Northern Irish, Protestant mother, introduces and complicates the issue of race in the play and the Troubles. Set against this matrilineal space is the more public and political realm represented by Dolly's nephew Jack, whose worldview, 126

informed by his faith and politics, proves misogynist, racist, and humourless. Belle,

together with Dolly and her mother, Rose, poses a direct challenge to the traditions,

loyalties, and bigotry of Jack's Ulster. Despite their resistance, Jack's power and

influence is underscored by the initial respect and support he receives from Vi, Dolly's eldest daughter, as well as by the presence of his sister, Janet, who for most of her life has

been defined and confined by her brother's belief systems. Set against Jack's grim

version of Ulster and its future are the laughter and vitality of Dolly and Belle. Through

these two vibrant women, Reid combines Brechtian techniques with vaudevillian humour

that defies and challenges the fundamentalist and masculinist ethos espoused by Jack

while foregrounding an alternative, matrilineal tradition and philosophy.

The play's title creates a connection and continuity between Dolly and her granddaughter, Belle, and offers two levels of subversion: sexuality and race. Dolly transgresses the expectations of the chaste Protestant woman in numerous ways. In her youth, she headlined in the music halls as "the Belle of Belfast City." As a music hall starlet—an unusual profession for women in Northern Ireland in the early years of the twentieth century (McDonough, "I've Never Been" 187)—Dolly directly challenges the stereotype of the respectable Protestant woman. Frances Gray notes that the female entertainer from the early days of vaudeville "occupied a highly ambivalent position. Her raison d'etre was to make the place fit for decent women, yet everyone 'knew' that she could not be a decent woman herself' (119). Reid underscores this ambivalence through

Dolly's persona, embodied in her stage name and concretized by a large and visually dominating1925 concert poster of "the young Dolly... when she topped the bill in the 127

halls as 'The Belle of Belfast City'" (Reid, The Belle 179). Beneath this poster Dolly,

now 77, begins the play singing the chorus of the song, "I'll Tell me Ma," which

idealizes and iconocizes the famous "Belle" of Belfast City. The song creates an image of

a young girl who is "handsome," "pretty," and "white as snow / with rings on her fingers and bells on her toes" (180) but who lacks a definite identity: the male singer continues to inquire throughout the song, "won't you tell me who is she" (180). This idealized young woman, although chased by many boys, remains loyal to her true love, Albert Mooney.

The song underscores the characteristics most valued in a woman by the Protestant, unionist community: chastity and loyalty. Reid's Dolly was also extremely loyal to her husband while he was alive, but she is not pure and chaste as the song suggests. Although married, she subverts the decorum of gender roles, sex, and procreation. "Never a housewife" (195), Dolly gave birth to her second daughter Rose at 41 and became "the talk of the town" (181). Her transgression involved the fact that this late pregnancy publicly signaled Dolly as a sexually active woman far beyond the age appropriate for a woman to engage in sex, let alone give birth. Moreover, her bawdy songs and recitations from her music hall days, as well as her profane actions throughout the play, challenge any reading of Dolly as either pure or chaste. By adopting the name Belle and reinventing an icon, she also openly and defiantly challenges the fourth commandment, the sin of idolatry, dictated by the Presbyterian faith.

The younger Belle's presence also challenges the tradition of the ideal "Belle of

Belfast City" presented in the song. Belle tells the audience that she is "called after her

[grandmother]. Not Dolly, but Belle. That was her stage name and my grandfather Joe 128 never called her anything else" (180). Belle's naming underscores continuity not only

between grandmother and granddaughter but also between the younger Belle and the

iconoclastic tradition embodied in Dolly's stage persona. Belle, born to a Northern Irish

mother and an African American father, physically subverts the idealization of the lyrical

Belle as "white as snow." Reid introduces race into the play through Belle and thereby challenges the tendency to define identity in Northern Ireland in terms of set binaries.

Esther Beth Sullivan notes, "In Belfast, race is a word that means 'Protestant' or

'Catholic'" (222). Belle, although born in England and part African American, is

Northern Irish on her mother's side. As such, her presence on stage challenges the traditional binaries, Catholic/Protestant and republican/loyalist, by introducing a multiple and marginal identity far removed from the conflict. Dolly candidly asks Belle, "Is it a bother to ye, bein' neither one thing nor the other?" (196). Dolly's question underscores the in-between and marginal space that Belle occupies. She labels herself an Anglo/Irish

Yank, but even these markers do not wholly capture the complexity of her identity. Her identity is further complicated by her father's religion. Although absent from the play and only mentioned in passing, her father's Baptist faith subverts the traditional

Protestant/Catholic binary in Northern Ireland, reminding us that there are many other religions who consider their followers to be the chosen ones. Nevertheless, it is also a conservative, fundamentalist religion and thereby evokes the Presbyterianism that informs Jack's perspective and politics. Belle's multilayered heritage at once underscores and challenges the notion of monolithic identities upon which the sectarianism and bigotry in Northern Ireland are based. Moreover, her status as both outsider (English, illegitimate daughter) and insider (Northern Irish, family member, and granddaughter to

Dolly) offers an alternative and complex perspective. Belle's composite position and her connection to the audience are highlighted during the flashback scenes in which Belle takes on the role of spectator as well as the moments in the play when she directly addresses the audience.

Dolly, like her granddaughter, offers an alternative perspective. Dolly openly challenges the tradition of the stalwart, mild, and serious Protestant lady, but she also fervently maintains her own traditions through comic stories, songs, and recitations.

These most often comment both comically and ironically on the action of the play, and they present a direct challenge to Jack's politics and misogyny. Dolly's repertoire, although it includes a couple of unionist classics, is not informed by any one tradition or religion. Rather, her songs invariably and irreverently invoke the oul Orange Flute,9

Jesus, and the Virgin Mary. She also openly mocks the head of state for Northern Ireland and the Protestant community in particular when she sings the vaudevillian "Our Queen can birl her leg" in a flashback scene with a young Rose and Janet:

She [Dolly] gets to her feet and removes her dressing gown. There are layers and layers of lace curtain material wrapped round her body. Rose and Janet unwind the material by dancing round Dolly as if she's a Maypole. Dolly dances and sings.

DOLLY: Our Queen can birl her leg Birl her leg, birl her leg Our Queen can birl her leg Birl her leg leg leg.

9 "The Oul Orange Flute" is a traditional, unionist folk song that is often played during the marching season. From the popularity of this folk song, the orange flute has become a symbol of Protestantism and unionism in Northern Ireland. 130

ALL (sing): Our Queen can ate a hard bap Ate a hard bap, ate a hard bap Our Queen can ate a hard bap Ate a hard bap bap bap. (203)

The irreverence invoked in the image of the Queen, the epitome of the chaste and loyal

woman, birling her leg and eating a hard bap openly challenges and mocks the fervent

Protestant, unionist politics that idealizes women as pure, desexualized mothers and

daughters. While a bap is literally a soft bread roll, it is also a colloquial term for breasts.

The image of the Queen eating stale bread destabilizes her iconic status while

simultaneously underscoring and dismantling the socioeconomic divide between Dolly, a

working-class woman, and the Queen, an aristocratic icon. The colloquial meaning of the

term, however, underscores Dolly's bawdy and irreverent humour. The implied image of

the Queen 'eating' hard breasts raises questions regarding her sexuality while

destabilizing her image as the embodiment of chastity and purity. The Queen is further

sexualized by the phrase "birling her leg," a reference to the can-can dancers popular in

variety theatre and burlesque in the earlier part of the twentieth century. The connection

to burlesque is particularly irreverent: while the early years of burlesque included "female

performers doing a parody, or 'burlesque,' of a popular play or work of literature," by the

1920s the striptease had emerged as the central act of the burlesque show (Zarrilli, et al.

313). This history of burlesque is further invoked by the young girls' act of unraveling

(stripping) Dolly from the lace curtain wrapped around her body while she sings and dances.

Through Dolly's invocation and celebration of music hall tradition, Reid creates a complex comic gestus. Dolly's song and "striptease" present an irreverent attitude toward 131 the Queen as an icon of chastity and Protestant womanhood. Reid's comic gestus—

Dolly's performance of her song, as she is unraveled from a lace curtain (a distinctly feminine material)—critically confronts the social construction of women while underscoring the inherent contradictions of a society that defines women by their biology

(bodies) and simultaneously desexualizes and represses them. Janelle Reinelt notes,

"feminists have long observed that the site of women's bodies is the literal site of gender inscription" (91). The sexualized image of Dolly (a middle-aged mother's body) singing v a bawdy song about a sexualized Queen (iconically, a desexualized body) reveals a paradox between the image women are meant to uphold and the reality of their bodies.

The complex ambiguities of Reid's comic gestus are manifold. While the presence of the prepubescent Janet and Rose underscores how they are socially constructed by existing gender norms, their involvement in the gestus also suggests women's part in the propagation of these social constructs. However, since they are unraveling Dolly's body, and technically assisting her striptease, the image adds another level of paradox: even as the young girls take part in their own repression, they rebel through the stripping of

Dolly's body. Reid's gestus is deepened by the use of a song reminiscent of the music halls. In his essay, "On Gestic Music," Brecht suggests that "The most suitable gests are as common, vulgar and banal as possible" (105). He also proposes that "Gestic music is that music which allows the actor to exhibit certain basic gests on the stage. So-called

'cheap' music, particularly that of the cabaret and the operetta, has for some time been a gestic music" ("On the Use of Music in Epic Theatre" 87). Dolly's "banal" song, coupled with her "vulgar" performance, enhances the performative denaturalizing of feminine 132 constructs.10

Dolly's comic songs and stories also create a deep connection with her granddaughter, Belle, as well as a connection with the theatre audience. Belle tells spectators how Dolly offered her an alternative history and culture to that advocated by

Jack and recorded in official reports and narratives of the Troubles:

Before I came here, I had two images of Belfast. A magical one conjured by my grandmother's songs and stories and recitations, and a disturbing one of the marches and banners and bands on the six o'clock news... They are both true, but not the whole truth of this bizarre and beautiful city. (213)

While Dolly's magical Belfast offers a profane space from which to challenge the master narratives and traditions of the Troubles, her songs, stories, and recitations are also far more engaging than her nephew's religious and political diatribes. Dolly's connection to her audience echoes the important relationship between the cabaret performer and his/her audience. Oliver Double and Michael Wilson argue that Brecht's viewing of this close connection helped him to develop his theories of alienation and the creation of a critical spectator: cabaret included "an encounter between performer and audience, where each played an active role" (58). Brecht also borrowed the comedy and music inherent in the music halls to create a theatre that would simultaneously entertain (engage) and instruct

(distance) his audiences. Dolly's "Our Queen can birl her leg" routine, as both cabaret performance and comic gestus, produces distance while making a connection with spectators: her engaging song and striptease creates a comically unfamiliar—even

10 The song's genre creates further ambivalence: it appears to be a song from the music hall tradition in which Dolly performed as a young woman, but its repetitions and structure are also reminiscent of children's songs and rhymes. The latter creates a further connection between the social construction of Protestant womanhood and the presence of the young girls. 133 strange—act. While there may appear to be some incongruity between the bond connecting performer and spectator in cabaret and the critical distance Brecht called for in his epic theatre, Double and Wilson insist there is no contradiction. They note that

"Brecht had no problem with this [cabaret's] kind of direct rapport and he explicitly argued that 'a theatre which makes no contact with the public is a nonsense"' (58).

Martin Hoyle, in a review of the original production of The Belle of Belfast City at the

Lyric Theatre, notes that "The interpolated songs [reflect] an indistinguishable jauntiness of spirit," and he suggests that "Sheila McGibbon's Dolly cackles and sings, perhaps a decoration rather than necessary to the plot—the presumed embodiment of basic wisdom less apparent than the function of the clown" (590). While his description implies a dismissal of Dolly and her songs, the reference to the function of the clown is telling and unwittingly draws a connection between Dolly and the tradition that she celebrates.

Ultimately, Dolly—in the role of clown—ambiguously and irreverently connects with her audience while deconstructing the myths and icons that not only repress her life but also inform Jack's Ulster.

Dolly's defiance of Jack and the extreme Calvinism and loyalism he represents is also evident in her derisive and bawdy actions, which are most often directed at her nephew's political and religious fervour. Her transgressive acts include crossing the border into the "fenian south," smuggling wares across the border, purchasing and serving the young Jack and his unionist friends "fenian sausages," and buying Janet the statue of the Virgin Mary that the young girl unknowingly admires as "a pretty lady"

(202). The last is perhaps the most sacrilegious and defiant in that it promotes idolatry, a 134 blasphemous sin in the Calvinist faith. The statue of the Virgin Mary and Janet's innocent adoration of it also reflects the symbolic silencing of women in Protestantism. Calvinism, upon which the more conservative brands of Protestantism are based—and the variety most often linked with unionism in Northern Ireland—forbids the worshipping of idols, and thus, there is no equivalent to the Virgin Mary. Nevertheless, the two religions share very similar views regarding the control of women's sexuality, bodies, and voices. As

Margaret Ward and Marie Therese McGivern argue:

.. .the absence of any veneration of Mary on the Protestant side does not mean that Protestant women are any better off because Protestantism, particularly the Calvinistic brand so pervasive in the north, is a patriarchal religion where the image of woman is invisible. Women are not given prominence within the theology of the Church and this, coupled with the worship of God the Father as the only possible object of veneration, is equally damaging to woman's self image. (581)

Despite women's symbolic and physical invisibility within the church, unionist women have Queen Elizabeth as a symbol not only of country and faith but also of womanhood.

Reid dramatizes the fundamental similarities between the churches' views of women in a later scene, in which the prepubescent Janet adopts her aunt's irreverence by holding the statue of the Virgin Mary while singing "Our Queen can birl her leg" (204).

Through combining the youthful Janet, the Queen, the Virgin Mary, and Dolly's irreverent song, Reid re-imagines an earlier gestus and creates a direct, critical connection between the iconic and repressive figures of the Virgin Mary and the Queen. The gestus in this later scene involves Janet's action of picking up and holding the statue of the

Virgin Mary while she sings her aunt's scandalous song. Janet's performance reminds the audience how young girls in Northern Ireland are socially constructed by the ideologies, 135

both Protestant (the Queen) and Catholic (the Virgin Mary), that inform their society and

the Troubles. Janet's grasp on the Virgin Mary, the epitome of the chaste, silent, and

desexualized woman and the icon of the 'enemy' community, creates an additional level

of irony and ambiguity. Moreover, her more subdued performance—"she sings quietly"

(204)—highlights the repressive public roles that even young girls are expected to fulfill.

Reid's strategic inclusion of the Virgin Mary statue not only magnifies Janet's sin, it also

reflects Brecht's theory of alienation: "The A-effect consists in turning the object of

which one is to be made aware, to which one's attention is drawn, from something

ordinary, familiar, immediately accessible, into something peculiar, striking and

unexpected" ("Short" 143-44). By having Janet, a young Protestant girl, pick up the

ordinary replica of the Virgin Mary while singing an irreverent song about the Queen,

Reid makes the statue strange, striking even, and thereby destabilizes the ideologies and

icons that traditionally make clear distinctions between Protestant and Catholic women in

Northern Ireland. Ultimately, by repeating her aunt's profane song and holding a Catholic

icon, Janet sins magnificently, while she simultaneously adapts and celebrates Dolly's

matrilineal, comic tradition and rejects the Ulster that her brother, Jack, exalts.

Reid dramatizes the magnitude of Janet's transgression through the adolescent

Jack's violent reaction when he finds his sister holding her "pretty lady" and singing about the Queen. Jack grabs the statue and shouts at his sister:

That's no pretty lady. It's a blasphemous Popish statue. A heathen image of Christ's mother. Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image, or any likeness of any thing that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth. Thou shalt not bow down thyself to them; for I the Lord thy God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth of them 136

that hate me. You have sinned, Janet. You have broken the fourth commandment. You must be punished. (204)

Jack's recitation of the fourth commandment underscores his fervent faith, as well as

Janet's sin. However, his initial words and his violent act of smashing the statue on the

shop counter also suggest that the more blasphemous and transgressive act is not idolatry

itself but the greater sin of idolizing a "Popish statue" and "heathen image." Moreover,

Jack expounds his faith's deeply embedded misogyny: "Women! Women! Temptation!

Deception! You're the instruments of the devil! The root of all evil!" (205). It is unclear

whether Jack is referring to Dolly, Janet, or the Virgin Mary herself. McDonough

suggests that Jack's reaction to Janet in the play "demonstrates how women in general,

and Janet in particular, have for him been turned into symbols by his religious

upbringing" ("I've Never Been" 189). Jack, who forbids icons of any sort as "heathen"

and "popish," has in fact turned his own sister into a symbol, which he simultaneously

hates and worships and continually attempts to silence.

Jack's efforts to silence Janet extend to the other women in the play and reflect

unionism's distrust of women who do not remain reticent and loyal. In a confrontation

with his cousin Rose, Jack expounds his mistrust of women's talk: "Women! That's

always been the trouble with this house. Women having secrets, whispering, gossiping"

(193). Jack symbolizes unionist attempts to silence anyone, and specifically women, who

speak out against the cause. Janet, who equates the oppression of women not only with silence but also with invisibility and nonexistence, underscores this: "They say there are

no women in Ireland. Only mothers, sisters and wives" (209-10). Irish women, relegated to the role of other, have neither voice nor visibility. Jack also tries to silence the women 137

by selling the family shop, owned by Dolly and run by Vi, and thereby taking away their

self-sufficiency and livelihood. When he succeeds in the sale he deprives Dolly and Vi of

their independence and ensures their ultimate reliance on him as the sole male in the

family. Jack's greatest attempts to silence, however, are directed at Dolly. As the

matriarch, Dolly maintains a certain power over the members of her family; this

authority, coupled with her transgressions and irreverence, makes her dangerous to his

politics and cause. Jack, particularly angered by the raucous and dismissive nature of his aunt's songs, attempts throughout the play to silence her, openly stating that the "old

woman should be in a home!" (185). Jack's reaction suggests that Dolly's antics, which she once performed for entertainment purposes, now pose a direct threat to her nephew and the faith and community he represents. In the end, Dolly is the most blasphemous of the women in his life, attacking not only Jack's politics but also his fervently held religious beliefs. Dolly, while she can still sing and speak, remains undaunted by Jack's politics, position, and commands of silence and she often "cackles with laughter" (188) at his offense.

Reid suggests the lengths that extremists will go to stifle dissenting voices through Jack's literal silencing of Dolly. Dolly's authority, independence, and irreverence are a direct threat to Jack's Ulster, and in the end, he succeeds in suppressing her voice.

Ironically, through his decision to save Dolly's life, when she collapses near the end of the play, he essentially steals her voice and kills her spirit. By ignoring Dolly's DNR instructions, he quells his aunt's life and spirit by bodily infusing her with his breath and his control. Despite her nephew's final actions and apparent victory, Dolly's words 138 before she collapses are sardonic and suggest one last dig at Jack by reinterpreting his declaration that the rest of the family "can all go to hell" and then recalling the fenian sausages she defiantly fed him and his friends:

I doubt there'll be much room left down there. It must be packed out with the clergy by now. (She grins as Jack turns angrily to leave. She chants.) Two little sausages in the frying pan. One went pop and the other went bang. She starts to laugh and then falls forward out of the chair. Belle runs to Dolly, cradles her in her arms. (247)

While Dolly literally goes out chanting, laughing and a final defiant "bang," her final plea, "my own time" (247), is a reminder that she did not want to be resuscitated.

Despite Jack's apparent victory and control over the aging Dolly, he is unable to silence the younger generations of women on stage. Rose, Belle, Janet, and even Vi openly resist and challenge Jack and his loyalism. Rose is the most overtly public and political in her defiance: she has come to Belfast in her role as a journalist to expose the connections between the National Front and the loyalist movement. Vi, who in the early scenes of the play supports Jack and his cause, opens her shop against the order of the loyalist paramilitaries. Vi's loyalties are directed towards her immediate family rather than Jack's cause, and her actions dramatize an earlier statement made by Rose: "Never forget that loyalty to one's immediate family will always take precedence over loyalty to the Unionist family" (229). Moreover, the young Janet during the scene in which Jack smashes her statue of the Virgin Mary continues to shout even once he has left the stage, while the older Janet who is caught between her Catholic husband and Protestant brother rejects both. Belle, by contrast, is sarcastic and ironic in her dealings with Jack, and she quickly sees his lack of humour. After meeting her uncle, she sarcastically states, "He's a 139 barrel of laughs isn't he" (193). While Belle's humour is often more sardonic than

Dolly's, the numerous connections between the two women in the play suggest a continuity of defiance. Vi reassures Belle that "Dolly will never be dead as long as you're alive" (215); as long as Belle lives then so will her grandmother's comic, defiant spirit.

This continuity, however, is qualified by the sale of the shop to Thomas Bailey, the businessman backed by the National Front, as well as Belle's return to her life in

England.

Although Belle is leaving Belfast, she continues her grandmother's tradition by singing the final lines of the play. The unionist song that Belle sings speaks to history and loyalism in Northern Ireland. However, as Imelda Foley underscores, Belle's rendition is a reworking of a local, popular ballad that presents the final lines as ironic (66): "It's to hell with the future and live on the past / May the Lord have mercy be kind to Belfast"

(250). Mary Trotter argues that the song, "Ballad of a Traditional Reform," by Maurice

James Craig, "is an ironic politicization of a jingoistic song tradition," which means that

Reid concludes the play with "two translations." The song invokes the sectarian ballad tradition as a call to end sectarian violence ("Translating Women" 175). Reid's revision of the ballad is also an ironic commentary that underscores the insistence on living in the past that perpetuates bigotry and violence. A further level of irony is dramatized by the performance of the song and the play's events: the fact that Belle, herself a stranger from

England, sings the song creates ironic distance, while the image of a silenced and beaten

Dolly staring at her concert hall poster reminds us of the tragedies that Jack's loyalty to

King William and Protestantism have caused. Trotter argues that "A song protesting 140

Belfast sectarianism sung by a body with both Irish and African American identity markers becomes a Brechtian gestus, a call to the audience to think critically about the historical conditions which have led to the constructions of identities in Ireland and around the world" ("Translating Women" 175). The unreconciled contradictions of

Belle's identity and her performance ultimately disrupt the seemingly intractable identities that inform the Troubles.

These final moments and the reality that the family store has been sold to Thomas

Bailey seem to offer little hope for the future. Bailey's presence, and in particular his connections to the National Front, suggest that Northern Irish ties to England are no longer solely based on ties to King William and the English flag. The interactions between Jack and Bailey imply an insidious connection between the racism espoused by the National Front in England and the more hardcore elements of unionism in Northern

Ireland. More specifically, Jack's reactions to Belle indicate a deeper racism in his personal, religious, and political views. Foley argues that Belle's "presence as an outsider, in more ways than one, becomes the device by which Reid may extrapolate the murkier depths of the staunchly loyalist Protestant psyche" (66). The insidious undercurrent of racism, along with the silencing of Dolly and Belle's final, ironic revision, seemingly suggests little hope for the province and its future. Here, Reid confronts the reality of a Northern Ireland after the failure of the Anglo-Irish agreement,11

" The Anglo-Irish Agreement (1985) was a treaty established between the United Kingdom and Ireland in an attempt to end the Troubles in Northern Ireland. Under the treaty, the Irish Government was given an advisory role in Northern Ireland's government; however, the agreement established that the constitutional position of Northern Ireland (as a member of the United Kingdom) would not change unless a majority of its voters agreed to join the Republic. The agreement was vehemently rejected by unionists who were mainly opposed to Ireland's advisory role in the governance of Northern Ireland. The unionist campaign 141 while she simultaneously foregrounds the necessity of women's talk and laughter in surviving and transcending the Troubles. Belle's song, a final act of telling, recalls the vaudevillian songs and humour of her grandmother, while it ironically and defiantly underscores what is wrong with Belfast. Ultimately, hope is present in this continuity of a matrilineal, comic tradition and in the figure of Belle and her final protest.

In Did You Hear the One About the Irishman... ? and Clowns Reid continues her borrowings from the traditions of stage comedy. McDonough suggests that Reid

"borrows from vaudeville stage as a way of examining the cliches, stereotypes and misrepresentations of the Irish" ("Christina" 303). Indeed, through Dolly's raucous, often

profane songs from her heydays on the stage, Reid candidly challenges the myths and

traditions that fuel the Troubles. In Did You Hear the One About the Irishman... ? and

Clowns Reid borrows more specifically from the tradition of stand-up comedy and stereotypical Irishman jokes. Bernadette Sweeney has noted "an increasing crossover

between stand-up comedy and theatre in Ireland" (10). This crossover is literalized in Did

You Hear the One About the Irishman... ? and Clowns. In both plays, Reid incorporates stand-up routines and two very different comedians to confront the divergent means by

which jokes and laughter inform and interrogate the Troubles. Reid turns to stand-up

comedy in Did You Hear the One About the Irishman... ? to address how humour can

perpetuate the Troubles; in this play, the Comedian's routine is presented as part of long

history of colonialism, oppression, and stereotyping in Ireland. Clowns, by contrast,

against the agreement included rallies, strikes, civil disobedience, and the large-scale resignation of unionist MPs from the British House of Commons. The nationalists rejected the agreement because it recognized Northern Ireland as a part of the United Kingdom. The Anglo-Irish agreement, rather than ending the Troubles, actually fueled greater violence between republican and loyalist paramilitaries. 142 presents a female comedian whose routine underscores the legacy and trauma of violence but ultimately demonstrates how humour can be used both to heal and to offer hope for a new, peaceful Northern Ireland. These stand-up routines, like Dolly's and Belle's songs, encourage spectators to critically examine the past and present contexts that directly inform their comedy.

Reid's inclusion of comedians, as well as her interrogation of the ways in which comedy can be used to fuel discrimination and sectarianism, recalls Trevor Griffiths'

Comedians. Stuart Marlow notes that in Did You Hear the One About the Irishman... ?

Reid "adopts the format of Trevor Griffiths' Comedians by having a comedian speaking directly to the audience" (160). Reid, however, not only adopts the format of Griffith's play but also offers a similar interrogation of comedy. More specifically, Reid's representation of stand-up comedy reflects the philosophical discussions of comedy espoused by Griffiths' stand-up instructor, Waters:

It's not the jokes. It's not the jokes. It's what lies behind 'em. It's the attitude. A real comedian—that's a daring man. He dares to see what his listeners shy away from, fear to express... a true joke, a comedian's joke, has to do more than release tension, it has to liberate the will and the desire. It has to change the situation... But when a joke bases itself upon a distortion—a 'stereotype' perhaps—and gives the lie to the truth so as to win a laugh and stay in favour, we've moved away from a comic and into the world of'entertainment' and slick success. (20)

Waters' philosophy of comedy openly challenges and dismisses racist and sexist humour as neither pure nor true artistic comedy. Before he begins the above speech, he presents a list of stereotypes and ends with "The traitor destroys the truth" (19). The traitor is the comedian who relies on racist and sexist stereotypes as the truth. Such humour is used as a weapon, and it is this humour that is used by the Comedian in Reid's Did You Hear the 143

One About the Irishman... ?, who relies on stereotypes and distortions to "win a laugh."

However, any understanding of the Comedian's jokes as purely meant for

"'entertainment' and slick success" is undermined by the tragedies in the central, naturalistic plot, as well as the presence of the Irishman who reads news reports of the day to day violence and traumas. Through the presence of the Irishman on stage, the embodied object of the Comedian's routine, Reid challenges the 'truths' of the

Comedian's routine and also emphasizes the role of humour itself in the perpetuation of the Troubles. Ultimately, she forces spectators to think critically about the connection between racist 'Irishman' jokes, colonialism, and violence, as well as their own laugjhter and complicity in the events on stage.

The central plot of Did You Hear the One About the Irishman... ? presents a typical Romeo and Juliet story and revolves around a love affair between Brian Rafferty, a Catholic man, and Allison Clarke, a Protestant woman. Their families, who both have sons in the Maze prison, vehemently oppose the young couple's intended union. Allison and Brian are warned by their families and the local paramilitary organizations that their relationship is unacceptable and must end. However, Brian and Allison ignore these threats and are murdered for their defiance. The interactions between the couple underscore the inherent similarities in their situations and are strategically set against the bigotry and disapproval of their respective families. Robert Hogan states that the play

"studies the relationship between a Protestant girl and a Catholic boy whose 'starry-eyed romantic' ideals cloud their rational judgment" (1049). Hogan's brief synopsis of the play is simplistic; he overlooks the theatrical devices that Reid uses to subvert and challenge 144 the events of the central Romeo and Juliet story. Reid strategically sets the Romeo and

Juliet story against the antirealist presence of a Comedian, who delivers a litany of

'Irishman' jokes that are racist and violent in intent, and an Irishman, who reads news reports and the mundane lists of goods allowed prisoners in the H-Blocks in the Maze prison.12 As McDonough argues, the "juxtaposing of the comedian's monologues and news reports with the story of two families, the Protestant Clarkes and Catholic Raffertys, who both have sons in Maze Prison, creates a Brechtian effect that serves to counter any moves toward sentimentalizing the star-crossed love story between Brian RafFerty and

Allison Clarke" ("Christina" 303), and it is central to understanding Reid's inclusion and interrogation of the "love-across-the-barricades" motif. Hogan's synopsis reduces the complexity of not only the play itself but also Reid's representation of Brian and Allison as consenting adults and their attempts (albeit futile) to transcend the bigotry and sectarianism that encompass their lives and love. Moreover, he overlooks Reid's critique not only of the prejudice and hatred that leads to their tragedy but also of the "starry- eyed" lovers themselves. The humour of many of the characters in the main plot is often divisive and hostile and is weighed against the racist humour of the Comedian and the reports of violence read aloud by the Irishman. Brian's more inclusive and hopeful humour, as well as the Comedian's routine and the Irishman's reports, offer a means to critique not only the events of the "love-across-the-barricades" plot but also the darker, more divisive uses of humour in the play. Moreover, through employing the Romeo and

12 The Maze prison, formally Her Majesty's Prison Maze, was located at Long Kesh in County Antrim and held paramilitary prisoners from 1976 to 2000. From the beginning of March 1976 those convicted of terrorist offenses were separated from the general prison populace and placed in the newly constructed H- Blocks. The prison was also referred to locally as the H-Blocks and Long Kesh. It was closed in 2000. 145

Juliet trope against this humour, Reid creates a tragicomic structure that is evident in both the present tense of the play and the Comedian's routine. In the former, we are given the hope of a wedding set against the fate of a universally known tragic story; in the latter, the form of the Comedian's routine, as a comic act, is set against the violence and hatred in the jokes. Ultimately, Reid's constant interruptions of the narrative and the tragic form—through the Comedian's racist routine and the Irishman's mundane lists—create a necessary critical distance between the audience and the events of the main narrative from which to interrogate the links between comedy and the Troubles.

The stereotypes utilized by the Comedian in his routine echo the British, colonialist writings that depict the Irish as lazy, ignorant, and barbaric and draw a direct parallel between colonial discourse and the comic routine performed on stage. Moreover, the Comedian's opening jokes establishes a clear connection between his routine of racist jokes, Irish history, and the contemporary Troubles in Northern Ireland:

Good morning everyone. This is your captain speaking. We are now approaching the city of Belfast. Will all passengers please fasten their seatbelts and turn their watches back three hundred years. The time is seven a.m. And if there are any Irish passengers on board, that means that the big hand is at twelve and the little hand is at seven. Did you hear the one about the Irishman whose plane ran out of peat? He radioed for help. Mayday! Mayday! 'Cleared to land,' answered Control. 'Can you give us your height and position?' 'Certainly,' said the Irishman, 'I'm five foot two and I'm sitting at the front of the plane.' Then there was the Irish terrorist whose first assignment was to hijack an aeroplane. It turned out to be his last assignment. As soon as the plane took off, he lit the fuse, put the bomb under his seat, and told the captain everyone had three minutes to get out. Little Paddy heard the story and it made him very nervous about flying. So he always carried a bomb in his suitcase every time he had to travel by plane. He figured that the chances of two people on the same flight carrying a bomb were practically nil. (69-70) 146

While this routine dramatizes the tendency to portray the Irish as backward and dense, whether used in defense of colonization or as material for comic routines, the initial joke, in particular, underscores the prolonged historical context of the Troubles. The joke suggests that the Irish are trapped in the past; however, three hundred years is a direct reference to the seventeenth century and the roots of conflict in Ireland. The last two jokes make a palpable connection between comedy and the contemporary Troubles.

Reid formally sets this stand-up routine against—both preceded and followed by—lists of goods allowed republican prisoners in the H-Blocks at the Maze prison, namely the "Irish terrorists" of the Comedian's jokes:

IRISHMAN (reading from a list) Her Majesty's Prison, Maze, Lisburn, Northern Ireland, 1987. Permitted Christmas Parcels for H/Blocks, 25 small cigars (cigarette size) or 100 cigarettes or 4 and a half oz. tobacco. 21b. chocolates or sweets, 21b. cake, quartered. 21b. loose biscuits. One unstuffed chicken, boned and quartered. 1 lb. sliced cooked meat. 41b. fresh fruit—no bananas or pears. (69)

The sober exactitude of the Irishman's lists calls into question any laughter that the

Comedian's jokes, and particularly the latter two concerning Irish terrorists and bombs, may have invoked. Moreover, the parallel structure between the lists and the Comedian's routine draws a direct connection between past and present violence in Ireland and

Northern Ireland. Marlow argues that "The comedian's anti-Irish racism is supposed to be an attack on the dangers of prejudice and racism, but inadvertently ends up marring its dramatic purpose by actually reinforcing sectarian stereotypes." He further suggests that

"using cliches in order to combat cliches within a basically realistic mode of fiction can 147 be problematic" (161). However, Marlow's criticism overlooks the anti-realist technique of juxtaposing the Comedian's racist humour and the physical presence of the Irishman and his mundane lists on stage by which Reid consistently interrupts and destabilizes the realistic mode, as well as the problematic sectarian stereotypes.

Reid's placement of the Irishman on stage, while the Comedian performs his routine, forces the audience to confront the object of these racist jokes. Very early in the play, the Irishman and the Comedian address one another:

COMEDIAN (to the Irishman)-. Have you heard the latest Irish joke? IRISHMAN: I'm warning you. I'm an Irishman myself. COMEDIAN: That's all right, Paddy. I'll tell it nice and slowly for you. (71)

The Comedian remains undaunted by either the Irishman's nationality or his threat, and despite his warning, the Irishman continues to listen impassively to the Comedian's increasingly aggressive and racist routine. At times the Comedian's jokes and the speed of their delivery mimic an attack on the Irishman. Tellingly, this attack would be extended to spectators when the play is performed in Northern Ireland or the Republic.

The Irishman's silence and unresponsiveness throughout most of the Comedian's routine underscores the traditional colonial relationship between Ireland and England. Moreover, the violence in the content and delivery of the Comedian's act set against the tragedies of the main plot, as well as the reports read by the Irishman, create an ironic distance for an audience. Reid's inclusion of the mundane lists and tragic reports consistently and effectively interrupt the 'comedy' and force of the Comedian's routine. The banality and specificity of the lists read by the Irishman undercut the exaggerations of the Comedian's racist stories. Ironically, the faceless, nameless prisoners represented through the lists and 148 reports appear less violent and problematic than the Comedian's racist, often brutal jokes.

Faced with a direct connection between humour and violence, in both form and content, spectators—those who do in fact laugh—are forced to ask themselves "what are we laughing at and why?" Reid challenges her audience to openly question the link between racist jokes, colonialism, and the Troubles.

The nationality of the audience, along with the nationality of the actor playing the

Comedian, is important to the creation of meaning of a performance. Interestingly, Reid does not specify the nationality of the Comedian; perhaps the context of the play makes it evident that he be played by an English actor. The Comedian was played by the British actor Richard Howard during the initial London performances at the King's Head Theatre in 1987. However, Reid's lack of specificity in casting also leaves open performance options that would greatly change the meaning of both the play and the jokes. For an Irish audience, the Comedian, when played by an English actor, is an outsider and his jokes are directed not only at the Irishman but also at the audience, creating ironic distance, as well as a clear connection to the Irishman on stage. Even staunchly Protestant spectators who consider themselves British are put in an ironic situation. Although they may identify themselves as British, most English people do not differentiate between

Protestant/loyalist and Catholic/republican, and instead, they consider all Northern Irish to be quite simply Irish. The use of doubling in the original performances at the King's

Head Theatre underscored this tendency to subsume and dismiss people from Northern

Ireland under the label "the Irish." Ultan Ely O'Carroll, an Irish actor, played both the

Irishman and Mr. Clarke, Allison's father and the Protestant patriarch in the play, thereby 149 not only dramatizing but also literally embodying this generalized collapsing of the Irish and the Northern Irish. The English Comedian's routine is directed at the Irish in general—in this case, all of the characters in the play, including Mr. Clarke, and any

members of the audience—and his jokes become more sinister in this colonial context.

Moreover, the Irishman's presence on stage concretizes this tendency to generalize about

the Irish: we do not know whether he is Catholic or Protestant, from the Republic or

Northern Ireland; he is simply Irish.13 Although Reid ran the risk of creating a connection between the Comedian and the British members of the audience at the King's Head

Theatre, the presence of the Irishman on stage, along with the tragedy of the central plot,

put the English spectators themselves in an ironic position. Any laughter from spectators

would have rendered them even more culpable in light of the long history of British colonialism, as well as British involvement in the Troubles.14

The connection between colonialism, violence, and comedy evident in the

Comedian's routine is echoed in the main plot of the play. Through the humour of both

Protestant and Catholic characters, Reid interrogates how humour is directly linked to sectarianism, bigotry, and violence. Bernard McKenna argues that the family members in the central plot "use humour laced with the threat of the Troubles as a tool for retaliation and revenge rather than in an effort to reestablish social discourse" (75). He proposes that

Allison and Brian's sister, Marie, use humour against family members (her mother and

13 An alternative performance option might include the casting of a Northern Irish actor to play the Comedian. While this might suggest an internalization of oppression, it would also create irony in the performance of anti-Irish jokes by a Northern Irish comedian in the presence of the Irishman. 4 There is no record of any reviews of the play's original performances at the King's Head Theatre in London—or any record of another major production in either England or Northern Ireland—in the London Theatre Record. I was unable to find documentation verifying audience laughter during the Comedian's routine, and thus, my discussion of audience complicity is theoretical. 150

Brian respectively) and thereby cause rupture and division within their families (75).

Allison's jokes are often ironic and biting and directed at her mother's prejudices:

MRS. CLARKE: Who was that on the phone? ALLISON: (smiling) The Divis Flats heavy breather. MRS. CLARKE: Oh really, Allison. Can't you be serious about anything? ALLISON: You know very well who it was, mother. And yes, I'm serious about a lot of things, but you don't want to know about them. Particularly at seven o'clock on a Saturday morning. What are you doing out of bed this early anyway? Is there a bomb scare in our select suburb? MRS. CLARKE: That's not funny, Allison. ALLISON: No, it's not. (71-72)

Allison's humour is, as McKenna argues, "laced with the threat of the Troubles," and she creates greater discord by openly mocking her mother's fears. Nevertheless, Allison is very aware of what is funny and what is not, and she uses her humour expressly to challenge her mother's prejudices, particularly against Brian. Allison's exchanges with her mother are laced with an acerbic humour that openly confronts the sectarianism and racism within the Protestant community. While her humour creates an inevitable division between herself and her mother, it also reinforces her connection to Brian. By contrast,

Marie's humour is far more caustic and underscores her adamant disapproval of Brian's relationship with Allison. Marie's hostility is particularly evident when she asks Brian,

"And how is little miss wonderful [Allison] this morning? Nobody's put a bullet in her head yet, I take it?" (76). Reid presents such divisive humour to further dramatize the connection between racist comedy and violence. Allison's and Marie's jokes are not used to create a community of characters but rather to underscore a history of comedy and aggression that has widened the sectarian divide; their jokes also emphasize the inevitability of Brian's and Allison's tragic ending. 151

By contrast, Brian's humour is at once the most hopeful and dangerous in the play and serves as an important alternative to the racist jokes performed by the Comedian and the angry humour adopted by Marie and Allison. Brian's comedy, while at times ironic and cutting, suggests inclusiveness and hope. His humour is strategically set against the gravity of the situation, as well as the comedic assaults delivered by the Comedian and other characters. Brian, in attempting to address the reality of Long Kesh, acknowledges that the prison itself may be segregated, but he also notes the irony and potential of the mixed waiting area for the prisoners' families:

BRIAN: Wouldn't it be a laugh, though, if that camp was what united the Irish, once and for all... MARIE: The camp, like the country is segregated. BRIAN: I'm not talking about the prisoners. I'm talking about their families. Drinking tea in the waiting area. Together. Standing in line checking food parcels. Together. Sharing the same bus to the main camp to visit. Together. MARIE: They don't visit together. They go their separate ways to segregated blocks. Prods to the right. Fenians to the left. BRIAN: But before that they've sat together and talked. Without fighting. Which is more than can be said about their so-called political leaders. Maybe we should put all the politicians on the Long Kesh bus, and drive them round and round the camp till they've reached an agreement. (76-77)

Brian, while underscoring the irony of the unsegregated waiting area for prison visits, also establishes the possibility of a "common ground" existent in this integrated meeting place. Marie's resistance to Brian's humour suggests an opposition to change. Brian, unlike the Comedian, directs his criticism towards the political leaders and not the general populace among whom hope for integration and change actually rests. Delgado suggests that Brian's "sense of humour equates him with many of the female characters who form the backbone of Reid's plays" (xvi). Brian's ironic reference to the camp as a 152 site for integration recalls Beth's allusion to the gravel path as the burial place of those from mixed marriages in Tea in a China Cup. Both "common grounds" underscore not only the violence (prison) and death (graveyard) produced by the Troubles but also the irony of a prison and graveyard as potential sites of integration. Brian's humour, like

Beth's, offers an irreverent perspective that suggests inclusiveness and hope, which are often captured in the interactions between the women in Reid's earlier plays. His jokes and stories function as counter-narratives to those espoused by the other characters in the main plot of the play and by the Comedian.

The hope present in Brian's jokes, however, is rendered impossible by his and

Allison's tragic deaths and the final, violent confrontation between the Comedian and the

Irishman. McDonough argues that "The play leaves the audience with the potent image of the joking comedian who tells too many 'dumb Irishman' jokes to an Irishman, leading the Irishman to infer he must turn to a gun in order to gain respect" ("Christina" 301).

Through the final scene between the Comedian and the Irishman, Reid directly links anti-

Irish jokes with colonialism and the Troubles. The Comedian's incessantly racist and violent routine leads to the Irishman's final, 'comic' threat. In the end, the Irishman abandons the news bulletin detailing the deaths of Allison and Brian, and instead, he joins the Comedian in the joke telling:

The Irishman tears the news bulletin into shreds. COMEDIAN: Hallo, Paddy. You still here? {He walks to the Irishman.) Have you heard the Irish knock-knock joke? You haven't? Right, you start. IRISHMAN (expressionlessly): Knock. Knock. COMEDIAN: Who's there? He laughs and begins to walk away. IRISHMAN {quietly): What do you call an Irishman with a machine-gun? 153

COMEDIAN: I don't know, Paddy. What do you call an Irishman with a machine-gun? IRISHMAN (wearily): You call him sir. Blackout. (97)

Reid gives the Irishman the final punchline, and thus, she returns power to him. However, his emphasis on the power of the gun to end oppression and obtain respect is problematic.

On the surface, it appears that the Comedian's routine and its connection to colonialism and oppression have led the Irishman to use humour to support and expound the necessity of terrorism and violence in Northern Ireland. Marlow suggests that "The end of the play comes far too close to supporting the Loyalist image of the Irish as bomb-bearing

Fenians" and further states that "Reid's representation highlights the climate of sectarian violence, excluding any exploration of the wider and more complex social problems"

(161). However, the historical link between the racist jokes and colonialism, underscored throughout the Comedian's routine and through the complex web of complicity in the violence reflected on and off the stage, reveal the limits of Marlow's reading. Moreover, the weariness of the Irishman's response underscores the toll the Comedian's racist act has taken on the Irishman. The latter's evocation of the gun is not the result of a passionate, non-negotiable commitment to the republican cause and rather an exhausted and disillusioned response to incessant stereotypes and jokes that inform and perpetuate colonization and oppression.

During the play's final moments, Reid invokes and subverts the traditions of stage comedy to dramatize the social and historical complexities of the Troubles. Reid's transformation of the Irishman and the Comedian into a 'comic' duo, who tell a knock- knock joke, is reminiscent of the comic teams popular on the music hall stages. The 154 incongruity of Reid's comic double act, however, is emphasized by the underlying hostility between the two characters, as well as the inclusion of a knock-knock joke— often associated with children—that leads to the final violent, humourless joke.

Moreover, these two characters are defined solely by their social identities—a comedian and an Irishman—rather than two subjective, distinct personalities. The Comedian's directive for the Irishman to begin the joke intimates his position of power in this exchange, which reflects the historical, colonial relationship between the British and the

Irish. The ambiguities in the scene are captured most fully in the Irishman's decision to invoke a weapon of force, a potentially violent act that simultaneously recalls the paramilitaries who murdered Brian and Allison and the history of violent colonization by the British. The irony and intent of the Irishman's final joke also places him in a direct line of descent from Brecht's political clowns and in particular Galy Gay who is transformed into a killing machine by the end of A Man's a Man.15 The final complex, ironic moment of Reid's play interrupts the main tragic narrative and thereby interrupts the audience's emotional response to Brian's and Allison's deaths. Here, spectators are put in a problematic, contradictory position: side with the racist, aggressive Comedian or the machine-like, violent Irishman. Perhaps Reid leaves it with the audience to imagine possibilities beyond the static identities and ideologies represented by this final dual act.

Ultimately, Reid includes the audience in the play's tragic, violent conclusion through an extended culpability. The Irishman's final threat underscores the reality that violence—and by extension, the deaths of Brian and Allison—become the responsibility

15 Interestingly, Galy Gay, the first of Brecht's political clowns, is Irish. 155 of all involved: the Comedian, and the colonial history he represents, is rendered culpable; the Irishman in the end is held accountable; the characters themselves who perpetuate the sectarianism through their bigotry and their humour are all guilty; and finally, the audience, through their laughter—if they do in fact laugh—are included in this extended culpability. Delgado argues that Did You Hear the One About the

Irishman...? uses the device of the comic to interrogate our responsibility in the

Troubles: "The audience's complicity in the laughter signals their involvement as part of an oppressive apparatus which fuels the conflict" (xviii). Such collusion would extend, in particular, to both an Irish and English audience: for the former, any laughter signals their immediate role in the continuation of the Troubles, while for the latter, any laughter signals the complicity and role of England and the English in a long history of oppression in Ireland and Northern Ireland.16 In this case, shared laughter equals shared responsibility. In addition, the audience's acceptance of their traditional theatrical role as silent spectators further underscores their compliance: by conforming to the rules and etiquette of theatre they remain silent; their silence, when accompanied by their non­ action, renders them complicit in the events on stage. No one escapes Reid's scrutiny: she points her finger at everyone. Ultimately, she leaves it with the spectators to critically examine the connections between comedy, violence, and death, as well as their own possible role in the tragedies on stage and in Northern Ireland.

Reid's coupling of mortality and humour in her plays reflects the tradition of macabre humour in Irish literature, particularly in the plays of O'Casey. This

16 Without access to any reviews of the original production, I can only address the possibility of laughter and complicity. interconnectivity of death and comedy is also dramatized in Joyriders and its sequel

Clowns. Joyriders stages the lives and hopes of Catholic teenagers taking part in a community program for unemployed youths. The play developed from Reid's work with teenagers from the Divis Flats, located in the heart of Republican West Belfast.17 Both

Joyriders and Clowns examine how the Troubles, sectarianism, and unemployment have directly affected the lives and futures of a group of Catholic youngsters.18 Joyriders recalls the tragic irony and dark humour of O'Casey, and Reid invokes his work in several ways: in the opening scene of the play, during which the characters watch a performance of the final act of his In the Shadow of the Gunman; in the play's gritty realism; in an overriding sense of futility that pervades the lives of these teenagers; and in moments of humour that underscore personal acts of resistance and hope. The resiliency of the four teenagers is most evident in their humour: Sandra is "tough, cynical, intelligent" (Reid, Joyriders 101) and her humour is edgy, direct, and often biting; Arthur is the "cheerful joker" (101) whose humour is optimistic and hopeful; Tommy, the most political and serious of the four, is sarcastic and readily takes part in verbal sparring with

Sandra; and Maureen is the most childlike and optimistic of the group. The teenagers' resiliency looks forward to their stories in the play's sequel, Clowns. The moments of laughter and hope between the four teenagers in Joyriders, however, are subsumed by the death of Maureen, who is pregnant when she is shot and killed. Reid's staging of the end of The Shadow of a Gunman foreshadows Maureen's death, and as Murray notes, the

17 In the 1980s the Divis Flats were known as the worst housing estate in Western Europe. 18 Significantly, there are no Protestant youths represented in Joyriders or Clowns; although the former mentions that there are a few Protestant teenagers in the program, they are never on stage. ending of O'Casey's play is used "as an ironic form of reference" (191). The tragic irony of Maureen's death lies in the fact that she dies not as a result of political violence and

instead is killed by a stray bullet meant for her joyriding younger brother, Johnnie. In the end, Maureen's death underscores the sacrifice and silencing of women by violence in

Northern Ireland (violence linked both directly and indirectly to the Troubles).

Clowns revisits the characters from Joyriders and restages the interconnectivity

between comedy and death through the central figures Sandra and Maureen. Written and performed a decade after Joyriders, Clowns is set in 1994 on the eve of the IRA and

Loyalist ceasefires and is perhaps the most hopeful of Reid's Troubles plays. Abandoning the gritty realism of the earlier play, Clowns examines the lives of the teenagers from

Joyriders, including Sandra, Arthur, Tommy, and Johnnie, now in their twenties. The play's setting, a new mall in the centre of Belfast, suggests a transformed and prosperous

Northern Ireland. In the play's central plot Sandra has returned from London for the first time in eight years to perform at the grand opening of the Lagan Mills Mall and Arthur's cafe. In the course of the play, it is revealed that Sandra has been haunted by Maureen's ghost for several years. Sandra, a stand-up comedian, has adopted Maureen, killed at the end of Joyriders, as her stage name and persona. This dual act makes audiences laugh back home in England by telling iconoclastic and revisionist Irish jokes and comic stories. Though in 'reality' it is Sandra who performs as 'Maureen,' on stage it is the character of Maureen's ghost that enacts the stand-up routine. The 'real' events of the play, in which Sandra reunites with Arthur, Tommy, and Johnnie, are set against

Maureen's comic routine. Maureen's presence and act remind us of the tragic events of Joyriders, while Sandra's inability to fully release her memories of Maureen and her tragic death underscore the legacy of the Troubles and its resultant trauma. The other characters appear to have moved on and even prospered: Arthur is the owner of a new cafe; Tommy, "a socialist 'crusty'" (282), has maintained a close and curative friendship with Arthur; and even Johnnie has moved on from joyriding to minor drug dealing. By contrast, although Sandra physically relocated to London, she has never truly escaped the

Troubles, Northern Ireland, or Maureen's death. The events of the play, including the stand-up moments, reveal a process of exorcism through telling in which Sandra casts off

Maureen and develops a new comedy of hope that speaks directly to the post-ceasefire

Northern Ireland in which the play was first produced.

Reid's dramatization of stand-up comedy in Clowns involves a move into narrative that abandons and challenges the tradition of the "Irishman" jokes invoked by the Comedian in Did You Hear the One About the Irishman... ? and also reflects the historical evolution of the genre. Alex Johnston notes that by the late 1970s jokes were outdated in the standup routines of younger comedians. Jokes were being replaced by new, improvisational, and shared experience comedy (178). According to Frances Gray,

"The new comedian is an individual, with a personal point of view and a personal story to tell, not a joke machine" (142). The majority of Maureen/Sandra's repertoire consists of this new comedic format in which a personal point of view is often evident. Moreover, through Sandra and Maureen, Reid alters the nationality, gender, and style of her central comedian and thereby challenges the entire genre and tradition of stand-up comedy. Gail

Finney argues that the women's movement "encouraged [women] to become the subjects 159 of comedy, its creators, rather than merely the objects of humour." She goes on to state

that "Nowhere is the autonomous female subject more evident than in the stand up comic" (4). Her performance is public and powerful, and it gives voice to those most often silenced in the public and comedic realms. Delgado suggests that "In Clowns,

Sandra's punchy stand-up routine enacted by Maureen is a fierce antidote to that of the offensive comedian in Did You Hear the One About the Irishman...?" (xviii). More specifically, Reid's Irish woman comedian, like the Comedian in Did You Hear the One

About the Irishman...?, consistently and comically interrupts the central plot, thereby creating critical distance between the audience and the main narrative. In Clowns, Reid creates another ambiguous comic duo through Maureen and Sandra. Here, however, the two embody a split character—Sandra's split self—and together they serve to underscore the protracted effects of the Troubles. Nevertheless, by foregrounding a female comedian in Clowns, Reid ultimately transcends the violent comedy of the earlier play and offers hope for change through a distinctly woman-centred comedy.

While Reid employs stand up to dramatize Sandra's inability to overcome the trauma of Maureen's death, she also wittingly presents a female stand-up comic to stage an irreverent revision of the Troubles. Sandra's comedy follows the pattern of women's comedy. Finney notes that "The object of women's humour is the powerful rather than the pitiful" (5). Sandra's routine, enacted on stage by Maureen, includes comic narratives that openly and publicly deride the more powerful and dominant figures in Northern

Ireland, including political leaders, paramilitaries, and even God himself. One of

Maureen/Sandra's main objects of ridicule is the Reverend Ian Paisley, the controversial 160

cofounder and former leader of the Democratic Unionist Party (DUP):19

The lights dim to the sound of a London pub audience.

Spotlight on Maureen.

MAUREEN: Do you like the whistle and flute? Irish linen. Handmade. It was made for Ian Paisley. That's why it's a bit big on me. Ian gave it to me after I saved him from a fate worse than death in Transylvania. He told me that he gets all his suits made by a wee Free Presbyterian tailor on the Shankill Road, Belfast. And they cost £300. Three hundred pounds! 'Frig, Ian,' says I, 'My da's the best tailor on the Falls Road, and he could make you up that suit for fifty quid, and throw in a pair of spare trousers.' And Ian says, 'How could a Roman Catholic tailor make me a suit for a fraction of the cost of one made by a Good Honest Protestant?' And I says, 'Because tailors charge according to the amount of material they use. And believe me, Mr. Paisley, you're not nearly as big a man up the Falls Road as you are on the Shankill.' (324)

Maureen/Sandra's joke not only addresses the economic and social inequalities in

Northern Ireland but also ridicules Paisley's glorified stature in the Protestant, working-

class community of the Shankill Road. Maureen/Sandra playfully utilizes Paisley's well-

known physical stature (he is 6'5" tall) to ridicule his monumental status amongst his

unionist supporters. Paisley, known for his grandiose rhetorical speeches that preach the

God-given right of Ulster Protestants as the chosen people and openly condemn not only

the republican paramilitaries and their cause but also Catholicism and the Pope, is rendered insignificant, even diminutive, when placed in the Catholic, nationalist area of the Falls Road.

Sandra's standup routine includes a rewriting of the myths and figures that inform both sides of the sectarian divide. Through such revisions, Reid challenges the tradition

19 Ian Paisley founded the Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) in 1971. It is a right wing, hardline unionist party with strong ties to the Free Presbyterian Church of Ulster (also founded by Ian Paisley), as well as other Protestant churches in Northern Ireland. 161 of Irishman jokes that perpetuate stereotypes, sectarianism, and violence. Unlike the

Comedian in Did You Hear the One About the Irishman... ?, Sandra most often avoids the generic jokes directed at the nameless and faceless, generalized Irishman, and includes specific religious and political figureheads as the objects of her comedy. Moreover, through the inclusion of more narrative-oriented jokes, Reid rewrites the myths and stereotypes and suggests the culpability of Northern Ireland's leaders. For example,

Maureen relates a comic revision of the flood in the context of Belfast:

Lights down on stage. Maureen walks into the spotlight.

MAUREEN: God got so angry about the Troubles that he decided to send a second Great Flood. Not over the whole world this time. Just Ireland.

And he sent for Ian and Gerry, and He said, 'In three days' time, the Emerald Isle will be under the sea, and then the pair of you will have nuthin' left to fight over.' And Ian said, 'I will lead my people out of Ireland to a new Promised Land.' And Gerry said, 'And me and my people will be right there behind ye.' Now the last thing God wanted was these two eejits starting up a Holy War somewhere else. So He smiled and He said, 'Let your people go. But if you two stay, I promise to deliver you from the Flood.'

So, while the population of Ireland are packin' up and movin' out, Ian and Gerry are stood in front of the City Hall, Belfast, in the pourin' rain. And as the water is lappin' round their ankles, the Ulster Freedom Fighters drive by in a car, and shout, 'Get in, Ian, and we'll take you to Scotland!' And Ian says, 'The Lord has promised to deliver me from the Flood!' And the water keeps risin'. And when it has reached their waists, the IRA come by in a speedboat, and shout, 'Get in, Gerry, and we'll take you to America!' And Gerry says, 'The Lord has promised to deliver me from the Flood!' And the water keeps risin'. And when it has reached their necks, a television crew fly overhead in a helicopter, and throw down a steel ladder, and shout, 'Climb up, and we'll take you both to England!' And Ian and Gerry shout back, 'The Lord has promised to deliver us from the

20 Ian Paisley and Gerry Adams. Adams has been the president of Sinn Fein since 1984, but his career in the party dates back to the early 1970s. He has been arrested and interned for alleged membership and involvement in the Provisional IRA. Since the late 1980s he has been a predominant figure in the Northern Irish peace process. 162

Flood!' And the water keeps risin'. And Ian and Gerry are both drowned. And they arrive in Heaven, soaked to the skin and ragin' with it. And there's God sittin' on his throne, surrounded by angels and archangels. And they're all havin' a job keepin' the laughter in. And Ian and Gerry, united at last, yell at God, 'You promised to deliver us from the Flood!!' And God smiles, and he says, {In a Jewish voice, with a Jewish shrug.) 'Mr Paisley, Mr Adams... I sent you a car, and a boat, and a helicopter. What more could a poor man do?' (333-34)

It is death, the great leveler, as well as God's apparent betrayal, which finally unites Ian

Paisley and Gerry Adams. Their unwillingness to accept alternative means of escape, as well as their righteous, intractable, and identical responses, reflect an equal resistance to imagining and accepting alternatives for Northern Ireland. Moreover, the presence of a

Jewish God challenges the traditional binary between Protestantism and Catholicism in

Northern Ireland and complicates any partisan belief in either a Protestant or Catholic

God. Reid further emphasizes the subversion of the traditional religious binaries in

Northern Ireland through jokes that involve not only Jewish but also Muslim and

Buddhist characters. Maureen tells us, "I'd like to think that somewhere over the rainbow there's a God with a sense of humour" (334). Reid's Jewish God not only has a sense of humour but also a sense of irony mixed with a dose of comic justice.

Reid's revision of the myths and religions at the core of the divide in Northern

Ireland is further reflected in Sandra's comic rewriting of the birth of Jesus and the nativity scene. As part of her stand-up routine, Sandra re-imagines the story of Jesus and specifically the second coming into a contemporary Northern Irish context. Her comic revision includes "a star in the sky as bright as the searchlight beam on the army helicopter" and "three big camp queens, wise men from the university area" (319), irreverently incorporating both the reality of the Troubles and a modern, more 163 progressively sexual and liberal Belfast. Born "nearly two thousand years" after his predecessor, Maureen tells us, this Jesus Mahoney performed his first miracle while still in diapers. However, rather than turning water into wine like his namesake—or better still restoring peace to Northern Ireland—this revised Jesus saves an Irish wedding reception by changing the water of the Lagan river into the finest Irish liquor, Black Bush malt whiskey. While one could read the comical transformation of water into alcohol as reinforcing the stereotypical link between the Irish and drinking, the miracle is also an ironic comment on the Irish term for whiskey, Uisce Beatha, literally translated as "water of life." Here, Reid depicts Jesus' ability to save lives but through Irish malt whiskey rather than peace. Sandra's iconoclastic revision of Jesus is also evident in the postcard she sent to Arthur on Maureen's twenty-first birthday. The postcard represents an altered nativity scene in which the Three Wise Men are Ian Paisley, the Pope, and God, while the

Virgin Mary is Bernadette Devlin.21 A perplexed Arthur tells us that Mary is "smilin' at the three of them and sayin', 'It's a girl" (296). Following the strong link between women and the peace movement in Northern Ireland, this revision of the saviour as a girl suggests new hope. However, a reading of Maureen as the new saviour is problematized by the reality of her death. Although a group of young girls, calling themselves "the ecumenical squad" (311), attempted to make Maureen into a Christian martyr following her death, they ultimately failed. Instead, Maureen has become one of the forgotten victims of a senseless cycle of violence perpetuated by two of the three (not so) wise men

2lBernadette Devlin is a Catholic, nationalist activist and feminist from Co. Tyrone in Northern Ireland who in 1969 was the youngest woman to be elected to British parliament. She served six months in prison for her role in the Battle of the Bogside during the same year. 164

and even the blessed Virgin Mary herself.

While such revisions suggest hope and empowerment, Sandra's deviant comedy

is not necessarily self-empowering. Maureen's haunting presence in Sandra's life on and

off the stage underscores the legacy of the violence. The inclusion of the statement,

"Happy Birthday to me," written in Sandra's writing on the back of a postcard sent on

Maureen's birthday speaks not only to Sandra's use of Maureen as her stage persona but

also to a more disturbing adoption of Maureen as part of Sandra's identity. Coupled with

a comic routine that, although it re-envisions myths and martyrs, ultimately uses the

Troubles as prime material, Sandra's dual identity highlights her inability to transcend

either her friend's death or the violence. The inherent dangers of her failure to overcome

trauma and fully heal culminates in a fast and vicious comic routine spoken by Maureen

and directed at Sandra:

Let's do the UVF hit-squad version of the chicken sauce advert.22 (Moves her arms like a chicken and dances towards Sandra, singing.) I feel like Fenian tonight, Fenian tonight, Fenian tonight... Or what about the wee man wanderin' down the Falls road carryin' two buckets of shite? And when the Army ask him why, he says, 'My son's being released from the Maze Prison this weekend. He's been on the Blanket Protest for three years, and I thought a bit of shite on the bedroom walls would make him feel at home.'23 Irish freedom fighters are thick. I mean, why didn't the hunger strikers escape from the 'H' Blocks when they had the chance? After week three, all they had to do was slide out under the cell door. When Bobby Sands, the first hunger-striker, died, the British Army doctor

22 The Ulster Volunteer Force (UVF) was originally established in 1912 by Edward Carson and James Craig to oppose Irish independence. The contemporary UVF, which borrowed the name from the original unionist organization, was a paramilitary group created by loyalists in East Belfast in 1966 to defend a British Northern Ireland. 23 The blanket protest was undertaken by republican prisoners at Long Kesh in response to the removal of their Special Category Status. Part of this status included the right to wear their clothes rather than the standard prison uniforms. During the protest, which began in 1976, lasted five years, and culminated in the hunger strikes in 1981, republican prisoners refused to wear prison uniforms and instead wrapped themselves in blankets. They also refused to slop out and smeared their urine and feces on the cell walls. 165

done a post mortem. He didn't bother with an X-ray. He just held Bobby up to the light. We'll never forget you... Jimmy Sands... Grow your own dope. Plant an Irishman... What has Brian Keenan got in common with Cinderella? They've both Two Ugly Sisters.24 Knock! Knock! Who's there? Bang-bang-bang. It's the Royal Ulster Constabulary. We don't shoot to kill. A British Army Squaddy raped an Irish girl. And afterwards he says to her, 'In nine months' time you'll have a son. You can call him Winston Churchill, if you like.' And the girl says, 'In nine months' time you'll have a rash. You can call it measles if you like.' What's the difference between Catholic Aids and Protestant Aids? Nuthin'. Either way you end up blamin' it on the other side. (325-26)

Maureen's litany echoes the racist, violent humour of the Comedian in Did You Hear the

One About the Irishman... ? At one point, Maureen directly repeats one of his jokes:

"Grow your own dope. Plant an Irishman" (325). This intertextual reference stresses the danger inherent in Sandra's inability to move beyond the traumatic repertoire of the

Troubles, as well as the desire for revenge she still feels for Johnnie, Maureen's younger joyriding-turned-drug-dealer brother, who was indirectly involved in his sister's death.

The connection that Reid draws between Sandra and Maureen is an ambiguous one: the presence of two actresses and characters on stage perhaps suggest that they are a comic duo. However, they may also be understood as a split character—a Brechtian device— since they both represent Sandra (her private self and her public, stand-up persona).

Elizabeth Wright suggests that split characters in Brecht's theatre embody how "self- defeat occurs where characters struggle to appropriate the very reality of their oppressors which has produced them as alienated beings in the first place" (65). Sandra's alienation manifests itself in the bodily presence of Maureen on stage, while the intractable presence

24 Brian Keenan is a Belfast writer who was held hostage in Beirut, Lebanon for four and half years. The British government refused to negotiate with terrorists and thus was unwilling to directly aid Keenan. His two sisters, Elaine Spence and Brenda Gillham, led the campaign for his release. Irish jokes about Keenan often refer to his two siblings as the "ugly sisters." 166 of the Troubles—"the very reality of [her] oppressors"—in her life is palpable in her comic routine. Sandra has in some ways entrapped Maureen's spirit into her act, allowing

neither woman the opportunity to live or rest in peace. Ultimately, through her

unwillingness to allow herself to heal, Sandra herself risks continuing the cycle of

violence.

Reid foregrounds the need for telling through Sandra's release of both Maureen and the legacy of the Troubles. Sandra has rendered herself incapable of imagining alternatives for her life or the future of Northern Ireland, and she is initially unable to

recognize the potential for comic telling inherent in stand up. Molly, Arthur's mother,

underscores the need for telling in overcoming trauma and letting go of the past. She

explains to Sandra that "Arthur and Tommy have always had each other to talk to. They

mostly agree to disagree about what happened that day, but arguin' about it got them

through it... talk's a way of gettin' to grips... layin' a ghost" (316). The pair's continual

banter and verbal sparring, which Reid tells us never includes "any real anger or malice"

(283), is central to their ability to grieve and survive Maureen's death and the Troubles.

In the end, through telling her story of loss Sandra begins the process of releasing her friend and the trauma of her death. As Sandra begins to tell, Maureen's presence, which

throughout the play has been "solid—not at all ghostly" (285), starts to fade until finally

she "walks away into the darkness" (338). The hope that follows this telling is

particularly evident in the final image of Sandra and Arthur dancing. Sandra retains her

sense of humour, even as she releases Maureen's ghost, by mocking the song that is playing: "Since I first saw you on the village green... the village green?! In Divis 167

Friggin' Flats?" (342). Their dance, which is "relaxed, gentle and loving" (342), underscores a coming together and connection rather than division or separation. By this point, Sandra has finally confronted and let go of Maureen's ghost, and, in the concluding moments of the play, Sandra steps up to the microphone, champagne glass in hand, and begins a new comic routine, one that addresses the ceasefires, Northern Irish humour, as well as renewal and hope.

Through Sandra's concluding monologue, which is performed in England in

December 1994 following the Loyalist ceasefire, Reid stages a new comedy that is dissident, profane, and ultimately suggests hope for the future. The final lines underscore both an ending and a new beginning for Sandra, Irish comedians, and Northern Ireland:

What about comedians? The day them clowns in the IRA declared their cease-fire, they killed off half the Irish jokes. Not so much lost, as gone before. And then I thought, 'Well there's still the other half. The Loyalists. They're always good for a laugh. And I'm no sooner back in London, then they declare a cease-fire as well. You see freedom fighters? They're all the same. They couldn't see green cheese but they'd want a bit. I was gutted. I thought, that's it, the end of a beautiful career. Time to sign on the dotted dole line, Columbine. I thought wrong. You can't keep the Irish down. We're a nation of comedians. The best ones are offstage. On the day the Loyalists declared their own cease-fire, two wee Belfast women were standing at a bus stop. And one turns to the other, and she says, 'Bloody typical, isn't it? You wait twenty-five friggin' years for a cease-fire and then two come along one after the other'...

Ulster says Ho! Ho! Ho!

Sandra raises her glass.

Happy Birthday, Jesus Mahoney. (343)

Sandra rewrites the line "Ulster says no!," which is scrawled on a banner on the Belfast city hall in response to the Anglo-Irish Agreement. This rewriting, along with the 168 renaming of Jesus and the Christmas context in which the monologue is performed, suggests a rebirth for Northern Ireland. Moreover, Sandra's reference to Columbine invokes both a Christian symbol for peace and a theatrical tradition of female clowns.

Columbine is a flower native to Northern Ireland that is often used to represent the dove of the Holy Spirit and thereby suggests a hope for peace in Northern Ireland. However,

Columbine is also a stock character from the Italian Renaissance commedia deH'arte. She was a servant who was best known for her "sharp and malicious wit" (qtd. in Castagno

101). Through her invocation of Columbine, Sandra places herself and her wit within a long tradition of female clowns. Moreover, Sandra's suggestion that some of the best comedians are "wee Belfast women" speaks to the humour that is central to Northern

Irish life and in particular its female populace. The joke spoken by one of these women highlights both the hope and irony of the ceasefire: it has finally arrived, but it took too long. Sandra's monologue is a part of this tradition of Northern Irish women's humour, and the presence of the imagined London audience suggests a reversal of the colonial relationship presented by the Comedian in Did You Hear the One About the Irishman... ?

In Sandra's closing performance, Reid employs the monologue as a final, empowered act of telling. She also plays with the monologic form by blurring the lines between dramatic monologue, stand-up comedy, and the one-person show. Sandra is public and powerful as a stand-up comedian, and her position as uninterrupted monologist underscores the need for both the citizens and the "clowns" of Northern

Ireland to rewrite not only their jokes but also their country's past, present, and future.

Despite Sandra's pessimism that the ceasefires have "killed off half the Irish jokes," the 169 ellipses and the final intertextual reference to the birth of Jesus Mahoney suggest that her

monologue is only part or perhaps the start of a longer post-Troubles solo show. Michael

Kearns states that "There is no set definition for this genre [the one person or solo show].

In some instances, a night club act could be considered a solo performance (especially if it contains a considerable amount of monologue material)" (ix).25 The use of a microphone and a spotlight during Sandra's monologue theatrically emphasizes that this is part of a stand-up routine. Mandarine Gale, in a review of the London production at the

Orange Tree Room, notes that the play "includes hilarious gags... told in true stand-up style" (370). The co-presence of an imagined London pub audience and the actual theatre audience watching the play, nevertheless, also suggests an amalgamation of theatre and stand up, and this integration evokes new theatrical and comic possibilities: namely, the possibilities of a post-Troubles one-woman show enacted by an empowered and self- professed clown.

The reference to clowns in the play's title further foregrounds the importance of humour and comics in a post-ceasefire Northern Ireland. "Clowns" refers on a literal level to the tradition of comedy from which stand up has evolved. The earliest clowns became Shakespeare's fools and wise fools, vaudeville's comic performers, and eventually today's stand-up comics: "While standup comedy as we know it began with the Music Hall of the nineteenth century, the lone joker is a much earlier figure in western culture. We know him as the Joker, the Trickster, or the Fool" (Gray 117).

25 Kearns' connection between stand-up, monologue, and the solo show underscores the historical development of the one-person show from the early comic "entertainments" or monodramas in eighteenth- century British theatre and the showcases of American vaudeville. 170

Elizabeth Hale Winkler, in her study of clowns in Anglo-Irish drama, notes the difficulty in making any clear distinction between the clown and the fool (9). The clown, nevertheless, is the "most primary of comic figures," and embodies common characteristics, including an "unwitting disregard for accepted moral standards and disrespect for authority and the entire establishment" as well as a "spirit of open rebellion" (Winkler 11,22). The fool of tradition, according to Robert Hills Goldsmith,

"was something more than a humourous entertainer; he was also the licensed critic of his master and his fellows" (7), and the clown and the fool share the important function of truth telling. Sandra's stand-up routine embodies this disrespect for authority and spirit of rebellion, as well as the position as licensed critic. In particular, Sandra, a self-proclaimed clown, proposes that Ian Paisley and Gerry Adams are more alike in their ineptness than is often recognized. Her critique of the two political leaders, and her reference to the clowns in the IRA, recalls Brecht's politicization of clowns and clowning in epic theatre.

While Sandra's evocation of the IRA clowns constitutes a comedian's criticism of a group that by their actions has killed half of the Irish jokes, it also implies that it takes clowns to choose the more 'comic' ceasefire—which ultimately represents celebration and peace—over the tragedy and violence of the Troubles. Sandra's final comic routine tellingly ends with the raising of a champagne glass (celebration) rather than a machine gun (death). Reid's critique of war through Sandra evokes Brecht's Galy Gay in A Man's a Man; however, Sandra's choice of celebration over violence offers a more hopeful, less ironic function of the clown than either Did You Hear the One About the Irishman... ? or

Brecht's A Man's a Man. Moreover, the emphasis on clowns in the title and dialogue of 171

Reid's later play also suggest a hope that Northern Ireland's tragedy might be rewritten as a comedy replete with an integrated, celebratory happy ending.

The process of telling is important in Reid's plays and hopefulness lies in the act of Northern Irish women and men finding their comic voices. Through acts of telling, these marginal and often humourous voices offer alternative perspectives that openly and defiantly challenge the seemingly intractable ideologies that inform and maintain sectarianism in Northern Ireland. Reid's various plays on the Troubles do not reflect a singular vision and instead complicate any reading of the conflict in terms of dualities, labels, and stereotypes. Moreover, Reid challenges a monolithic understanding of humour by representing the varying manifestations of comedy in Northern Ireland's history, life, and culture. While humour serves various functions in Reid's Troubles plays, offering ironic distance, hope, as well as critical insight, the fate of her comedy and comic characters is for the most part dark. Any underlying hope is complicated by the reality that many of Reid's plays end with death or leaving: Beth is in the process of leaving her home and life following her mother's death; Belle leaves Belfast to return to London after the death of Dolly's spirit and voice; Brian, Allison, and Maureen leave through their physical deaths; and Sandra returns home to England. Such departures suggest escapes that are sometimes hopeful but more often despairing. Like Anne Devlin's comic women,

Reid's most rebellious and inspired characters, Belle, Theresa, Beth, and Sandra, must leave—and most often to the safety of England—to find themselves, their voices, and their hope. While such departures reflect Reid's personal relocation to England, they also allude to the difficulty of imagining and sustaining alternatives within the confines of a 172

Northern Ireland prior to (and even after in Clowns) the start of the peace talks in late

1994. Despite this seemingly despairing context, moments of hope and joy reside perhaps most fully in the shared laughter of characters and the potential laughter of audience members. 173

Transgressing the Divides: Marie Jones' Carnivalesque Subversions of Northern Ireland's Troubled Status Quo

I wanted to laugh and scream at the same time... (Jones, A Night in November 33)

Marie Jones is the most prolific and popular Northern Irish woman playwright to date. Her plays, grounded in the traditions of comedy, are locally, nationally, and internationally recognized. Despite her global success, Jones insists that her work is firmly rooted in and focused upon the people, pulse, and humour of Belfast: "Belfast is the source of my material, everyday out on the street talking and listening to people. It's about language. If I lived somewhere else, I couldn't hear these rhythms, how people verbalize their emotions, their humour, their anger. That's what I hear and write" (Foley

36). This focus on Belfast means that the Troubles have both directly and indirectly entered into her theatre. She has worked in community and collaborative theatre in

Northern Ireland since her early years with Charabanc Theatre Company and has been labeled both "the voice of the ordinary people" (Battersby) and the "bard of Belfast"

(Gardner). Jones, like Devlin and Reid, gives voice to those traditionally left out of the public narratives of the Troubles. She has stated in an interview that "The people I write for are the people in my plays. They are really just ordinary people who are really are powerless [sic]; who really don't have a voice. I've always felt that I have this huge responsibility, because the background I came up in nobody had any power, nobody had any voice" (qtd. in McMullan, "Gender" 36). By representing ordinary people, Jones' plays consistently cross communities and borders and speak to and about the manifold voices and ideologies in Northern Ireland: her characters are Irish, Northern Irish, 174

Catholic, Protestant, Presbyterian and Church of Ireland, nondenominational, working class, middle class, nationalist, unionist, apolitical, male, and female. Jones' border crossings also include the psychological borders that divide unionists and nationalists in

Northern Ireland, the physical borders that divide Northern Ireland from the Republic, and the borders that divide both countries from the rest of the world. She crosses traditional theatrical borders as well: she has worked both in community and professional theatres. Although her early work with the community theatre company Charabanc is distinctly feminist in tone and intent, this does not limit or characterize the scope of her theatrical work. Like Devlin and Reid, Jones is wary of labels: "Once you label, you alienate. Plays speak for themselves. If a company or play is labeled, it will ostracize some of our community" (Foley 34-35). It is in fact difficult to label Jones' repertoire: she works across communities, borders, countries, genders, genres, styles, and theatres.

Jones incorporates tragic tones and stories, comic forms and devices, carnival, dialogue, monologue, choruses, and song to capture the rhythms of Northern Ireland.

While Jones is most often recognized as a comic playwright, her use of comedy is also difficult to classify or define: she utilizes everything from the traditions of Old Greek and festive Shakespearean comedy to more biting feminist comic subversions, from farce to satire, and from black humour to the multitudinous elements of carnival. Nevertheless, carnival and its varying manifestations best reflect the multiplicities and paradoxes of

Jones' theatre. The carnivalesque nature of her repertoire is reflected in the frequent depiction of her theatre as low comedy: "My plays get accused of being low art all the time... Even by the arts establishment in my own city. But what's wrong with being 175 popular? I sometimes feel that people want to keep the theatre as some kind of special preserve for people like them, educated, cultured people; they don't like it when a play packs out the theatre with ordinary people having a good time" (qtd. in Gardner). The popular, widespread appeal of Jones' plays also reflects her work in community theatre— in particular, her work with Charabanc—and her attempts to capture the language of the people, the "frank and free," multiple "forms of marketplace speech" (Bakhtin, Rabelais

10). The collaborative nature of her work with Charabanc, and the diverse voices and experiences of company members, led to the creation of plays that were focused on communal—rather than individual—protagonists and thereby not only reached wider audiences but also reflected the heterogeneity of their communities.

The pluralities of Jones' theatre—its creation, forms, and content—recall

Bakhtin's theories of polyphony (many-voicedness) and heteroglossia (the intersections of multiple, social languages), which are central to his theories of carnival. As Keith

Booker suggests, carnival's "juxtaposition of various voices allows for a polyphonic dialogue that highlights the differences among social groups and generally calls into question the assumptions that would hold certain groups to be ascendant over others"

(34). Jones dramatizes this polyvocality through numerous, often conflicting voices in her

Troubles plays. For instance, in Now You 're Talkin' (1985), the women's heteroglossia is underscored by their divergent social and ideological positions and voices. Jones develops this plurality in Somewhere Over the Balcony (1987) by combining a polyvocal chorus of women with a chaotic multilayered plot and an array of comic and carnivalesque forms and devices. The multiplicities of the play, juxtaposed with the 176

ambivalences of carnival, ultimately reveal the difficulty of finding a unified answer to

the Troubles in Northern Ireland's war-torn heteroglot. The liminal space of carnival is

also present in specific sites, as well as potential and realized border crossings in her

plays. The potential of liminality is most pronounced in her later play with DubbelJoint,

A Night in November (1994), in which real and imagined border crossings, coupled with a

theatricalized polyphony, dramatize the transgressive possibilities of carnival. Jones

dramatizes the ambivalences of carnival in order to underscore the paradoxes and

absurdities of the Troubles. More specifically, she invokes the openness and

openendedness of carnival not only to highlight the challenge of finding any kind of

unified resolution amid the poly vocal din of Northern Ireland but also to suggest hope

and possibility. For Bakhtin, carnivalization is transgressive: a particular social ill is

parodied, carried to extremes and ultimately laughed out of existence. It is in the more

carnivalesque moments of Jones' plays that hope is most fully realized.

The seeds of Jones' poly vocal theatre are evident in Gold in the Streets (1986),

which she co-created with Charabanc. The play uses a multi-act structure to foreground

the diverging experiences and ideologies of women living in twentieth-century Northern

Ireland. Act 1, set in 1912—before the creation of the political border between the

Republic and Northern Ireland—dramatizes the experiences of Agnes Miller who has moved with her family from the south to live with her sister in the Shankill Road, Belfast, a working-class, unionist, and Protestant neighbourhood in East Belfast. Due to the bigotry of their Protestant neighbours, Agnes and her family are forced to emigrate to

London. The second act, set in Belfast in 1950, tells the story of Mary O'Connor, a 177

Catholic woman, who married an Englishman and emigrated from Belfast to London. In the play, Mary returns with her daughter to Belfast two years after her husband was killed. Due to the closed-minded beliefs of her mother, friends, and neighbours, she is forced to move back to London to "live [her] own life" (91). The final act, set in a war- torn Belfast in 1985, foregrounds the experiences of Sharon McAllister, a working-class

Protestant woman, who chooses emigration over the constant fear of being a policeman's wife in the midst of a war-torn society. While Jones employs dark humour to present a variegated society across time and communities, the bleak undertones of the play, along with an overriding, unified indictment of sectarianism and a static representation of

Northern Ireland, do not allow for the kinds of possibilities, multiplicities, and carnivalesque transgressions evoked in Now You 're Talkin' and Somewhere Over the

Balcony and most fully dramatized in A Night in November.

Jones was born in East Belfast in a predominantly Protestant, unionist working- class neighbourhood. Laughter is central to Jones' life and family, and she has said of her family that "Even in the midst of total devastation we'll always be having a laugh" (qtd. in Gardner). She has also commented on the influence of her mother and their weekly visits to her aunt's house on her playwriting: "They [her mother and aunt] would tell the same stories every week. They would laugh, they would cry. And although they were the same stories, they were told differently every time. I couldn't get enough of them" (qtd. in Gardner). She goes on to say that "If anything turned me into a playwright, it was those visits to my aunt" (qtd. in Gardner). Along with these visits, an early involvement in local drama groups led to her career in theatre. As a teenager she worked with James 178

Young, a popular comic actor, and performed in his review Little Boxes (1968-1969)

(Lonergan 164). In 1976, Jones became an actress with the Young Lyric Players; she has maintained a strong connection to this youth theatre group throughout her career

(Lonergan 164). From her initial work with James Young, Jones became known as a comedic actress.

Despite her early opportunities on the stage, she often found herself out of work.

Frustrated with the lack of substantial parts for Northern Irish women actors, Jones along with four other actresses—Eleanor Methven, Carol Scanlon, Brenda Winter, and

Maureen McAuley—founded one of Northern Ireland's first independent, woman-led theatre companies, Charabanc1 (1983-1993). The five actresses were encouraged by the

Belfast playwright Martin Lynch, both during and after the production of their first play,

Lay Up Your Ends (1983), to collectively research, develop, and write their own material.

This collaborative process, as well as their divergent backgrounds (the company members were from both Catholic and Protestant communities), reflects the polyvocal nature of a great deal of Charabanc's repertoire. The company's early collective process of creation included research and oral interviews in the community by the company members, followed by "intensive discussions" (Brighton 144) regarding story line, characters and dramatic structure, the collective writing of scenes, and a six-week rehearsal period.

Eleanor Methven has noted that the company members "buil[t] the characters around" the people they talked to in the community (Martin 92). The inclusion of personal interviews

1 Lojek notes, "A Charabanc is a benched wagon open to the air; such buses were commonly used early in the century for group excursions—times off from regular work or activity" (83). This seems an appropriate title for a company committed to both comedy and community. "Time off from work and regular activity," in particular, mirrors the comic world of medieval carnival where inversions and excursions often took place. 179 in the research and development of each play meant that Charabanc foregrounded divergent voices and perspectives from the Northern Irish community that were not typically given public expression,2 while the community-based performances of their plays—in the community and leisure centres in Northern Ireland—reflect the communal and social nature of carnival. Jones' career as a playwright developed through her involvement with Charabanc. Although the company adopted a communal and egalitarian method of creation and performance, Jones by 1986 had emerged as the company's principal writer. She co-scripted and/or wrote a total of ten plays with Charabanc. These include Lay Up Your Ends, Oul' Delf and False Teeth (1984), and Now You 're Talking, which were co-authored by Jones and the Charabanc Company; and Gold in the Streets,

The Girls in the Big Picture (1986), Somewhere Over the Balcony, The Terrible Twins

Crazy Christmas (1988), Weddins, Wee 'ins and Wakes (1989), The Hamster Wheel

(1990), and The Blind Fiddler of Glenaduach (1990), which were all written by Jones.

Jones left Charabanc in 1991 to form DubbelJoint with Pam Brighton. The name

DubbelJoint underscores a joint collaboration between Dublin (Dub) and Belfast (bel).

According to Imelda Foley, "As the name suggests, the policy was to tour relevant work north and south of the border and to employ the best theatre professionals from the two territories" (48). Jones' work with DubbelJoint includes Hang All the Harpers (1991),

Christmas Eve Will Kill You (1991), A Night in November, Women on the Verge ofHRT

(1995), Eddie Bottom's Dream (1996), and the award-winning Stones in His Pockets

2 Carol Scanlan underscores the company's openness to including voices from the community through a telling anecdote: "When we played Gold in the Streets in Belfast, a man we know, the manager of the hotel next door, used to come every night before the show and say, 'I've got a great joke you've got to put in your show.' And he would come back to make sure we put it in. Then he'd say, 'Aw, that's brilliant'" (Martin 92). 180

(1996). Jones has since worked with Replay Productions, a theatre-in-education company, in a number of youth theatre initiatives and productions. These include Under

Napoleon's Nose (1988), It's a Waste of Time, Tracy (1989), The Cow, the Ship and the

Indian (1991), Don't Look Down (1991), Hiring Days (1992), and Yours Truly (1993).

Jones co-authored The Wedding Community Play (1999)3 with Martin Lynch, and her

Court No. 2 (2001) was a shorter play written as part of a larger theatrical project

(comprising 7 short plays) entitled Convictions (2001) performed by the Tinderbox

Theatre Company. Jones has also written an adaptation of Nikolay Gogol's The

Government Inspector (1993), Women on the Verge of HRT... Get a Life! (1999), Ruby

(2000), The Blind Fiddler (2004), which is based on Jones' earlier one act play with

Charabanc The Blind Fiddler of Glenaduach, and Rock Doves (2007). Stones in His

Pockets won the 1999 Irish Times/ESB Theatre Award for Best Production, was awarded

Best Comedy in 2001 at the Laurence Olivier Theatre Awards, the 2000 London Standard

Theatre Award for Best Comedy, and was nominated for three Tony Awards. Jones also received an honorary doctorate from Queen's University Belfast in 2006, the John Hewitt

Award for outstanding contribution to culture, tradition, and the arts in Northern Ireland, and in 2002, was awarded the Order of the British Empire (OBE) for her services to drama.

3 The Wedding Community Play is set within and speaks to the context of the Troubles and also underscores Jones' roots and continued work in community theatre. Llewellyn-Jones notes, "In a bold extension of promenade performance audiences were bussed between two working class houses in Belfast, in which the Protestant bride and the Catholic groom are respectively enmeshed in preparations as the audience moves between rooms. Events in the Presbyterian Hall and a Lagan-side Hotel, with free bucks fizz and wedding cake, culminated in a 'hilarious striptease and trash-disco lift off" (73). Although the interracial marriage underscores the context of the Troubles, this play remains unpublished and thus outside the scope of this project. 181

Despite Jones' substantial playwriting career to date, her work is undervalued in critical circles. Critics tend to focus on the history and collaborative methods of

Charabanc; their history as a theatre group in Northern Ireland is well documented.

However, there is still a lack of critical engagement with the actual plays that have been produced by Charabanc. Helen Lojek attributes this lack of critical attention to various factors: the collaborative nature of creation, the lack of published texts, and the marginalization of Charabanc as women's theatre and Northern Irish theatre ("Playing"

86-89). She further notes that "while Charabanc was praised for the vigour of its work, for its rollicking humour, and for attracting new audiences, full critical response never emerged" ("Playing" 88). Theatre critics, who reviewed the London premieres of both

Now You 're Talkin' at the Drill Hall in 1985 and Somewhere Over the Balcony at the

Drill Hall in 1987, most often praise Charabanc for their humour and wit: Jim Hiley calls

Now You 're Talkin' a "comedy of desperation" in which "The humour is cathartically and abundantly candid...", but he also suggests that "this is a funny play which promises but fails to be a great deal more" (861); and Carole Woddis suggests that Somewhere

Over the Balcony, "is perhaps the finest and funniest piece to come from the extraordinary Marie Jones" and "Apart from anything else, anyway this is a great night out" (1183). The marginalization of Jones' and Charabanc's work, as well as the general praise for their energy and vibrant wit, appears to have glossed over and replaced any in- depth, sustained analysis of the intricacies of their comedy and its encounters with the

Troubles in their oeuvre.

Although the success of Jones' Stones in His Pockets has drawn more critical 182 attention, what is still consistently overlooked in Jones' work is her "often unsettling interest in combining theatrical entertainment with genuine social engagement"

(Lonergan 165). Critics, moreover, continue to disregard how and why Jones adopts comedy to address and critique her society and specifically its Troubles. Maria R.

DiCenzo and Imelda Foley are two exceptions. DiCenzo argues that the seriousness of the politically-based Troubles in Northern Ireland and the comedy of Charabanc's theatre are conjoined in their plays (182). Foley also directly engages with the comedy and humour in Jones' plays. She addresses the comic inversions central to Jones' theatre: through comic form and endings "Jones envisages futures that are sometimes beyond her characters imaginings" (57). Ultimately, Foley suggests that the strength of Jones' comedies rests in the dialogue and "its sharp, caustic wit" (56). Margaret Llewellyn-Jones engages in a Bakhtinian reading of Jones' plays, but her emphasis is on Stones in His

Pockets, while her discussion of A Night in November offers a general observation rather than a detailed analysis of the carnivalesque transgressions in the play. Despite the work of DiCenzo, Foley and Llewellyn-Jones, there is a need for a more sustained and detailed analysis of Jones' comic contributions to the theatrical narratives on the Troubles, narratives that dramatize a complicated, tragicomic world that is often dark and chaotic, at times uplifting and hopeful, and always entertaining.

Jones and Charabanc4 foreground conflicting identities and ideologies in Now

You 're Talkin' to explore the challenges and realities of reconciliation among a

4 Jones is not accredited with sole authorship of Charabanc plays until after 1986. Although Now You're Talkin', in the volume of Charabanc's published plays, is attributed to both Jones and the Company, for the sake of brevity, I will hereafter refer solely to Jones when I make reference to the author. 183 religiously, socially, and politically divergent group of women. The women's many- voicedness underscores the difficulty—perhaps impossibility—of finding any unified resolution in a war-torn heteroglot. The play takes place at the Portrock Reconciliation

Centre, specifically created to foster communication between women from different communities and religions in Northern Ireland. The centre is run by Carter, an American, who leads the five women—Veronica, Collette, Madeline, Jackie, and Thelma—in a series of bonding exercises. However, his exercises, while they underscore an essential connection between the women, do not address either the historical and social conditions of the conflict that continues to divide them or the divergent multiplicities of the women's lives and experiences. Carter, the 'authorial' voice in the play, is the central object of ridicule, and the women, through grotesque and profane humour, often mock his misinformed attempts at reconciliation. Moreover, although the dialogues that take place beyond the structured exercises reveal deeper connections and similarities between the women, they also often underscore their religious, political, and social isolation from one another. Through carnivalesque forms, such as parody, farce, irony, the grotesque, and song, Jones ridicules limited and misguided attempts at reconciliation that seek unification without either fully recognizing or incorporating the elemental diversity of

Northern Irish voices, experiences, and perspectives.

The opening monologues in the play underscore the women's isolation, divisiveness, and their many-voicedness as they arrive individually at the reconciliation centre and on stage. Although the women acknowledge one another as they enter, they do not engage in dialogue and instead direct their words to the theatre audience. These 184 individual monologues serve to foreground the thoughts and ideologies of a diverse group of Northern Irish women and create an immediate connection between the audience and this heterogeneous community. Jackie, a "moderate Protestant" (2), carries and reads from a dictionary in an attempt to educate and open herself up to the possibility of change. Ironically, the words she reads aloud to the audience, "convolute" and

"convoke," underscore the complicated nature of any attempts to unite the diverse women on stage. Collette, a "moderate Catholic" (2), is the most openly feminist, while

Veronica, a "republican Catholic," is the most political. They both emphasize the opportunity to think beyond the harsh realities of their daily lives: for Veronica, a mother of five children, the weekend affords her a chance to "think about nobody but me for a change," while Collette plans "with all this peace and quiet [to] do a bit of thinking" (5).

Thelma, an "uncompromising Protestant" (2) is the most reluctant and class conscious of the women; she appears more concerned with losing her sixty pound coat than establishing a connection with the others on stage. Thelma begins her monologue by insisting that "I shouldn't be here" (5). Interestingly, Madeline, the most comically irreverent voice in the play and the one who tends to reduce complex abstractions and ideologies to a more simple and material reality, is absent from the opening scene.

Ultimately, the individual monologues and the divisiveness evident in the opening scene ironically suggest that this attempt to bring the women together—"convoke"— underscores the complexities—"convolute"—of their ideological differences and divisions. Through diverse women's voices and monologues Jones challenges any unitary—or even binary—understanding of Northern Irish women. Moreover, the 185 monologues foreground an essential irony in the play: although these women are physically together on stage, they are psychologically and socially isolated by a long history of economic, political, and religious divisions. The monologue form, in particular, underscores the difficulty of meaningful dialogue between this conflicting group of ideologues.

Jones sets the women and their divergent ideologies against Carter, the well- meaning but misinformed American male organizer of the weekend retreat, whose essentialist and static understanding of Northern Ireland—and the women—informs his attempts at unification. As the leader of the retreat, he is the central figure of authority on stage. However, Jones immediately challenges Carter's position through Collette: "The

Group Leader's a man... that's just typical... we're a group of women—this is about bringing women together! There are some women who cannot assert themselves—they won't even see the ridiculousness of the situation..(3). Although Collette's criticisms are also directed at the women, the true object of ridicule in the play is Carter and his unilateral perspective. He is central to Jones' parody of well-intentioned but misinformed foreign programs and interventions in Northern Ireland, which overlook the historical, religious, political, economic, and social context of the Troubles. Claudia Harris notes,

"Charabanc's work consistently undercuts superficial solutions with biting irony"

("Inventing" xxxiv). Carter's new age, essentialist exercises continually fail to address the material realities and differences of the women's lives. In his first exercise, in which he asks the women to explain what the word "freedom" means to them, Carter very obviously ignores Veronica's political response, "freedom for Ireland!" (6). His inability 186

to foresee the ideological ramifications of the term, as well as his refusal to address

Veronica's politicized interpretation and the ensuing awkward silence, undermines his

credibility. This failure to acknowledge the women's politics also suggests a longer,

misogynist history of dismissing women as apolitical.

Carter's shortsightedness is further dramatized by his inability to comprehend the composite history tied to the land itself. In attempting to divert the women's attention from the failed freedom exercise, Carter tells them to look out the window at the beauty of nature:

CARTER: (starting to move expressively around the room) I want you to look out and listen to the silence... it's the silence of the land.. .that no words can convey. The silence of land, the water, the rocks. Feel the passage of the lonely bird flying across the ravine... the wash of wind on a field of small purple flowers... the land... our land yours and mine. Now, can anybody tell me what the word 'unite' means? THELMA: It means 'join together.' CARTER: And we are going to join together. (Carter joins their hands together. Everyone looks awkward.) Join together in enjoying the silence. (7)

Carter's emotive speech, punctuated by his melodramatic movement and pauses, is

reminiscent of the emigrant's or the tourist's quixotic idealization of Ireland. Moreover,

his insistence that "through nature we can find our real selves" underscores his essentialism, and although he includes himself in the equation, the use of such essentialist views of nature and humanity reduces the individual women to a highly problematic and misogynist definition of universal womanhood and its inherent ties to biology and the land. Veronica, however, preemptively challenges Carter's idealization of the Northern

Irish landscape through a dose of her personal vista: "You're dead lucky though, Carter. 187

When I luk out my window y'see a dirty great big wall with 'Fuck the U.V.F.' written on it" (7). Veronica's transgression is carnivalesque: she challenges the authorial voice in the session through the language of the marketplace, where everyday "abusive language, insulting words or expressions" supplanted official discourse (Bakhtin, Rabelais 16-17).

Veronica's prosaic description reminds spectators—and Carter—that the women's daily realities are far removed from the idealized landscape of Carter's Northern Ireland.

Despite the women's voices and protests, Carter compels the women to unite by joining their hands; however, the superficiality and the absurdity of this imposed physical unification are underscored by the women's awkward responses.

Jones further ridicules Carter's unilateral perspective, and his subsequent inability to recognize the importance of either the women's multiplicities or the sociopolitical context of Northern Ireland, through Madeline, the central and most comic voice in the play. A return visitor to the centre, Madeline's carnivalesque entrance includes 'crashing' the weekend and thereby dismantling Carter's set, structured group (two Catholics and two Protestants). Her challenges are reminiscent of Bakhtin's theories of grotesque humour: she serves most often to degrade and ridicule the unitary voices of authority in the text by reducing them to their more material reality and meanings. Bakhtin argues that the essential principle of the grotesque is degradation: "That is, the lowering of all that is high, spiritual, ideal, abstract; it is a transfer to the material level" (Rabelais 19).

Grotesque humour evokes laughter that "degrades and materializes" (20) and essentially

"brings down to earth and turns their subject into flesh" (20). Bakhtin directly equates the grotesque with the body itself; however, he extends this to include all of the lower, 188

material realities of the body and its functions, including "acts of defecation and

copulation, conception, pregnancy and birth" (21). Madeline, the carnival clown, evokes

the materiality of the body and its functions in her degradation of Carter and his

essentialist ideals. Madeline arrives just after the women have completed the "wee walk

on the beach caper" (11) in which the women were asked to collect pieces of nature (sea

shells, rocks, leaves, etc.) and use these raw materials to express themselves. She mocks

the exercise in her story about Big Irene: "We'd a geg when we done that. Big Irene, my

chum, found this used Durex on the beach. 'Here,' she was to Carter, 'Carter, how do you

express yourself w'that?... I was cut to the bone" (11).

Madeline's grotesque humour and practical nature stand in stark contrast to

Carter's essentialist psychobabble. Refuting Carter's abstract, fixed ideals, Madeline

directly addresses the material context of their lives: "Like, I don't care what yous are,

Catholics or Protestants, it's all the same to me. The way I look at it—you can't ate a

Union Jack or a Tricolour for your dinner" (11). Collette suggests that Madeleine's

analysis of the situation is "a bit simplistic," but Madeline reasons, "All our problems are simple, love. It's people like to complicate them so that when they've sorted them out

it'll make them think they've done somethin'" (11). Ironically, Carter's attempts to

"complicate" the Troubles in Northern Ireland involve an attempt to reduce the women to their essential selves, devoid of their heterogeneous identities and ideologies. Perhaps

Madeline's explanation is a simplification, but unlike Carter's emphasis that the women are essentially the same, Madeline underscores the reality of the women's lives: they are in fact divided by religion, as well as varying allegiances to Britain (the Union Jack) and 189 to Ireland (the Tricolour). She also challenges and degrades the abstract, entrenched concepts and loyalties that fuel sectarianism by addressing the more practical reality that such abstractions can never fulfill the human body's very real need for sustenance.

Nevertheless, as the carnivalesque fool, Madeline's transgressions are ambivalent: while she undermines Carter and recognizes the women's differences and divisions, she simultaneously reaffirms the tendency to understand the Troubles and Northern Ireland in terms of set binaries. Madeline's carnivalesque diminutions inadvertently undermine the deeper complexities of the women's experiences and voices.

Jones most fully dramatizes the tendency to reduce identities in Northern Ireland to static binaries through Carter's final exercise, "The Farmer and the Cowman Should be

Friends." Here, Jones also continues her ridiculing of Carter's naive disregard for the multiplicities of the women's identities. The exercise is based on Roger and

Hammerstein's song from the American musical Oklahoma! By placing the women's discord in an American context, Carter once again disregards the immediate social, political, and historical context of the Troubles and the women's lives. Nevertheless, his allotment of the women into two groups, whether ignorantly or intentionally, underscores their differences as Catholics and Protestants, and thus, he perpetuates the divisions between them: Carter asks Thelma and Jackie, the Protestant women, to be the 'farmers' and Madeline, Veronica and Collette, the Catholic women, to be the 'cowmen.' The two groups underscore the history of segregation and oppression between the more prosperous and powerful Protestant minority (the two farmers) and the oppressed

Catholic majority (the three cowman) in Northern Ireland. Collette recognizes the 190

stereotypes immediately: "Cause they're Protestants i.e. 'farmers' and we're Catholics

i.e. 'cow men', right?" (21). Carter's positive response implies that his division is

strategic and for the first time he is addressing the historical dissonance between these

women. However, his exercise merely perpetuates the stereotypes and discord between

Protestants and Catholics and reproduces the historical inequalities upon which

sectarianism is based. While most of the women play along, Veronica reacts with disdain

and irreverence. When Carter asks her to join in, she ridicules and degrades the exercise:

"(moving seductively towards Carter and lifting her skirt). I've come for ma boy. How's

about you comin' up to my haystack sometime? God, you're a dickhead!" (22).

Veronica's profane attack reduces Carter to an object of ridicule and desire. In a later

scene, Carter is further reduced and objectified when Collette, Jackie, Veronica, and

Madeline reveal that lust was the central motivating factor for their enthusiastic

participation in Carter's bonding exercises. In the end, "The Farmer and the Cowman

Should be Friends" experiment moves from the manic chaos of Veronica's irreverent

interruptions to a botched attempt at a celebratory barn dance and finally a "full scale

row" in which "Jackie and Veronica come to blows" (23). Instead of connection, Carter's superficial and seemingly innocuous reconciliation exercise ends in violence between the women and a direct attack on Carter. Jackie "lunges at Carter" and tells him to "fuck off'

(23). The chaos of the scene reduces Carter to an ignorant bystander who is physically forced from the room. The scene suggests the consequences of Carter's inability to fully comprehend and address the women's diversity: the onstage heteroglossia of conflicting ideologies, when confined to limiting and static labels, quite literally explodes into the 191 din of chaos.

Jones' parodic dramatization of unification is ambivalent and reflects the challenges of reconciling conflicting ideologies and voices. Ironically, it is the women's communal rejection of Carter and his meaningless abstractions, as well as their shared objectification of him, that creates the first moment of union in the play. The liminal space of the centre—as a site removed from the Troubles, located somewhere between

Carter's mythic Northern Ireland and the women's everyday realities—suggests a potential space for resolution and change. Rather than dramatize any kind of idealized reconciliation between the women, however, Jones uses this moment of solidarity and the women's coincidental 'occupation' of the centre to parody both the history of political protest in Northern Ireland and the women themselves. The reconciliation centre is turned into a site of political protest when the women refuse to leave and the newspapers misinterpret and misrepresent the context of their actions, reporting, "A group of women have barricaded themselves in a room in Atlantic View, a reconciliation centre in

Portrock... The women, a mixed group of Catholic and Protestant housewives, have not yet stated their demands or, indeed, the reason for the protest. The women... are not believed to be armed" (37). Rather than immediately challenge this incorrect, authorial version, however, the women revel in their newfound fame. Madeline and Veronica are particularly excited about their new celebrity status: Madeline sings, "I'm a star, superstar...!" while Veronica sings, "I'm a rebel, super rebel" (37). Veronica's song reflects her unrelenting republican politics, but it is Madeline who eventually undermines and ridicules the newspapers embellishment of the women's protest. Madeline, in an 192

attempt to defuse Jackie's concerns regarding the news report, challenges the authority of

the media through wordplay:

JACKIE: ...They mentioned arms! MADELINE: Well, so we have love... I've two, he's two, she's two...! COLLETTE: Aye, you're a bloody comedian, Madeline. (37)

Madeline, the comedian and carnival clown, uses a pun to ridicule the media's

interpretation of events. The material reality is that all the women do in fact have arms

attached to very real bodies. Madeline, in her comic and practical way, underscores how

easily words can be employed to suit a specific purpose. The drama of a political

occupation and the potential presence of weapons may sell news, but it is far removed

from the reality of the women's situation at the Portrock Reconciliation Centre. Harris

notes that the media is further lampooned in the final moments of the play: "One of the

more telling details of the play is that Thelma, who has largely been uninvolved, becomes

the spokesperson for the media's confusion" ("Inventing" xxxiv). Jones' carnivalesque

parody degrades all involved: she parodies not only the voices of power and authority in

the play but also the women themselves. According to Bakhtin, "Festive [carnival]

laughter is also directed at those who laugh" {Rabelais 12), and this includes Carter, the

media, and the women.

Jones' parody of the women, which revolves around their coincidental

"occupation" and ensuing attempts to initiate their own means of reconciliation, involves

an interrogation of a unification process that does not allow all voices equal expression.

Jones denies the women and the audience a neat and tidy reconciliation process and

chooses instead to continue her parody as the women discuss various solutions and ideas 193

regarding reconciliation in Northern Ireland. Ultimately, she interrogates the assumption

that women are more peaceful and open to compromise than men. She does this

specifically through the women's treatment of Veronica, the most radical and political

voice in the group. When Veronica refuses to take part in their attempts to "listen and cooperate" (35), the others in a farcical moment tie her up and gag her. Jones undermines the supposition that women are more amenable to inclusive dialogues through the

women's attempt to silence the central voice of dissent. Ironically, Collette, a fellow

Catholic, initiates the literal and physical silencing of Veronica:

COLLETTE: You should be supporting me! (To Veronica.) Will you shut up! Right, I'll shut you up! (Collette grabs a scarffrom one of the beds and gags Veronica with it. Madeline and Jackie tie Veronica's hands and legs to the end of one of the bunks.) COLLETTE: (while Veronica is being tied up.) How's that feel, Veronica? Somebody's silenced you for a change! God, I'm so sick of people like you! You see, I know you and your sort, you don't fool me. I'm tired of the violence, of what people like you have done to this country. Why can't you leave well alone? Green, bloody fascists! You don't liberate anybody. You oppress them! (Stops—shocked at what they have done.) I'm sorry, it simply had to be done for your own good (42)

Collette's reference to oppression as the women physically suppress and silence Veronica is particularly ironic. Moreover, Collette's extreme, impetuous reaction—she herself is shocked by her actions—is indicative of the fierce divide regarding republicanism and its political goals within the Catholic community. Tellingly, it is the comically defiant

Madeline and the more moderate Jackie who help Collette. Madeline's direct involvement in the scene underscores the ambivalence of carnival and of the scene itself.

As carnival clown, she readily takes part in the farce and chaos of gagging the more politically dominant—or, at the very least, the loudest—voice on stage. However, she 194

also undermines the free and open exchange—the equalization of voices—that is a

central part of carnival. Moreover, as a Catholic woman from Northern Ireland,

Madeline's—and Collette's—participation in the binding and gagging of another

Catholic woman suggests that the women are complicit in their own oppression, as well

as the perpetuation of the Troubles. The binding and gagging of Veronica, the republican

voice on stage, also recalls the public ban on Gerry Adams and his republican politics in

Northern Ireland during the 1980s.5 According to Bakhtin, "a genuine polyphony"

consists not only of "a plurality of individual and unmerged voices and consciousnesses"

but also a plurality "of fully valid voices" {Problems 6). A genuine polyphony that might

lead to meaningful communication, and perhaps even reconciliation, is undermined

through the silencing of Veronica.

Jones further dramatizes the ambivalence of this scene through the women's

decision to dress Isaac as Veronica for a newspaper interview. Crossdressing in the form

of cross-gender casting was a central feature of Charabanc productions: "A hallmark of

the company—women playing the male characters as they viewed them—became a distinctive stylistic technique over the first several years" (Harris, "Inventing" xxviii).6 In

an interview, Jones has noted that the original audiences at first "found [the crossdressing] hilarious, then they loved it" (Martin 91). The crossdressing in the original

5 In October 1988, British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher placed a public ban on the media broadcast of Gerry Adam's voice (the ban covered approximately eleven nationalist and unionist paramilitary organizations). According to Thatcher, the ban was put into place to "starve the terrorist and the hijacker of the oxygen of publicity on which they depend" (qtd. in Edgerton 115). Prime Minister John Major lifted the ban on September 17, 1994. 6 Charabanc's practice of cross-gender casting was not developed from a feminist political agenda and rather came out of necessity because "They were unable to find unemployed male actors who fit the ACE scheme and who also wanted to be involved in the company. So the women put on cloth caps and jackets and played the male roles themselves, and both male and female audience members loved the audacity of it" (Harris, "Inventing" xxviii). 195 production of Now You 're Talkin', however, was confined to the onstage transformation of Isaac: a male actor, Aidan McCann, played Isaac in the original production. While

Isaac's disguise as a woman recalls the use of crossdressing in Shakespeare's festive

comedies, the comedy of Issac's makeover is overshadowed by the darker ironies of the scene: the women would prefer to present a man in drag than allow Veronica an opportunity to speak. The ironic resonances of Isaac's transformation are particularly evident in Charabanc's use of doubling during the original performances: Aidan McCann

played both Isaac and Carter. The presence of McCann underscores the women's paradoxical, yet obdurate negation of another woman's voice in favour of a man's presence (Issac's or Carter's). Ultimately, Jones combines carnivalesque chaos with the darker implications of the women's collusion in the continuation of the Troubles.

Nevertheless, the fact that the women begin to converse with one another suggests the beginnings of a dialogue. The two endings included in the published text indicate the seeds for dialogic interaction. In both versions Veronica, rather than leaving, turns and begins to talk to Jackie. The original ending of the play suggests hope and connection between the two women:

JACKIE: It is too late now... (Grabs Veronica's hand and leads her to the window.) Look out there... tell me what you see?... Thelma, the true-blue Brit... and there are thousands like her who are not going to give an inch... how are you going to make people like that come with you into a new Ireland? VERONICA: (quietly). What other choice do you have... 'Fight to defend Ulster until every drop of Protestant blood has been spilt'? (SFX 'The Farmer and the Cow Man Should be Friends'). (52-53)

Despite their unaltered ideological differences, the physical act of holding hands dramatizes both a connection and a hope for future reconciliation between the divergent 196

women and the communities they represent. The quietness of Veronica's response also

suggests a move away from the non-negotiable terms and ideologies she has steadfastly

adhered to and loudly proclaimed throughout the play. However, the fact that this final

dialogue takes play between Veronica (a Catholic) and Jackie (a Protestant) reduces this

final tableau to the traditional, set binaries at the root of the conflict. The members of

Charabanc were unsatisfied with this initial ending and struggled to create a more truthful

conclusion for the play. Jones, in an early interview, states, "In our third play [AW

You 're Talkin "] (sic) we couldn't find an ending. It was about the present. We were frightened of leaving it at a moment where people could say, 'Ah, that's what Charabanc thinks, that's a statement.' We invited people we trusted to come and see it and asked

them what they thought of the ending. People made different suggestions, and we tried

them" (qtd. in Martin 92). Charabanc's experimentation with different endings

underscores their polyvocal process of creation and their commitment to presenting the

diverse voices of their communities.

The second ending published in the play text—a version Jones and Charabanc

rewrote with Ian Mcllhenny, the director for their 1986 Canadian tour—suggests a more

openended dialogic interaction between the two women. Harris reports that Charabanc

believed that the changes to the new ending make the play "more 'honest'" ("Inventing"

xxxv). This second ending, while less hopeful, underscores both the women's differences

and the central, biting ironies of the play:

JACKIE: What choice do you have now, bomb them into a United Ireland? VERONICA: What choice do you have... 'Fight to defend Ulster until every drop of Protestant blood has been spilt'? (They look at each 197

other with nothing left to say. Veronica leaves. Jackie leaves slowly. SFX music 'The Farmer and the Cowman should be friends'). (54)

While there is no definitive reunion or resolution between Jackie and Veronica, the ending suggests that reconciliation can only begin when both sides recognize the core differences that are at the root of sectarianism. The play's openendedness prompts questions and further discussions rather than any kind of change or solution. Although the second ending concludes in silence and division between Jackie and Veronica, Harris argues that hope was in fact the essential ingredient for the play's success: "But the play was popular because it hinted at a possible solution, a way to end the stalemate, and offered hope. In a divided society like Northern Ireland, the hunger for solutions is, in itself, hopeful" ("Inventing" xxxvii). In this sense, hope lies with the audience and their receptiveness. Harris suggests that the core meaning of the play is listening: "To avoid the violence in Northern Ireland, as the play points out, what is imperative is not more talk nor better talkers but more and better listening" ("Inventing" xxxviii). The listeners at the end of the play are the audience members. While they silently witness the attempt and failure of communication between Veronica and Jackie, they are faced with the biting irony of "The Farmer and the Cowman should be friends" reprise. Nevertheless, by the very nature of traditional theatre, they represent ideal listeners who do not interrupt and instead listen to, and perhaps recognize, the hope embedded in the women's attempts to reach reconciliation.

The community-based performances of Now You 're Talkin' also underscore a dialogic connection between the women on stage and the mixed audiences who attended 198 the initial production. Methven has noted in an interview that the Arts Theatre in Belfast, where Now You 're Talkin' premiered, was one of the two theatres in Belfast, where

Charabanc normally performed, that drew a mixed audience (Martin 94).7 The potentially liminal space of the Arts Theatre afforded Jones and Charabanc an opportunity to engage their audiences in an open dialogue through comedy and through their potential laughter.

Interestingly, Jones has said of the original audiences: "the more sectarian they are, the more they laugh"; Methven explains that "It's a release for them" (Martin 94).8 Mary

Moynihan and Paul Kennedy, cofounders of Smashing Times Theatre Company, suggest that comedy "is important for tackling core issues within any community, particularly when using comedy that is rooted in the community identity but also looking ahead to ask in what ways the community needs to change" (127). Comic theatre becomes a creative means in which "to encourage change for a better and more inclusive society" (Moynihan and Kennedy 125). Jones does not offer a solution to the Troubles or an immediate means to initiate reconciliation; however, she does paint a realistic portrait of the difficulties in finding a resolution and leaves it with the audience to imagine more.

Jones and Charabanc9 continue and develop their carnivalesque, pluralistic explorations of the Troubles in Somewhere Over the Balcony, which many consider to be

Charabanc's best work. Although there are fewer women speaking—a chorus of three—

7 The other venue is The Group Theatre. 81 was unable to locate any reviews of the original performances of Now You 're Talkin' at the Arts Theatre, and thus, I can only address the more general laughter invoked by Charabanc's plays as noted by Jones and Methven. Also, although there are no specific references to audience laughter in the reviews of the play's London production at the Drill Hall, critics agree that it is a very "funny," comic play (Asquith 861; Bosley 861; Hiley 861). 9 By 1986, Jones had become Charabanc's principle writer and the authorship of Somewhere Over the Balcony, in the volume of Charabanc's published works, is attributed solely to Jones. Thus, 1 will hereafter refer to Jones as the play's author. 199

the din of the chaos on the streets below the balcony is reflected in the multilayered,

multi-genred form of the play. In the play, Jones uses overlapping carnivalesque and comic genres and devices, including satire, parody, farce, irony, fantasy, verbal wit, song, comic confusion, disguise, a wedding, rhymes, and a (tragic)comic chorus, all amidst a

building demolition, an occupation and hostage-taking, joyriding, and the 'normal' everyday Belfast sounds of ambulances, helicopters, bombs, and gunfire. The multiple forms and styles of the play reflect the heterogeneity of carnival and "its great variety of manifestations" (Bakhtin, Rabelais 59). Jones combines these multiplicities in content and form with a carnivalesque parody of the traditional conventions of comedy.10 Bakhtin suggests that parody itself is "double-voiced and double-languaged" ("Discourse" 337), and as such, Jones' use of parody adds an additional level to the plurality of discourses in the play. Through a strategic subversion of comic conventions Jones destabilizes not only a static perception of West Belfast and its women but also any unified resolution in the multifarious, chaotic, and absurd world of the Troubles.

Somewhere Over the Balcony is a raucous comedy in which Jones ridicules and parodies the chaos that encompasses Northern Ireland's and specifically West Belfast's status quo. The programme note for the 1987 performance at the Drill Hall in England explains that the play "examines that bizarre kind of existence that passes for normality when people are trying to live their lives in a crazy incomprehensible uncontrollable situation" (qtd. in Harris, Rev. of Somewhere 47). The 'action' of the play involves three

10 Harris, in her explication of the play's genesis, captures its central carnival spirit: "This unique play sprang from a dream of Eleanor's [Methven] in which slap-stick, pie-throwing clowns exposed the senselessness of the situation surrounding her. From that craziness this farce was born" (Rev. of Somewhere 47). 200 women on a balcony in Catholic, West Belfast, as they narrate the events happening on the streets below. The central event, a wedding, invokes the traditional ending and reconciliation of comedy. However, Jones' treatment is farcical and parodic as the wedding quickly turns into a madcap political occupation and protest involving the wedding party. The wedding becomes the focal point of Jones' parody of political occupation, but unlike the political protest in Now You 're Talkinwhich underscores the need to listen and cooperate, in Somewhere Over the Balcony, the parody serves to underscore the essential chaos of contemporary Belfast. True to comedy, the occupation is caused by the comic confusion and chaos of the players below the balcony, including the wedding party themselves, the British soldiers, and the children and pets of the female chorus above.

In the play, Jones adopts and subverts the forms of Old Comedy to capture not only the heterogeneity but also the complexities and chaos of Northern Ireland's absurd status quo. Susan Carlson argues that Aristophanic comedy's "loose narrative, unpredictable endings, openness about bodies and their functions, its self-consciousness

(especially its choral interruptions) and its 'discontinuity of character' all parallel qualities in contemporary women's comedy" (183-84). Jones' combination of farce, parody and the contemporary politics of the Troubles recall Aristophanes, whose comic pleas for peace and an ending to the Peloponnesian wars offer an historical and fitting dramatic ancestor for Jones, who likewise has lived most of her adult life in war times.

The ambivalent, topsy-turvy world of Jones' Northern Ireland, however, is much darker than Aristophanes' ancient Athens with its phalluses, sex wars, and bird councils. Jones' 201

comedic Northern Ireland is populated with the darker and more sinister bombs, sirens,

helicopters, guns, and soldiers that fill the streets of contemporary Belfast; her use of

satire, farce, and bawdy humour is constantly shadowed by the more troubling and tragic

realities of the immediate violence and volatility of West Belfast. Unlike the ancient

Greek playwrights, who kept tragedy and comedy very separate in their plays, Jones

unselfconsciously and strategically mixes elements of both the comic and the tragic to

further underscore the ambiguities of the Troubles. Moreover, the formal nature of Old

Comedy, replete with its central 'happy idea' and its resolution and return to the

established status quo, is itself satirized. Jones ridicules the status quo of war itself,

holding up a microscope to the kind of chaos, violence, and hatred that is accepted as

normal. Jones ultimately rejects the closure of Old Comedy, and rather, through an ambivalent, carnivalesque lens, she captures the chaos, violence, madness, and the essential humour that make up Northern Ireland and its contemporary Troubles.

Jones' ambivalent, multifarious representation of West Belfast, and her revision of comic and dramatic forms, is captured in the polyvocal chorus in the play. Ceely, Kate, and Rose, while they may not reflect the divergent ideologies of the women in Now

You 're Talkin', represent a polyphony "of fully valid voices" (Bakhtin, Problems 6).

Their varying experiences and perspectives also challenge any static reading of women in

West Belfast. Jones' chorus not only offers commentary on the events taking place just over the balcony through ironic song but also through monologue and dialogue. In essence, the trio recalls the tragic choruses of ancient Greece. Harris suggests, "Like a surreal Greek chorus, Ceely, Rose, and Kate comment on the absurd action taking place 202 just over the balcony. In fact, the similarity to Greek drama is remarkable since all the action takes place off stage and the unities of time and place and character are adhered to" ("Inventing" xliv). The women in many ways do resemble a tragic Greek chorus: they serve as our guide through the chaotic, war-torn world of West Belfast below; they serve as an emotional bridge between spectator and narrated events; and they themselves act as spectators to the events below. However, Jones' chorus also resembles a comic chorus.

The women constantly shout orders, directives, and common sense advice to the

'characters' below the balcony. Through their verbal commands, this chorus of women takes a more direct role in the action and thereby recalls the comic choruses in ancient

Greek theatre. When the women observe Ceely's son Tucker driving the Saracen with her dog Pepe in tow, they all take part in offering advice:

ROSE: Tucker! Knock his shite in. KATE: Hold on tight, Pepe! CEELY: Tucker, put your seatbelt on... you'll get arrested! (201)

Their directives underscore both the violent and more tragic realities of Northern

Ireland—Rose's suggestion that Tucker knock the dole snooper's "shite in"—as well as the more mundane and ironic reality that although he has just stolen an army vehicle,

Ceely's main concern is that Tucker put on his seatbelt or he will be arrested. The women's responses also suggest different ideological positions regarding the events below the balcony. While Ceely's motherly response is neutral, even apolitical, Kate appears to both encourage Pepe and caution him about safety. Rose is the most overtly political in her advice, encouraging Tucker to violence. Their multifarious thoughts and reactions throughout the play undermine any attempts to label these women republican, 203

Catholic, or even simply mothers.

The initial performances of Somewhere Over the Balcony added an additional level of polyvocality: the three women were played by Sarah Jones, Eleanor Methven, and Carol Scanlon, actresses from Protestant communities in Northern Ireland. Methven has stated in an interview that Charabanc's decision to set the play in West Belfast derived in part from "a continuous questioning. That's what Charabanc was, a questioning all the time" (Lojek, "Eleanor" 346). Part of this questioning is perhaps aimed at the labels that separated the company members from the women they interviewed from the Divis Flats in West Belfast during the play's development. The theatrical polyvocality of the original production encompassed the Protestant actresses' creative translation and performance of the words and experiences of the Catholic working-class women they interviewed.11 Jones' chorus, then, constitutes not only an interesting amalgamation of tragic and comic choruses into one group—which underscores the tragicomic nature of the play and the society it represents—but also a theatrical amalgamation of Protestant and Catholic women's voices and the polyphonic potential embodied in this fusion.

The polyvocality of Jones' chorus of women is also reflected in their heterogeneous, comic voices, most fully captured in an exchange between Rose and "an imaginary soldier." The exchange also comically undermines any unitary interpretation of Rose's ideological position. In the chaotic, topsy-turvy world of West Belfast, the

" Both Carol Scanlan and Eleanor Methven stress their awareness of their privileged position during the interviews and the performances, while Scanlan believes that the company "grew up politically from that experience [of talking to women in West Belfast]" (Lojek, "Eleanor" 346). 204 seemingly more political Rose is arrested for being in the possession of "an offensive weapon":

ROSE: What?... offensive weapon?... no it's only polish... look. (Sprays at the imaginary soldier.) Ooops sorry... It's just to clean this riot helmet... no not a real riot, it's in case of toilet bowls... oh you mean this is an offensive weapon? (Indicating truncheon.)... No it's not... well, I suppose it would be if you were to be offensive with it, but it's not goin' to offend nobody... it's just for my man's work, and this is only an oul' bin lid I brought out to polish... for I'm sure you know yourself how your bin can get... it's just for my husband's head and the soldiers on the whispering stairs—no, not live soldiers, dead soldiers. No, not real dead soldiers... ghosts... throwin' toilet bowls... Here, mister, you can't arrest me. I've two wee twins not washed yet. (She exits). (201-02)

Rose's words underscore how mundane objects, along with objects more directly tied to war and violence, have become "offensive" in the absurd context of contemporary

Northern Ireland. As a wife and mother living in Belfast, she possesses polish, a truncheon, a riot helmet, and the more ambiguous bin lid. The ellipses in the text, along with this mixing of commonplace and potentially violent objects, complicate any static understanding of Rose's politics. Bin lids, in particular, while necessary items in keeping one's home clean, also speak to a long history of resistance in Northern Ireland. Women in West Belfast have banged bin lids since the start of the Troubles to warn the community when the British army entered their neighbourhoods. This history of resistance and violence is also underscored by Rose's reference to "dead soldiers" and

"ghosts" and Kate's earlier and seemingly innocuous reference to the ghosts of soldiers believed to haunt the stairwells in the empty building across the street (196-97). The comedy is inherent in the misunderstandings—and multiple meanings—of Rose's explanation and in her final, practical, motherly plea: she cannot be arrested, not solely 205

because she has young twins but more importantly because her young twins have yet to be washed. Ultimately, Rose's exit signals her entry, as a comic chorus member, a

mother, and a political offender, into the immediate, absurd action below the balcony.

Jones' composite dramatization of the absurdities and paradoxes of West Belfast is also captured through a parody of traditional comic heroes. Jones critiques the traditional, static ideal of heroism that informs the Troubles through a farcical parody of the traditional, 'low' born protagonists of comedy. While the women subsume the role of comic chorus in the play, the true "heroes" include an elderly man, the women's children, dogs, and even a pet turtle. Foley suggests that "The real hero worship is reserved for the canine vigilantes, Pepe and Rambo McGlinchey... Pepe and Rambo are the real custodians of Divis Flats and protect its inhabitants from all outside forces. The two dogs have survived plastic bullets and whatever else to protect their community" (44). Ceely and Rose, worried for the children's safety, are reassured by Kate who insists that the soldiers "can't touch them children because Rambo is standin' guard. He would ate them soldiers if they came near" (219). The parody is taken to farcical heights when Ceely's young son, Tucker, the aging Granda Tucker, along with Pepe and a pet tortoise named

Starsky, hijack an army helicopter, kidnap a British army major, and demand the immediate consecration of Charlene Macaldooney and Danny Hagan's wedding. These unlikely heroes not only make certain that the pregnant bride is married before her baby is born but also that the conventions of comedy are met by ensuring that a final wedding and celebration takes place. Through creating such unlikely, farcical heroes, such as a dog who rebelliously "shites" at the foot of the chapel doors and in front of three hundred 206 soldiers (210), Jones destabilizes the very nature of heroism both in general and in the specific, senseless context of contemporary Northern Ireland. Moreover, through the image of children in RUC riot helmets, stolen Saracens, and army helicopters, Jones interrogates the absurdity of a world in which children are forced to be heroes. Here, she engages in a parody of both context and form: she parodies both the conventions of comedy, as well as the absurd reality of the Troubles.

Jones continues her ambivalent parody through the polyphonic, satirical final song, "The Sun is Shining," which simultaneously captures and subverts the traditional, happy ending of comedy. While the final song presents a united community of women expounding an optimistic vision of Belfast, it also contains central ironies that undermine any hope for a happy ending for the chorus of women or West Belfast:

The sun is shinin' and the bees are a hummin' Flowers are a bloomin' and the Lord is a comin' Yes, the Lord is a comin' Yes, the Lord is a comin.'

Kids are a playin' and the dogs are a barkin' Mothers are a laughin' and the Saints are a marchin' Yes, the Saints are a marchin' Yes, the Saints are a marchin' Yes, the Saints are a marchin'! Hey, Mister Maker, we know you care Cos' we're nearer to heaven than the folks down there. Yes, the Lord is a comin' And the Saints are a marchin' And the Lord is a comin' And the Saints are a marchin.'

Hey, Mister Maker, we know you care. Cos we're nearer to heaven than the folks down there. (224)

The women's insistence that they are "nearer to heaven than the folks down there" takes 207

on both literal and ironic meanings: literally, their height makes them closer to God, but

ironically, they are closer to death than others. The liminal space of the high-rise

balcony—between the warring "folks" below and God—highlights this ambivalence,

suggesting both entrapment and possibility. While hope is captured in the women's

closeness to heaven, their proximity to death is reflected not only by the violence of the

Troubles but also the reality that one of the women's children died falling in the high rise.

The images of the Belfast—to which "the Lord is a comin"'—in the final song are far

removed from the realities of the women's lives and undercut Kate's earlier insistence,

"That's what I love about a place like this [Belfast]. On a day like today you could be

anywhere" (223). In fact, the children and dogs are not "a playin'" and "a barkin'" as the

song suggests, and rather, they are at the front lines of the action and violence, guarding

the tenements and stealing army vehicles in the specific site of a troubled West Belfast.

The central irony is that Ceely, Rose, and Kate are in fact much further from heaven, with

its images of peace and redemption, than they could ever imagine. In reality, the women

are trapped in their high rise, and they can only hope for a happy ending "somewhere over the balcony." The title is itself an ironic allusion to "Somewhere Over the Rainbow"

from The Wizard of Oz and further underscores the fantastical nature of the women's optimism.

Jones combines the ironies of the final song with a carnivalesque rescripting of the traditional ending of comedy to underscore the essential paradoxes of contemporary

Northern Ireland. As Linda Hutcheon argues, parody is inherently political and paradoxical: "As a form of ironic representation, parody is doubly coded in political 208 terms: it both legitimizes and subverts that which it parodies" (99). Jones strategically and paradoxically adopts and subverts the traditional ending of comedy by suggesting a return to the status quo: in the wake of the heroes' intervention, the stage direction reads,

"a long pause as if now everything is back to normal" (223). Such a suggestion of normality, however, is highly questionable and ironic in the bizarre and tragicomic world of West Belfast. Nevertheless, Jones' mixture of the tragic and the comic also captures the inherent ambivalence of carnival; it is an ambivalence that according to Bakhtin connects life and death, decay and renewal. Bakhtin argues that the connection between life and death in the camivalesque underscores the renewal and rebirth that is everpresent even in images of death and decay (Rabelais 24, 50). This ambivalence is most evident in

Jones' juxtaposition of a wedding, a pregnant bride and imminent birth, the violence and chaos in the streets, and an impending funeral. Mary Trotter notes, "In true comedic form the play does indeed end with a wedding..." ("Women Playwrights" 129). However,

Rose's final reference to a funeral as they bring "wee Susie Quinn's coffin out to the chapel" (223) in fact subverts the traditional comic ending while it reminds audience members and Ceely—who "forgot about the funeral" (223)—of the persistent presence of tragedy in Northern Ireland. Susie Quinn's funeral, and the ironic references to God and heaven in the chorus' final song, intimates that the status quo to which the women return is still overshadowed by the tragic realities of the Troubles. Nevertheless, the camivalesque juxtaposition of comedy (wedding) and tragedy (funeral), and the impending birth of a baby, also suggests a renewal and rebirth even amidst the chaos and confusion of the play's events. 209

Jones' refusal of either resolution or a compact return to the status quo at the end of the play reflects not only the ambivalence of carnival but also the openendedness of

many contemporary, feminist comedies. A return to the fixed norms of a male- dominated, contemporary Northern Ireland would ultimately silence this vivacious and strong-minded female chorus, and thus, the openendedness of the play is feminist in its focus on female voices that are neither questioned nor silenced. Through pluralistic forms and devices, a polyphonic comic chorus, and a lack of closure, Jones embraces the openendedness and ambivalence of carnival and refuses any concrete, static dramatization of or resolution for their troubled homeland. Ultimately, Jones resists simplistic solutions and instead underscores the complexities and paradoxes of the conflict. If hope exists it does so in the more carnivalesque moments in the play and in the ensuing, mixed laughter among the audience members. Harris notes that audiences, at both the London opening and the performances in Dundalk, Ireland, "responded warmly" and with "laughter" (Rev. of Somewhere 48), while Georgina Brown, in an review of the original London production at the Drill Hall, notes that "establishing the appalling conditions with great hilarity... the production suggests that laughter is the only way of coping" (1183). The ambivalent humour, which is so central to Jones' work with

Charabanc, serves as a possible means of uniting diverse and divided characters and audiences in shared laughter. Nevertheless, as DiCenzo notes, "Humour is more than a strategy for communicating with and entertaining audiences. The tension between the humourous perspective and the seriousness of the subject matter reflects a paradox at the root of life in Northern Ireland" (184). As Methven candidly notes, it is a paradox that underscores the fact "that these people are so humourous and so vibrant and they are killing each other" (qtd. in DiCenzo 184). The contradictions of Northern Ireland's tragic society and its darkly comic perspectives are fully captured in the crazy, chaotic world over the balcony. This perhaps is why the play is considered one of Charabanc's greatest achievements.

While Jones takes a different approach to the Troubles in A Night in November than in her earlier plays with Charabanc, she continues to develop her uses of carnival through a strategic intersection of polyvocality and liminality to explore the limitations and possibilities of Northern Irish identity(ies). A Night in November interrogates the

Protestant, unionist community and the extremists that not only perpetuate bigotry, sectarianism, and hate but also further the divide between Protestants and Catholics in

Northern Ireland and Northern Ireland from the rest of Ireland. Written with DubbelJoint theatre company, A Night in November inhabits a masculine space and world far removed from Jones' feminist comedies with Charabanc; however, it also reflects a more optimistic time in the 1990s on the eve of the ceasefires in 1994. Through polyvocal performance and multiple border crossings, Jones dramatizes the possibilities of theatricalized, carnivalesque transgressions beyond the seemingly intransigent identities that inform the Troubles. Jones also experiments with the potential polyvocality of theatrical monodrama to dramatize the fluidity of identity. The play is written for one actor who plays the central character, Kenneth McCallister; however, Kenneth is himself an actor who gives voice to a series of other characters. Although the play is technically a monodrama written by a playwright for an actor, the emphasis on multiple role playing 211

by a single actor and the reliance on the physical, performative virtuosity, and skill of the

actor suggest that the play can also be categorized as a one-person show.12

A Night in November features Kenneth McCallister, a middle-class Protestant,

who in the course of his monologue begins to recognize and reject the bigotry of his

community and family. The play opens in the absurdities of Northern Ireland and

foregrounds Kenneth's isolation, confinement, and eventual exile from his Protestant

background and identity. Kenneth, whose prosperous existence is founded on the

systemic discrimination against Catholics, is repulsed by the sectarianism and racism

voiced by his father-in-law and fellow loyalist supporters at a football match between

Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland during the 1994 World Cup qualifying

round. This experience forces Kenneth to question his identity, his own bigotry, as well

as that of his family and community. Kenneth's revelation leads him on a physical and a

psychological journey away from the safety and uniformity of his Protestant middle-class

identity and home. He travels into the working-class Catholic neighbourhood of West

Belfast, to Dublin, and finally to New York. Kenneth, a comic fool, "disguises" himself

in the colours of the Republic of Ireland football team, joins the carnivalesque exodus to

the World Cup match between Italy and Ireland in New York, and ultimately discards the

limitations of a fixed Northern Irish, Protestant identity for a more fluid self. The play ends in celebration as Kenneth joins thousands of Republic of Ireland soccer fans on the streets of New York in the wake of the Republic of Ireland victory. Because the play

121 have adopted Jordan R. Young's distinction between the monodrama as a theatrical play written by a playwright and performed by an actor and the one-person show as a performance created and performed by an actor "looking for a showcase vehicle" (25). In this case, Jones' play is technically a theatrical monodrama that invokes and experiments with characteristics of the one-person show. 212 concludes with Kenneth still in New York, it is clear that his final integration is not a simple return to the status quo of Northern Irish society and Protestant identity. Rather, the play's openendedness suggests an escape from the confines of labels and stereotypes and ultimately an integration of his several identities.

The theatricality of A Night in November is central to this space of imagined possibilities. The monodramatic form not only underscores Kenneth's initial isolation, it also allows movement into a narrative space beyond the literal and physical confines of

Belfast and its Troubles and enables an imaginative and narrative transformation that transcends the traditional confines of theatre and identity. These imagined possibilities are mirrored by a polyvocal, theatrical movement between several characters: moderate

Protestants, extreme loyalists, Catholics, Northern Irish, Irish from the Republic, men, and women. These community, border, and gender crossings, made by a single character and actor, are further mirrored by Kenneth's physical and psychological journeys into the

Republic and the carnival space of the World Cup. Jones' canivalesque border crossings underscore the fluidity of identity, challenge the static identities of Northern Irish sectarianism, and offer the possibility of transformation.

The monodramatic form, as well as his comedic paranoia at the start of the play, underscores Kenneth's isolation, marginality, and his static understanding of his identity as a Protestant man. He begins his narrative feeling under siege from all fronts, including republican paramilitaries:

That day started out like every other day starts out... check under the car for explosive devices... you have to be a step ahead of them bastards... they keep advancing their technology, gone are the days of the good old fashioned learnt at their mother's knees trip wire attached to the ignition, 213

now they can blow up a device no bigger than a box of matches.. .they'll not get me. (7) Kenneth's paranoia is highlighted and everyday existence in Northern Ireland is rendered absurd by his reference to the trip wires "learnt at their mother's knees." Kenneth's under-siege mentality is also enhanced by the arrival of his wife's sinister feet, which he sees from under the car, "advancing on me, like two great black patent rottweilers, I watch them as they come to rest just in my eyeline, I glare at them, they glare back, I take them on... look them straight in the eye and wait" (7). Kenneth's paranoia of possible attack from both outside his community and within his own family is ridiculed by his wife's response to his actions: "For dear sake Kenneth, who would want to blow you up... You're only a dole clerk, Kenneth, will you catch yourself on" (7). His wife's ridicule and dismissal, however, also serves to underscore his isolation—as a man originally from a working-class background—from her and the Protestant middle-class that she represents. Kenneth, the central comic figure, is from his wife's perspective an object of ridicule.

Nevertheless, Jones positions Kenneth, a comic monologist, as the central, controlling, and pluralistic voice in the play. Kenneth controls narrative and meaning as he enacts the various voices and dialogues that lead to his eventual physical and psychological transformation and ultimately a dismantling of the sectarian status quo in

Northern Ireland. This power is enhanced by the use of comedy to ridicule and challenge the seemingly more dominant voices of power in the play. Gail Finney, in her introduction to Unity in Difference?, suggests that comedy itself is double-voiced: it

"interweaves elements of a subversive discourse into the language of the status quo—the 214 discourse of power and control—using the former to ridicule, subvert or deconstruct the latter" (7). Theresa O'Connor, in her introduction to The Comic Tradition in Irish Women

Writers, argues that this doubie-voicedness is evident throughout Irish literature and culture and particularly within the comic tradition in Ireland. This tradition is one "that has at its center a dual-gendered trickster figure" (2). At the beginning of the play,

Kenneth, an unlikely trickster figure, mimics his wife, not only lessening the power she has over him but also underscoring the marginalized position he holds in his career and her version of him: "You're only a dole clerk Kenneth, only a dole clerk, Kenneth, only a glorified charity worker, pen pusher, not even a real dog, a bloody poodle or one of them other skittery wee mongs that only shit in litter trays, not even a real dog, not even important enough to be on a real hit list... bastards" (7-8). His adoption and subversion of his wife's criticisms is double-voiced, and thereby, he subverts her power over him.

Through comic subversion, Kenneth is granted the space and opportunity to challenge not only his wife's ridicule but also the paramilitaries who essentially dismiss him as a marginalized nobody.

Jones concretizes the doubie-voicedness evident in the Irish comic tradition in A

Night in November through Kenneth's monologue; however, she extends this doubie- voicedness by having Kenneth play the other "characters" in the play. The polyvocality of the play undermines not only a static reading of Kenneth as central narrator but also highlights the fluidity of identity itself. The traditional connection between character/actor and its suggestion of a set identity is challenged. The actor himself is literally polyvoiced as an actor playing several characters but also as an actor playing 215 characters on various rungs of the hierarchical and sectarian ladder. Jones further complicates any unitary understanding of identity by having Kenneth move freely between traditionally opposing religions, politics, classes, nations, and even genders. This polyvocality is central to Bakhtin's theory of the dialogism and the carnivalesque.

Bakhtin, who defines monologue as the static opponent of dialogue, attributes subversion to the dialogic imagination, emphasizing the multiplicity of dialogue and the unity of monologue. His latter theory, however, overlooks the heterogeneous nature of the theatrical monologue in production and performance.

There are multiple meanings created by the interplay not only between actors and characters (as the actor interprets a character originally produced by the playwright) but also the interplay or dialogue between character and spectator. In A Night in November this multiplicity is even more multilayered by Jones' experimentation with form: in performance a single actor plays all the parts in the play, but essentially, this is Kenneth's monologue and is transcribed as such in the text. Therefore we can read, as the stage directions suggest, that an actor "plays all the characters without the aid of other props or additional scenery" (7); however, Kenneth McCallister is the only name printed in the character list in the play text. Theoretically, the other characters' words are presented not only by the actor performing all the roles but also directly by Kenneth. The potential for polyvocality in either reading underscores the fluidity of identity. As Kenneth plays the various other voices and characters—including a demanding and class-conscious wife, a racist father-in-law, a Catholic colleague, and celebratory Republic of Ireland football fans—any understanding of a static identity is challenged. It is within this realm of play 216 that transformation ultimately occurs. Moreover, the number of voices present in the play underscores the many-voicedness not only of the Protestant community in Northern

Ireland but also Catholic communities both north and south of the border. Through such multiplicities, Jones mounts several challenges to sectarianism, the Troubles, and their intransigent, static definitions of identity.

Jones' most direct challenge in the play is leveled at the inflexible fascist and hardcore elements of the Protestant community, represented by Kenneth's loyalist and racist father-in-law, Ernie, as well as the Northern Irish football fans at the Ireland-

Northern Ireland World Cup qualifying match. Ernie's racist comments include references to "dirty Fenian bastards," "dirty Fenian scum" (13), "dirty Taigs" (14), and the more ominous chanting, "Trick or Treat" and "Greysteel seven, Ireland nil" (14).13

Ernie's prejudice against Catholics and the Irish in general is also connected to a larger racism: "(Starts to grunt) uh uh uh uh... come on boys kick the ballicks off that big gorilla... where's your spear, you big ape ye... luk, three black men... (Shouts.) Hey, where did you get your players... the zoo? (He laughs)" (14). Kenneth's response to his father-in-law's prejudice and racism focuses on the shame he feels: "I felt sick, I felt such shame... ashamed of him, ashamed that I'd married someone who came from him, ashamed of standing in the same place as men like him... it's beyond words, it's beyond feeling... I'm numb... surely to God these are not the people I am part of' (14-15).

Kenneth's larger response to the situation is to isolate himself from the more racist

13 The latter two chants are references to an incident on October 30, 1997, when three masked members of the UFF (Ulster Freedom Fighters) walked into a Halloween party in a pub in Greysteel, County Derry, shouted Trick or Treat and shot and killed eight people. 217 elements at the match by not taking direct part in the racist chants and songs around him, and his numbness stops him from publicly challenging the hatred so readily and easily embraced by his father-in-law and the Northern Irish football fans at the match. His protest is internal (we hear what he would say to Ernie if he had more courage); however, fear takes over, and instead, he begins to mouth the chants along with the others.

Kenneth's resistance at this point can only be internalized; ultimately, he is too afraid to openly challenge his community and their perpetuation of sectarianism.

Jones' foregrounding of Kenneth's anti-loyalist ideology, as well as his contemptuous dismissal of Ernie, presents problems when addressing a more open representation and understanding of the heterogeneous ideologies in Northern Ireland.

Eileen Battersby notes, "In A Night in November, Jones risked a great deal—including being accused of political naivety—when she created the character of Kenneth Norman

McCallister..." The political naivety here involves Jones' stereotypical representation of unionism's more hardcore elements, which may suggest a mere dismissal of the

Protestant community. The play was "harshly criticized during its Dublin run for pandering to prejudices about Ulster Unionism" (Lonergan 167). Tom Maguire proposes that "The revulsion expressed by McCallister at the sectarian chanting of the Northern

Ireland fans can be seen as part of a discourse which demonises the loyalist working class" and places it in a long tradition of "negative figuration of loyalism" on the

Northern Irish stage {Making History 154-55). He suggests that the context of the play's opening performances in West Belfast also invites a pro-republican "triumphalist reaction" (157). Nevertheless, as Foley notes, there was no initial, overtly political 218 ideology or label attached to DubbelJoint; the equation of the theatre company with any kind of nationalist politics happened after Jones had left and Brighton changed the founding ideology, claiming that DubbelJoint "was formed to fill a niche for nationalist plays" (qtd. in Foley 248). Jones, in an interview, has stated, "My plays for [DubbelJoint] could never be defined as nationalist or any other form of 'ism'" (qtd. in Foley 35). Foley suggests that "DubbleJoint's ideology does not seem entirely congruent with that of

Jones, who in her work definitively searches for a cultural freedom, but one which is beyond the environs of nationalism, unionism, Protestantism or Catholicism, and certainly beyond the prerogative of male and female" (51). Ultimately, the double- voicedness—even many-voicedness—of Jones' representation problematizes a set, static reading of the politics of her play and rather presents opportunities for multiple readings.

The tendency to question Jones' political intentions in A Night in November is engendered in part by the static nature of stereotypes. Typecasts and caricatures are a staple in traditional comedy, and perhaps they reflect one of the drawbacks of Jones' adoption of the foundations of traditional comedy in A Night in November. Jan Hendrik

Wehmeyer comments on the lack of depth in Martin McDonagh's characterizations: "As in most comedy, characterization is shallow. The characters are crudely carved and don't seem to be framed in an emotional landscape which is recognizable to the audience" (91).

Similarly, many of the characters in Jones' A Night in November are also crudely drawn stereotypes; however, Kenneth and the bond he creates with audience members through direct address, as well as comedy itself, creates an emotional landscape for the audience to both witness and perhaps share in his transformations. Carole Woddis underscores this 219 emotional landscape during the London premiere at the Tricycle in 1995: "When [Dan]

Gordon's Kenneth finds his identity at the end as a Protestant and an Irishman, there's nary a dry eye in the house. For we've gone the whole trip with Kenneth" (263).

Nevertheless, through Kenneth's voicing of other roles, Jones also confronts audience members not only with the more hardcore elements of the Protestant community and its connection to larger issues of prejudice, violence, and racism but also Kenneth's and perhaps their own collusion.

The presentation of stereotypical characters through Kenneth's double-voiced performance is part of Jones' larger critique. Jones' depiction is not simply a naive dismissal of the Protestant community as a group of racist hooligans and rather involves a far more complex interrogation of the complicity of Kenneth and the more silent, moderate Protestants in Northern Ireland. At the World Cup qualifying match, we are left with the image of a man who is too scared to speak out. Jones underscores Kenneth's involvement in the racism and sectarianism not only by critiquing his silence but also through his performance of Ernie's racist comments. Suzi Feay, in a review of the

London performances at the Tricycle, notes, "There is a moment early on in this one-man show when we realize we are watching something as unusual as it is unpleasant" (263).

The unpleasant aspect of the play, she states, is Dan Gordon's—and by extension

Kenneth's—impersonation of Ernie and the hardline loyalist football fans. By having

Kenneth convey his father-in-law's bigotry to the audience, Jones implies Kenneth's more obvious and active part in the continuation of racism and sectarianism. Here,

Kenneth neither mocks nor ridicules Ernie's words, and rather, he simply and directly 220 performs them. Nick Curtis, in a review of the same production, notes that at this point in the performance, "Kenny seems to go numb, dumbly repeating the words 'bigotry' and

'racism' as if he can't understand them" (264). Although his private words to the audience serve to challenge Ernie and his racism, ironically, his public silence and performance condone the violence and racism. Moreover, Kenneth eventually adopts the language of hatred and violence evident in Ernie's racist chants:

Ernie, you are the lowest of the low, you are the foulest human being that I have ever had the misfortune to know... you know if you were dead I wish I could be the first maggot to eat your festered brain... the first worm to bore into your stinking heart, the first dog to shite on your grave and the last person to see you alive because then I could say this to you, but I can't, Ernie, because I look around me and there are hundreds of Ernies and I am numb... (15)

Jones underscores how such anger and its eventual numbness are intrinsically linked to violence. Jones may ridicule Ernie and men like him, but she also openly questions

Kenneth's role in the events at the football match and in the larger sectarianism in

Northern Ireland. Kenneth, by the end of Act 1, reveals that he is not immune to the racism and hatred equated with the more radical elements of the Protestant community. In response to an anti-Catholic, racist slur spoken by his wife, Kenneth turns his anger first against his wife and then himself: "I hated my wife... I hated her so much, because she had echoed what I'd always thought, so I hated myself... before that awful night in

November I accepted myself, put up with myself but what does a man do when he loathes himself?" (28). Along with numbness, shame, and hatred, Kenneth experiences an essential identity crisis that initiates an existential journey towards a more fluid, hybrid identity. 221

Jones suggests the liberating possibilities of liminality and carnival through

Kenneth's existential crisis. Kenneth's shame and regret leads him on a psychological and physical journey away from his community, across borders and various identities, and into the liminal, transgressive space of carnival. In the fluid and comic world of the play, Kenneth embarks on a journey that takes him into West Belfast, across the Irish border, and ultimately into the carnivalesque space of the World Cup in New York.

Kenneth's physical journey underscores a more fluid understanding not only of identity but also of borders. The traditional border and boundary between Northern Ireland, as a part of the larger British nation, and the Republic of Ireland is underscored by the onstage rostra that "is painted red, white and blue which flips to green, white and orange when

Kenneth reaches Dublin airport" (Jones, A Night 7). The political border is further

established by Kenneth's insistence early in the play that Dublin is a foreign country and

his experiences at the Northern Irish vs. Ireland World Cup qualifying match. Tellingly,

Kenneth stands on a potential and imaginary border at the qualifying match. He literally stands between his unionist, British father-in-law, and an obviously terrified Catholic and

Republic of Ireland supporter, who "had his head buried hoping he wouldn't be spotted not chantin' or cheering.(15). While his internal rejection of Ernie and his politics suggests a potential connection with the Irish supporter at his side, ultimately, through cowardice and fear, Kenneth publicly stands within the safety of the Protestant side of the imaginary border.

Nevertheless, the numerous border crossings in the play are metaphors for

Kenneth's psychological transformation. Kenneth crosses his first border into Catholic 222 and nationalist West Belfast when he drives his Catholic colleague, Jerry, home. The psychological border that separates East and West Belfast has rendered the latter a

"foreign country" to Kenneth:

I drove up the Falls Road with Jerry. I had never been on the Falls Road in my life, never... the sun was shining, the road was hiving with black cabs and women and children and army tanks and normality and I was nervous, like a stranger in a foreign country, not sure of the territory, feeling like they were all looking at me, knowing I was a stranger, knowing I was the enemy but no-one paid a blind bit of notice, I fitted into the normality just like the soldiers... (24)

Kenneth's exodus into West Belfast pushes him to revisit the Shankill Road in working- class, Protestant East Belfast where he was born and raised. Through his border crossings between East and West Belfast, Kenneth apprehends that "I couldn't go on pretending that I lived in the middle of England" (26). The reality is that although he considers himself British he lives on a larger island that many of his Belfast contemporaries view as

Ireland, and his realization underscores a developing recognition of alternative views and experiences.

Kenneth's canivalesque journey and transformation continues when he physically crosses the border into the Republic for the very first time. This physical journey is "the most exciting, totally outrageous crazy mad thing" that he has ever done (37). His actions lead him into the carnivalesque exodus to the World Cup in New York. At the Dublin airport, Kenneth crosses the physical border into the Republic and the psychological border between Protestant, unionist Northern Ireland into the Catholic, nationalist

Republic. The atmosphere at the airport when Kenneth arrives reflects the community and celebration of carnival: I drove into the car park... it was a sight I'll never forget... the whole airport had been taken over by a green, white and gold army... there were check-ins going on in the car park... people were singing... at nine o'clock in the morning, they were singing and laughing and chanting 'Ole, we're on our way, we're on our way to the USA. (38)

Unlike the divisive and intimidating chants at the November qualifier match in Northern

Ireland, the songs in the festive space of Dublin airport are inclusive and underscore

integration, belonging, and for Kenneth, transformation. In the liminal space of Dublin

airport, Kenneth physically abandons his Northern Irish, Protestant identity by putting on

an Irish football jersey and joining the thousands of Irish soccer fans on their journey to

the World Cup. Realizing that his "Dunnes menswear gear" was making him "[stand] out

in the thousands like a sore thumb" (38), Kenneth changes into a Republic of Ireland

"green, white and orange shirt with a tricolor on it" (39). The colours, while they

officially represent the Republic of Ireland, also include the green that is traditionally

equated with nationalist, Catholic Ireland and the orange that is equated with

Protestantism. This cultural crossdressing recalls the disguise common in Shakespearean

comedy and the role reversals inherent in the carnivalesque. In the liminal, festive space

of Dublin airport, Kenneth begins to shed his identity. Joining the pre-celebrations at the

airport, he tells us, "I had forgotten myself. I was jumping up and down like a kid" (38).

This initial loss of identity becomes an outright abandonment. As Kenneth walks to the

plane, he physically waves goodbye to his former self. When a fellow traveler asks him if

he is "waving to the wife," Kenneth responds, "No just someone I knew... Kenneth, his

name is" (40). The use of the present tense suggests that he has not completely abandoned his former self, and rather, he has left him behind for now. Disguise also creates a moment of bonding between Kenneth and other men who have "escaped" to the

World Cup: "My wife thinks I've gone to Lough Derg.... But I have my face paints and a wig in case I'm caught by the cameras... bleeding RTE are everywhere" (40). By joining this carnivalesque exodus, Kenneth becomes "one of the lads" (40) and escapes the confines of an intransigent Northern Irish Protestant middle-class identity.

Kenneth's initiation into a larger community of "lads" is reminiscent of the integration and belonging central to the festive space of carnival and further complicates any static definition of identity. Kenneth becomes an "Irishman" on various levels: not only by physically donning the Irish football colours but also through the performance of

Irish soccer fans as they make their way towards New York. Maguire argues that

Kenneth's metamorphosis is problematic because he simply trades one identity for another. He suggests, "It might be argued that the play confirms loyalist fears of republican aspirations for an all-Ireland state, since it is only by erasing all physical markers and symbols of his identity that McCallister achieves his apparent liberation"

{Making History 154). However, the numerous identities that Kenneth plays within the liminal spaces of Dublin airport and New York—Protestant, Catholic, female, male,

Northern Irish, Irish—once again problematize Maguire's static reading of Kenneth and the play.

Kenneth's identity becomes even more fluid in the carnivalesque space of Dublin airport and the bar in New York. Such fluidity questions the fixedness of identity and challenges the traditional binaries that feed sectarianism and division in Northern Ireland.

As Bakhtin notes, "Carnival celebrated temporary liberation from the prevailing truth and 225

from the established order, it marked the suspension of all hierarchical rank, privileges,

norms and prohibitions. Carnival was the true feast of time, the feast of becoming,

change and renewal. It was hostile to all that was immortalized and completed" {Rabelais

10). Kenneth's carnivalesque transformation is hostile to the fixed, completed identities

and labels that inform sectarianism. Patrick Lonergan also challenges Maguire's reading

of the text: "Kenneth rejects sectarianism while maintaining his Irish Protestant

identity—and this transformation is mirrored in the style of performance, with the actor's

movement from one role to another enacting the notion that identities need not be fixed"

(Lonergan 165). In the monodramatic, solo space of A Night in November identities are

theatrically and fluidly performed. The imaginative space of monodrama allows for a

highly theatrical exploration of identity, and while Jones' adoption of comic conventions

includes caricatures and stereotypes, ultimately, she challenges these through a larger

interrogation of social roles and labels. Kenneth's transformation may at times be cliched,

but as Foley argues, "The truth of cliche becomes apparent and Kenneth becomes a metaphor of political possibilities. The suspension of disbelief is paramount" (51). His

metamorphosis is both personal and political: Jones dramatizes Kenneth's ability to

transcend and challenge the static, binary definitions of identity that sustain Northern

Irish sectarianism.

There is an essential hope underlining Kenneth's carnivalesque transformation, which reflects the time in which the play was produced: the play was first performed in

1994 on the eve of the initial ceasefires. Kenneth's celebration in New York, however, is set against the devastating news of more violence in Northern Ireland: "Some guys were 226 watching the match when a couple of gunmen came in and shot six of them..(47).

Kenneth's response is an attempt to reconcile the celebration surrounding him and the tragedy of Northern Ireland's continuing violence: "I watched this wild and wonderful harmless celebration of human beings just simply bringing out the best in themselves... just a parade of the best there is in human nature and tried to connect it with the worst... impossible... just impossible" (47). Tellingly, Kenneth's emphasis is not on Ireland versus Northern Ireland and instead on the best and worst in human nature. Ultimately, by choosing to continue the celebration, he chooses the best in human nature and rejects the worst. Kenneth's choice is embodied in the embrace between Kenneth and Mick, which itself symbolizes a transcending of the traditional separation between their communities and nations. Kenneth states that "I am no part of the men that did that" (47) and thereby frees himself from any connection with the more militant factions of the

Protestant community. Kenneth's rejection does not mean that he abandons his Protestant identity, and instead, he imaginatively and literally embraces a more inclusive identity: "I am a free man... I am a Protestant Man, I'm an Irish Man" (47). Llewellyn-Jones notes that the performance of "hybrid identity" at this point in the initial performances in

Dublin received "a long, standing ovation" (145). While the ovation may speak specifically to Kenneth's final declaration of his Irishness, it may also have spoken to an

Irishness that is no longer fully defined by religion or border and instead one that transgresses the traditional divisions between north and south, Catholic and Protestant, and Irish and British.

Kenneth's imaginative and literal transformation is embedded in both comedy and 227 the monodramatic form: the imaginative spaces of comedy and monodrama create the creative and potentially subversive space in which someone like Kenneth, "a minor civil servant in his thirties" (7), can say "fuck it in [his life]" (47) and imaginatively and literally transcend his caste, class, and nation. The imaginative and highly theatrical realm of A Night in November creates a space in which anything might and could happen.

Bernadette Sweeney begs the question, "Is there a higher level of theatrical experimentation in comic theatre?" and suggests, "not necessarily, but perhaps audiences are more kindly disposed towards experimentation and direct engagement when laughed into it, perhaps even seduced into it" (17). A Night in November is seductive. Carole

Woddis, in a review of the London premiere, writes that "It's one helluva evening out, jam packed with emotion, full of laughter and tears with a solo performance from Dan

Gordon of quite mesmerizing delight and force" and suggests that, at the time of the play's production in 1995, "There [were] few more engaging sights on the London stage"

(263). Kate Bassett notes, "The audience in Kilburn cheered" (263). Perhaps Kenneth's transformation, both metaphorical and hopeful, is all the more engaging and "believable" because it is the stuff of comedy.

Through her playful and carnivalesque contributions to the theatrical narratives of the Troubles, Jones extends the borders and boundaries of comedy itself. Bernadette

Sweeney suggests that "Contemporary Irish theatre includes work that is difficult to classify, falling between the gaps of drama, comedy and stand up. This is where some of the most theatrically challenging work is being produced, as audience-performer relationship is often pushed outside the bounds of realism" (17). The chaotic and surreal 228

world of Somewhere Over the Balcony and the fluid, narrative space of A Night in

November fall into these gaps combining and often subverting the traditions of drama and

comedy. Like many contemporary playwrights, Jones challenges the traditions of theatre

and comedy through her endings. The hopeful, conventional endings of comedy are most

notably avoided in Now You 're Talkin' and Somewhere Over the Balcony. Foley suggests

that "Endings are never easy for Jones, perhaps a legacy of the Charabanc days when the

very notion of closure was synonymous with 'making a statement'" (50). This

underscores not only Jones' resistance to any kind of definitive statement but also the

difficulty of creating an ending in the climate of the times. Both plays deny reconciliation

or resolution of any kind. Instead, Jones and Charabanc capture the tragic, ironic, and

often surreal conditions of a contemporary, troubled Northern Ireland. The highly

theatrical space of Jones' Troubles plays and the openendedness of her conclusions

underscore an imaginative space both within and beyond the theatrical walls where the

story can continue to be imagined. Creative possibilities are particularly evident in the

more optimistic ending of A Night in November. This later play suggests hope beyond the

confines of the immediate Troubles and underscores the transformation and potential

border crossings that are attempted but never fully realized in Now You 're Talkin'.

Nevertheless, Jones still resists the customary resolution and integration of comedy and

instead underscores the ambivalence of carnival: Kenneth may choose hope over despair,

but he is still faced with the reality of needless violence and death in Northern Ireland even while he celebrates in New York. Ultimately, Jones captures the ambivalence of carnival and of Northern Ireland in her plays, where both comedy (hope) and tragedy 229

(despair) are intimate and inseparable bedfellows.

Jones' ambivalent dramatization of the Troubles, along with the underlying hope and renewal of carnival, is particularly evident in the final songs of Jones' plays with

Charabanc. DiCenzo notes, "Essential to Charabanc's goal of playing community centres, the songs provided both a point of reference for audiences as well as an opportunity to join in." She further argues that songs and "their effectiveness in performance cannot be underestimated" and in popular political theatre they "are central to the collective identity of an audience. They also help to create a sense of solidarity between performers and audiences as well as among the members of the audience themselves—an audience historically divided along sectarian and class lines" (178). In this case, songs can serve a carnival function: they can foster laughter, equality, and connections among spectators regardless of economic, religious, and ideological differences. By ending Now You 're

Talkin' and Somewhere Over the Balcony in song—albeit highly satirical ones—Jones and Charabanc not only underscore the central ironies of the plays but also an essential polyphonic, carnival spirit. Tellingly, Bakhtin derived his theory of polyphony—a plurality of "fully valid voices"—from music. Citing Hugh Miller's Introduction to

Music, Jennifer Young explains, "A piece of music that is polyphonic (or contrapuntal) contains two or more melodies of nearly equivalent importance that are harmonically connected but still maintain their linear uniqueness." The polyphonic songs in Jones' and

Charabanc's theatre dramatize the vocalization of equal, valid voices unified in song and shared with a polyvocal community of listeners. Like song, "Laughter helps to break down barriers and, as long as the laughs are directed at both sides, it is possible to 230 accommodate mixed audiences" (DiCenzo 184). Harris, in a review of the London premiere of Somewhere Over the Balcony, proposes, "The rainbow Charabanc offers could be the best one—laughter" (Rev. of Somewhere 48). The rainbow is a fitting metaphor for the laughter and hope that Jones and Charabanc proffer through their camivalesque comedies: it is a hope coloured by the complexities of the Troubles, as well as by a polyvocal theatre company representing and speaking directly to a polyvocal community. This mixture of hope, laughter, and despair is revisited in Jones' later work with DubbelJoint. While A Night in November does not end in song, it does end on a note of fluidity, connection, and integration. The transgressive possibilities for Kenneth and

Northern Ireland are captured in the liminal space of the play's second act. Bakhtin proposes, "Carnival is a place for working out, in a concretely sensuous, half-real and half-play-acted form, a new mode of interrelationships between individuals, counterposed to the all-powerful socio-hierarchical relationships of non-carnival life" (Problems 123).

Jones' theatre, as a camivalesque space, becomes a site of new interrelationships between characters, between stage and audience, and perhaps between spectators themselves.

Jones' integrative theatrical sites ultimately suggest polyphonic possibilities and hope. 231

"You have to have a laugh": Comic Necessity in the Tragicomic Landscape of Jennifer Johnston's Northern Ireland

"Why do we laugh? " she asked to the air. "We have to. It's this country. If we didn't laugh we might drown in our own tears!" (Johnston, Foolish Mortals 197)

Best known as an award-winning and celebrated novelist, Jennifer Johnston has also written several plays for theatre. Ireland's troubled history is a constant theme that links all of Johnston's novels and most of her plays. As a writer who is originally from the Republic and who lived in England for over two decades and finally settled in Derry,

Northern Ireland, Johnston offers a voice and perspective that exists both within and outside the Troubles. Unlike many of her literary contemporaries in the Republic,

Johnston has consciously entered into the debate through her novels and plays. Johnston insists that the Irish political situation is important in her work:

It is the background to all our lives. It doesn't go away if you shut your eyes. We all live against this background of hatred and violence. It has to color the way we look at the world, the way we write books. The border is a state of mind and little by little that state of mind must change. Not though, in the way the people have tried to change it over the last twenty- five years. (Moloney 68)

For Johnston the concept of 'nation' is also a state of mind, one that is made up of personal stories and experiences. In a keynote address at the 1991 Cultures of Ireland

Group Conference, "Culture in Ireland: Division or Diversity," Johnston juxtaposes the

OED definition of nation with personal stories and anecdotes about the people who populate her ancestry, childhood, and her personal understanding of nation. The diversity of the voices and backgrounds of her 'characters' captures Johnston's fictional and personal portraits of Ireland: they include her Presbyterian, Northern Irish grandparents, 232 her southern Anglo-Irish grandparents, her Protestant (Church of Ireland) Nanny, who

"had a sense of humour and handled chaos admirably," the Catholic housekeeper May, and Johnston's agnostic parents, who "from time to time made fierce, and to a child dangerous, jokes about God" ("Keynote" 15-16). Although Johnston considers herself

Irish, she is wary of the labels we use to categorize nation and self: "Now I am Irish. I am not Northern Irish, I am not Southern Irish, I am Irish. I am also Protestant. That does not mean anything, that is only a label. Actually, I am nothing at all if the truth be known"

(Gonzalez 18). Johnston insists that rather than labels, it is the people, their stories, and often their humour that are central to any concept of nation. Moreover, the essential meaninglessness and absurdity of labels, as well as the Northern Irish situation, is addressed both in Johnston's works and her definition of the Troubles as "the nonsense between Protestants and Catholics," which "includes the extraordinary way in which over the last seventy years we've had nonsense instilled in us about our Irishness" (qtd. in

Rosslyn, "The Nonsense" 105). Johnston's repetition of the word nonsense and its use as an adjective to describe sectarianism, as well as Irish identity, underscore the absurdity of a war based on meaningless labels and myths.

In her three monodramas set in the immediacy of the Troubles, O Ananias,

Azarias and Miseal (1988), Mustn 7 Forget High Noon (1989), and Twinkletoes (1993),

Johnston explores the interconnectivity of subjectivity, memory, identity, and ontology, as her characters struggle against the realities of violence, loneliness, love, imprisonment, life, death, and existence. Johnston's use of monodrama allows her to foreground voices in an intimate form that lends itself to narrative explorations of identity and self. While 233 these are acts of telling similar to those in the monologues of Devlin, Reid, and Jones,

Johnston's use of the monodrama focuses her plays on the expression of a single character's thoughts and memories. This focus and intimacy is also emphasized by the cerebral nature of the performance, during which the monologist's personal thoughts, meditations, and musings are directed to an audience of listeners. There is a sense from the non-linear, often disjointed narratives that Johnston's characters are thinking aloud.

Despite the intimacy and the seemingly private nature of these musings, the presence of the audience, along with the monodramatic form itself, afford Johnston's characters the opportunity to express their thoughts and voices uninterrupted in the public spaces of theatre and radio. Much of the depth of Johnston's writing comes from her ability to capture the entirety of her time, "both its sorrow and its smile" (Barry ix), in the intimate and compressed narrative space of monodrama. Samuel Beckett, in his seminal work

Proust, argues that "the only possible spiritual development is in the sense of depth. The artistic tendency is not expansive, but a contraction" (64). The contraction in form and the depth in subject matter are most clearly evident in Beckett's later, short plays and particularly dramatized in Breath, his dramatization in a mere thirty-five seconds of the essential, physical manifestation of being. While Johnston does not engage in such extreme contraction, her use of monodrama, along with her tragicomic explorations of existence and the pernicious resolve of time, habit, and memory, recalls Beckett's early plays. Ultimately, however, the ontological explorations in Johnston's Troubles monodramas are specific to contemporary Northern Ireland: the characters speak, and often laugh, in an attempt to express, understand, and define themselves and their being 234

in the face of turbulent social and historical forces.

Through Christine in O Ananias, Azarias and Miseal, Billy in Mustn't Forget

High Noon, and Karen in Twinkletoes, Johnston foregrounds individual, personal

perspectives and experiences that, like herself, do not have an immediate place in the

mainstream debate in Northern Ireland. The intimacy and immediacy of Johnston's

monodramas captures the isolation, loneliness, and tragedy that are common in the

troubled landscape of Northern Ireland, but they are also punctuated by a comic tone that

renders these very personal narratives tragicomic. While tragedy can often include a

comic tone that punctuates the action, humour in Johnston's monodramas plays a

fundamental role in the characters' existence and persistence amidst the larger tragedies

of the Troubles. Indeed, comedy and humour are central components throughout

Johnston's fictional and dramatic worlds. Laughter is part of the everyday sounds. As the

narrator in her fourth novel, Shadows on Our Skin (1977), remarks:

[Joe] stood still with the ash pan in his hand listening to the sounds of people living that somehow you never seem aware of in the day-time. A baby crying, the clatter of cups, the rise and fall of television voices, laughter, the creak of a door, each sound quite clear and individual, and of course, but now far away, the inevitable ambulance. (68)

Laughter is as much a part of the mundane day to day existence as "the inevitable ambulance" and encompasses a tragicomic tone that recalls Sean O'Casey and Beckett.

Johnston also often invokes Beckett's dianoetic laugh, the conscious, "mirthless laugh" that laughs not only "at that which is unhappy" but also at laughter itself. Humour in

Johnston's monodramas is at once self-reflective, aggressive, angry, sarcastic, ironic, intimate, liberating, and hopeful. No matter what, most of Johnston's characters laugh; 235

"[they] have to... if [they] didn't laugh [they] might drown in [their] own tears"

(Johnston, Foolish Mortals 197). Laughter in Johnston's literary world is not simply a

mode of survival but a way of being amid the unhappiness and absurdities of existence in

late twentieth-century Northern Ireland.

Johnston was born into a Protestant, Anglo-Irish family in 1930 in Dublin. Her

parents were the acclaimed writer and playwright, Denis Johnston, and the well-known

actress, theatre, and television director and producer, Shelah Richards. Johnston, who

says she was "steeped in theatre," claims that as a young girl she used to sneak into the

theatre while her mother was rehearsing and watch the rehearsals (Wachtel). Through this

early exposure to theatre, Johnston turned to writing and performing plays at school and

later seriously considered a career in acting. Under pressure from her parents, however,

Johnston abandoned her dream of acting to pursue a degree at Trinity College Dublin.

Johnston's career as a novelist began later in life, at the same time as the contemporary

Troubles in Northern Ireland: her first novel was published in 1972. At the time, she was

living in London with her husband and three children. Johnston tells of how she felt

disconnected and "removed from history":

I really felt that my own history was passing me by, and I was getting a distorted view of what was happening here, of the reality of life in the North of Ireland... I felt I was missing the anguish of my own people, and that somehow I would never be able to catch up with what I had missed... I had been in England for twenty years at that stage, and up until then I had never really felt alienated from Ireland. Then the Troubles started, and I suddenly felt I was becoming a stranger in my own country. (Wachtel)

She later moved to Derry where she still resides. She has stated in an interview that

"When the country is going through upheaval I feel one ought to be there. I found it 236 splendid and awful to come back" (qtd. in Rosslyn, "The Nonsense" 104). Johnston's choice of "splendid and awful" to describe her homecoming underscores the tragicomedy inherent in her perception and representation of the Troubles. Along with her early exposure to theatre, her need to take part in history as it was happening influenced her writing career.

Johnston has written fourteen novels and nine plays to date, and Ireland's troubled history is present in the vast majority of her works. Rosie Cowan argues that "The bigger picture—war, culture clash, the Northern Irish troubles—might not take centre stage, but it is always there in the background, perhaps a more realistic portrayal of the way history subtly intrudes on most people's lives." Felicity Rosslyn categorizes Johnston's fictions into the three historical periods they address: "the early twentieth century, the Troubles, and Ireland as it is now" ("The Nonsense" 109). According to Rosslyn, Johnston's

Troubles' fictions include The Gates (1973), Shadows on our Skin, The Christmas Tree

(1981), The Railway Station Man (1984), The Illusionist (1995), and The Gingerbread

Woman (2000) (110). She notes that "In these novels the Troubles are often brutally present, in the shootings, bombings and accidental deaths" (110). Johnston addresses the

Troubles more explicitly in Shadows on Our Skin, The Railway Station Man, and The

Gingerbread Woman. Helen, the central character of The Railway Station Man, although she lives in Dublin in the present tense of the novel, is directly affected by the Troubles: her husband, Daniel, was murdered by the IRA in Derry and her son, who believes that violence is a necessary component in Ireland's fight for freedom, is ironically and needlessly killed by an explosion of arms. Lar, in The Gingerbread Woman, has escaped in

to Dublin two years after his wife and daughter were killed by a roadside bomb in

Northern Ireland. Shadows on Our Skin is Johnston's only novel that is set in Northern

Ireland during the Troubles. Joe, a schoolboy, turns to poetry and his budding friendship

with Kathleen, a teacher originally from the Republic, to escape the realities of an

alcoholic father and his IRA stories, his brother's current involvement in the republican

movement, and a mother embittered by the day to day drudgery of life and her constant

fears for her sons. Although the novel was short listed for the Booker Prize for Fiction in

1977, Johnston is critical of this early attempt to capture the life and rhythms of Northern

Ireland: "I had been seriously aware that the rhythms in this book were those of the south

rather than the north: I had not yet attuned my ear to the way people spoke here and used

the default mode, a sort of stage-Dublinesque" ("Introduction" ix). Johnston insists that

Shadows on Our Skin is "not a very good book":

When I wrote it I was living in Derry; I just hadn't got the Derry idiom in my ear. People in Derry don't speak like that at all. The accents are all wrong. Since then I have published Three Monologues and here I have come to grips with the rhythms and patterns of Northern speech. (Moloney 72)

It was through the creation of Christine, the central monologist in O Ananias, Azarias and

Miseal, that Johnston feels she finally "discovered [her] northern rhythm" ("Introduction"

x).

Despite Johnston's insistence that she is a novelist and not a playwright, she returned to writing plays in the 1980s. Her radio and stage plays include The Porch

(1986), The Nightingale and Not the Lark (1980), Andante Un Poco Mosso (1981),

Indian Summer (1983), The Invisible Man (1987), Triptych (1989), O Ananias, Azarias 238 and Miseal, Mustn 't Forget High Noon, Twinkletoes, The Desert Lullaby (1996), and

Moonlight and Music (2000). Her novel How Many Miles to Babylon? (1974) was adapted for the stage in 1983. Johnston's need to take part in the history and narratives of contemporary Northern Ireland is most evident in her three Troubles monodramas. O

Ananias, Azarias and Miseal (originally titled Christine) was first staged by Rosaleen

Linehan and Caroline Fitzgerald at the Peacock Theatre in Dublin in 1988. In a later radio production by the BBC O Ananias, Azarias and Miseal was followed by a performance of Mustn't Forget High Noon, in which Christine's husband Billy speaks a monologue.

Pressure from the BBC, who needed to know more about Christine's character, resulted in the creation of Billy's piece (Johnston, "Introduction" x-xi). Johnston notes that

"Maybe some people will think that Billy is a little irreverent. I rather like him, however.

I feel sorry for him, no one deserves to die like that, and he serves his purpose, which was originally to illuminate Christine" ("Preface" 10). Twinkletoes developed from interviews that Johnston conducted with prisoners in Long Kesh.1 Johnston states that she "was received with such courtesy and generosity by the prisoners that I felt, after a while, I would like to write something, not about them, which would have to my mind, been crass in the extreme, but for them" ("Preface" 10). The resulting play premiered at the Project

Arts Centre in Dublin in 1993. Johnston has received several awards for her fiction, and her play O Ananias, Azarias and Miseal won the Giles Cooper Award for best radio play in 1989. All three monodramas paint vivid and intimate portraits of the loneliness,

1 As Bill McDonnell notes in Theatres of the Troubles: Theatre, Resistance and Liberation in Ireland, theatre has a long and interesting history in the H-Blocks in Northern Ireland. The hunger strikes of the early 1980s "would see a radical rethinking of the concept of cultural struggle, including debates about the forms, method and role of a revolutionary people's theatre" (94).The H-BIocks, in particular, became "the locus'" of this rethinking most significantly though poetry and theatre workshops (97-101). 239 perseverance, and humour of their central characters.

Despite Johnston's public success as both a novelist and playwright, she has been dubbed "the quiet woman of Irish literature" (qtd. in Cowan) and several critics have noted the public as well as critical disregard for Johnston's work.2 Her fictional works are often marginalized as Big House novels and/or as women's writing; however, both labels fail to address the complexity and depth of Johnston's fictional oeuvre. The novelist and playwright Sebastian Barry is one of the few to openly praise the complexity of

Johnston's fiction: "There is nothing official about Johnston, she is subversive, conservative, innovative and deeply traditional all at the same time" (xi).3 One could certainly extend this praise to her plays as well. Those critics that engage with Johnston's works often emphasize the economy of her narratives. Felicity Rosslyn calls Johnston's novels "terse structures" ("The Nonsense" 110) and her fictions are often labeled novellas. While critics sometimes complain of Johnston's "extreme compression" in her novels, early reviewers agree that "her strength lies in her economy and boldness"

(Brown Jackson 449). Interestingly, some critics have also commented on the connection between playwriting and Johnston's novels. As Fleda Jackson Brown notes, "Critics have complained that Johnston skips around in the chronology of her narrative; they have suggested that this is an intoxication with freedom to which playwrights are particularly prone when they begin novel writing" (448). However, David Burleigh suggests that the

"terseness of [Johnston's] prose is invigorating" and notes that the description of action

2 See Cowan; McLaughlin (126); Rosslyn, "The Importance" (239-40) and "The Nonsense" (106-07). 3 It seems to be other fiction writers who most appreciate Johnston's art: "Among her admirers have been the late Anthony Burgess, who spoke of her 'unique and perfect art,' and Derek Mahon, who calls her 'a poet'" (Rosslyn, "The Nonsense" 106). 240 in The Old Jest is "sparse and minimal, mere stage directions" (6).

While some attention has been paid to her novels, critics have paid very little attention to her plays. Anna McMullan in a 1993 survey article, "Irish Women Dramatists since 1958," was one of the first to address Johnston's plays in any depth; however, she does not address any of Johnston's monodramas on the Troubles. Eileen Kearney, in her article "Current Women's Voices in the Irish Theatre: New Dramatic Visions," notes

Johnston's "sharp humour and insights into characterization" (229); however, the scope of the article, as a survey of Irish women dramatists, affords no space for an in-depth discussion of her plays. Margaret Llewellyn-Jones, in her more extensive Contemporary

Irish Drama and Cultural Identity, makes passing reference to Johnston's Troubles monodramas, which "reclaim women's individual voices across the sectarian divide"

(71). Despite these brief references to Johnston's contributions to Irish drama, her plays are most often either wholly absent from or included as a side or end note in recent studies on Northern Irish theatre. Imelda Foley, in The Girls in the Big Picture: Gender in Contemporary Ulster, makes reference to Johnston's The Names, which was written and performed as part of a project by the Ulster Youth Theatre entitled Stations, "based around a dramatization of Seamus Heaney's 'Station Island"' (115). Foley's discussion of

Johnston's contribution to the project is brief and mentioned only in relation to Frank

McGuinness's involvement; moreover, she does not reference any of Johnston's other contributions to theatre in Northern Ireland. Tom Maguire's more recent Making Theatre in Northern Ireland: Through and Beyond the Troubles includes a chapter on "Gendered

Troubles," and yet the only mention of Johnston appears in the Playography list at the 241 end of the book. Tellingly, Maguire addresses the rise of monodrama in Irish theatre, but

he fails to mention Johnston's contributions to the genre.4 Perhaps this critical disregard

also stems from the difficulty in categorizing Johnston's oeuvre. As an Anglo-Irish

woman novelist and dramatist, originally from Dublin but living in Northern Ireland, who

is not a nationalist but perceives and represents Ireland as a unity, she exists outside and within both countries and genres. As Cowan suggests, "Maybe because she neither fits neatly into any category nor ruptures any particular genre, Jennifer Johnston is

underappreciated." The intimacy and focus of her craft have been overshadowed by the handful of playwrights—both male and female—who have come to represent the canon of contemporary Irish and Northern Irish theatre. And yet, as Barbara E. McLaughlin notes, Johnston's plays, which have been all but ignored by literary critics, have in fact

"achieved critical acclaim and been performed in Dublin, in Belfast, and on Radio

Eireann]" (124), as well as on BBC Radio.

Johnston's condensed theatrical form, as well as her mixture of tragedy and comedy to explore existence in Northern Ireland, includes Beckettian echoes that suggest a depth and scope that most critics overlook. While Johnston prefers not to talk about her literary influences, it is telling that she calls Beckett "the greatest playwright of the twentieth century"; according to Johnston, his greatness stems from his ability to "say what's in people's heads," which, she insists, "you can't say" in drama (Haslett). This expression of inner thought is most often dramatized through monologue in Beckett's theatre. Monodrama, a play made up entirely of a single monologue, has the ability to

4 Interestingly, Maguire devotes much of his chapter to Bold Girls (1990) written by Scottish playwright Rona Munro. 242

transform theatrical space and time into narrative space and enables playwrights like

Beckett and Johnston to dramatize the inner thoughts and experiences of their characters.

The monodrama often serves to replace dramatic action with language and narration.

Rather than a traditional story that is told in the conventional manner, we witness the formation of characters as subjects-in-process or subjects-in-being. While Johnston's

monologists, like a number of Beckett's early characters, speak in order to declare their subjectivity, they also do so to resist the isolation and loneliness of their existence. Anna

McMullan argues that in Beckett's plays "The text constitutes the characters' attempts to represent themselves, to bear witness to their existence through their narratives" (Theatre on Trial 4). Johnston's characters voice their subjectivity—"bear witness" to themselves—as a means of transcending not only the larger existential void but also the immediate, concrete realities of the Troubles. Although Johnston's theatrical world is not the absurdist no-place and no-time of Beckett's theatre, her characters are isolated by the tragedy of existence, the "'socii malorum', the sin of having been born" (Beckett, Proust

67). Johnston's characters struggle not only with the original sin but also the sin of having been born into the ineluctable, if recognizable, sociopolitical landscape of

Northern Ireland. They are trapped not only by time, "that double-headed monster of damnation and salvation" {Proust 11), but also by familial and cultural memory. The

Troubles, more specifically, resembles the nightmare of history from which Joyce's

Stephen Dedalus is trying to awake. Imprisoned by both time and history, Johnston's monologists exist in a tragicomic landscape where being and identity are inseparable and often inescapable. 243

For Beckett, habit is how humans cope with the tragedy of existence {Proust 67).

Ironically—and comically in Beckett's theatre—habit both numbs and imprisons us in our absurd and meaningless lives. According to Beckett, "Habit is the ballast that chains the dog to his vomit. Breathing is habit. Life is habit" (19). Habit is distinguished from what Beckett calls "the suffering of being." As Fred Miller Robinson summarizes:

Habit is all that we mean when we say "Life" or "living"; it is the "compromise effected between the individual and his environment," whether inner or outer, the "consecutive adaptations" to the world that we make in order to be comfortably sealed off from the "suffering of being." This suffering occurs when the individual, in rare and painful and delicious moments comes in contact with "the real"—that is, reality stripped of the protective conceptions with which we, in self-defense, clothe it. The world appears strange, and ourselves truly strangers in it. (134)

In the context of Northern Ireland, habit is informed by the Troubles themselves.

Religious and political myths and traditions, the emphasis on identity, community and loyalty, as well as traditional forms of escapes and habits, including religious faith, alcohol and prescription drugs, encompass the "consecutive adaptations" (Beckett, Proust

19) that people in Northern Ireland—and the characters in Johnston's monodramas— adopt to numb themselves from the suffering of their existence. Johnston's characters are creatures of habit: Billy escapes through myth and film; Christine through television and religious hymns; and Karen through alcohol, dancing and fairy tale. However, in the brief space of their monologues, Johnston also dramatizes rare, transitional moments, "when for a moment the boredom of living is replaced by the suffering of being" (Beckett,

Proust 19), when the characters and their audiences, through death, grief and even celebration, are forced to face the absurdities and ironies of existence in Northern Ireland 244 and its Troubles.

The Beckettian echoes in Johnston's theatre are not surprising; Anthony Roche has traced Beckett's influence on contemporary Irish drama since Brendan Behan and calls Beckett "the ghostly founding father" of contemporary Irish theatre (Contemporary

5). Beckett's tragicomic universe is part of a tradition of grotesque and macabre humour at the core of contemporary Irish and Northern Irish theatre. Fintan O'Toole suggests that

Beckett's minimalism and black humour reflects "the rather bleak nature of [Ireland] in the 1950s, when isolation and emptiness had a literal resonance in the depopulation of the countryside." O'Toole describes a cartoon in The Irish Times from the 1950s that

"showed one unsuccessful entrant in an Abbey playwriting competition telling another, 'I suppose my dramatization of the Vanishing Irish was a bit avant-garde: just a set—no actors." The tragicomedy and irony of Johnston's ontological explorations are grounded in this tradition of minimalism and dark humour. Johnston's radio plays, like Beckett's, particularly capture this minimalism: just a distant voice—no set and no bodies.

Johnston's characters, like Beckett's heroes and heroines, are trapped within a comically despairing world where habit persists in their actions, memories, and words and echoes in the cyclical nature of the narratives and the numerous repetitions in each text. Through dark comedy, Johnston interrogates the habits and myths that chain the people of

Northern Ireland to their troubled history. While escape seems impossible, humour makes the suffering of existence manageable for characters and audience alike. Moreover, humour and laughter, along with the narrative space of monodrama, create an aperture in which to question and perhaps transcend, if only theatrically and momentarily, the 245

"pernicious devotion of habit" (Beckett, Proust 20), time, and memory.

In Mustn't Forget High Noon, Johnston interrogates the role of memory and cultural habit in the preservation of the masculine, violent myths and traditions that inform the Troubles. Through Billy's love for Hollywood film and his deep connection to his Protestant roots, Johnston connects Billy's personal memories and perceptions to the myths of heroism and masculinity in the Northern Ireland and the larger context of

Western society. The play's title is a direct reference to the Hollywood classic film, High

Noon, starring Gary Cooper and Grace Kelly. In the film, Will Kane (Gary Cooper), the town Marshal, weds Amy Fowler (Grace Kelly), a pacifist Quaker. Before leaving for their honeymoon, Kane discovers that a violent criminal, Frank Miller, whom he helped to put in prison five years before, has been released and is expected on the noon train.

Kane and his new bride leave town, but despite his wife's protestations he decides to return and face Miller and his gang. Kane's sense of duty and loyalty is set against the more cowardly citizens who leave or hide rather than defend their town. His heroism is captured in the final scene in which he kills Miller. Upset by his fellow citizens' cowardice and disloyalty, Kane drops his star—the symbol of his position as Marshal— into the dirt and leaves with Amy. The film, one of Billy's favourites, exemplifies the myths of duty, masculinity, and heroism prevalent not only in mid-twentieth-century

Westerns but also in unionist, Protestant ideology. By referencing High Noon in both the title and content of the play, Johnston broadens the historical and sociological context of violence in Northern Ireland to a larger violence in Western culture.

Johnston also underscores the ironies and absurdities of this violent culture in the 246 specific context of Billy Maltseed's life as a Protestant farmer in Northern Ireland. Billy speaks his monologue posthumously following his murder by republican paramilitaries for his involvement with the Ulster Defence Regiment.5 In the course of the play, Billy introduces us to his love for Hollywood westerns, Grace Kelly, the myths and traditions of his Protestant, unionist culture, and his relationships with his father, mother, and his wife, Christine. Johnston describes Billy as "a simple Protestant farmer who was in love with Grace Kelly and believed implicitly in the holy names: Jimmy Stewart, Gary

Cooper, Randolph Scott, General Custer, Billy the Kid and Billy the King" {Selected xi).

This belief is rooted in the habitual, cultural, and familial traditions and memories passed down from father to son. From a young age, Billy's father exposed his son to the myths of heroism played out in Protestant traditions and Hollywood westerns. Both the

Protestant cultural memory in Northern Ireland and Hollywood film present a myth of heroism that is directly linked to images of violence and death. Billy's existence is defined not only by cultural myths and personal memories but also by his habitual attendance at Protestant marches and parades, as well as the local Saturday matinees.

Billy's heroic affectation, as well as any ontological exploration, is rendered ironic, however, by his unheroic and senseless death. Johnston uses irony and humour to interrogate the habits by which Billy, his close friend, Sammy, and his father live and die.

However, humour also creates a bond between Billy and his audience and thus is

5 The Ulster Defence Regiment was established in 1970 as an infantry regiment of the British Army. The UDR largely took over the responsibilities of the Ulster Special Constabulary (see fh. 6). Although originally non-partisan, suspected collusion between the UDR and unionist paramilitaries as well as accusations of anti-Catholic sentiments within the regiment created suspicion in Catholic communities and consequently Catholic membership declined substantially. In 1992, the UDR merged with the Royal Irish Rangers to create the Royal Irish Regiment. 247 essential to our empathetic understanding of Billy and his tragicomic nonexistence.

The irony of Billy's monologue is heightened by the very fact that it is performed posthumously. While Billy speaks of his cultural heroes, as well as his involvement in the fight for the maintenance of a British Northern Ireland, we know that he has been unceremoniously murdered by republican paramilitaries. Original audiences, listening to

Billy's monodrama on BBC Radio on April 27, 1989, learned of Billy's death through

Christine's monologue, broadcast a week earlier on April 20. The monodramatic form and the medium of radio, with their intimate focus on individual voices and experiences, lend themselves to ontological explorations. McMullan suggests that Beckett utilizes the intimacy of radio with All That Fall and "transformed the maternal trope from suffocating corporeality and conventionality to an indomitable voicing of self, world and body doomed to extinction" ("From Matron" 102, 105). By contrast, Billy's voicing of self is rendered impossible and ironic by the harsh reality that he is already extinct. This irony is underscored by the numerous references to death, guns, and violence in the play.

As the play opens, Billy tells us that he has consciously reduced his cigarette smoking from forty to just fifteen cigarettes per day: "Too young to die! I said that to the doctor.

Aye Billy, he said, far too young" (33). Billy's acknowledgement of the dangers of smoking is set against the perils posed by the numerous guns in his life. Billy, who was shot to death, has played with toy guns from a young age. As a teenager, he watched his father clean a gun given to him when he joined the B-Men,6 telling us, "I used to look at

6 Also known as the B-Specials, the B-Men were part-time members of the Ulster Special Constabulary, a reserve police force established in Northern Ireland in 1920 during the civil war. They were disbanded in 1970 and replaced by the Ulster Defense Regiment. 248

those cold bullets and think of them slicing through you" (44). He later opens the door to

Sammy, who is holding a loaded gun, and tells us that he "thought for one cold moment

he was going to shoot me" (49). Ironically, Sammy is later killed with "fifteen bullets

into his body" (51). Billy, since the death of his friend, keeps a gun in his pocket for

"self-defense," although he is aware that carrying a gun "didn't save Sammy" (51). The

habit of violence, represented by the numerous references to firearms in the play,

concretizes Beckett's theory of the "pernicious devotion of habit" that often acts as "an agent of security" (Proust 20-21). Ironically, that which is meant to protect Billy and

Sammy in fact kills them; in this case, habit literally destroys both men. The irony is further underscored by the fact that Billy appears to have no greater understanding of himself or the Troubles even in the transitional "grave-sheets" (Proust 19) of death. His self-knowledge is still wholly conditioned by the Protestant and Hollywood myths that informed his life and his perception of his being.

Billy's lack of awareness is a product of habit and voluntary memory, which according to Beckett, "paralyzes our attention" {Proust 20). Billy is unable to see the ironic reality of his death due to the cultural habits and memories that cloud his thoughts and existence. The Protestant rituals and Hollywood films are "habits" and illusions that help Billy forget the suffering of being but render him incapable of recognizing the reality of his (non)existence. Billy suggests that the Protestant rituals precede his very existence: "I used to go to the field with the old man, right since the age of nothing" (35).

The field is where the annual Protestant marches and parades celebrating their tradition take place. Billy's existence is also directly tied to the land (field) in Northern Ireland. As 249 he tells us, "This is my home. I grew like the trees out of this soil. Seed" (46). This connection to his roots is further manifested in the heritage passed down between father and son and is particularly evident in the repetitions of such words and phrases as "duty"

(53), "Father to son" (43), and must stick together, son" (36). For Billy and

Sammy, their heritage becomes "A life sentence" (46, 47), a term used to define

Sammy's marriage but equally adept to describe their imprisonment by the cultural stereotypes and myths of masculinity that lead to their early deaths. This patriarchal heritage is fed not only by the myths of King Billy and the Battle of the Boyne but also the Hollywood westerns that Billy and his father, and later Billy and his best friend

Sammy, regularly attend.

The cultural language of Billy's ancestors is also part of this tradition. Billy tells us that he knows his "language," a familial and patriarchal language in which names are sacred. According to Billy, "The holy names keep you safe. Jimmy Stewart. Gary

Cooper. Randolph Scott. Burt Lancaster. Kirk Douglas. General Custer... Destry... Billy the Kid.... Billy the King" (53). Billy's litany of names makes no distinction between the heroes of Hollywood western and Northern Irish Protestant history, the two traditions that inform his existence. The connection between the two is further underscored by Billy's childhood confusion between General Custer and Billy the King while at the cinema with his father:

I remember sitting with him one evening watching that film... Custer's Last Stand and on the screen comes this guy on his white horse and I said to him... Dada is that King Billy? He took hold of my arm like he was going to break it. God almighty will you whisht, son. It's General Custer and don't you go making a show of me, asking stupid questions like that. Where did you get a notion like that at eleven? (38) 250

His father's anger underscores the sacredness of King Billy in Protestant memory and culture; Billy's innocuous mistake is blasphemous and all the more so because it is uttered in public. The adult Billy comically and irreverently extends this childhood confusion by later combining the two mythic heroes as "King Billy Custer" (41).

Nevertheless, Johnston also underscores the reasonableness of young Billy's mistake: the image of a heroic King Billy on a white horse is so embedded in Protestant cultural memory that such a filmic image could be easily mistaken by a young man raised in this tradition. Billy's suggestion that the onscreen figure is the historical King Billy also inadvertently makes a connection between fiction and the myth of history; in Billy's father's mind, King Billy is an historical man and his acts of heroism are based on truth rather than myth. The adult Billy makes an even clearer connection between the two heroes and their mythical status: "I'd like to have seen King Billy on the pictures. The battle of the Boyne would have been a great picture" (37). History and memory, through their close connection to fiction, do indeed make for great pictures.

Johnston also interrogates the myth of heroism that defines Billy's existence and death through names. The repetition of the name Billy in the play—King Billy, Billy the

Kid, and Billy Maltseed—creates a direct connection between Billy and his heroes. While

Billy insists that he prefers the older westerns because they are "easier to understand.

You knew who was good and who was bad. It's not like that anymore" (37), Johnston underscores the cultural relativity of such morality and understanding of heroism. The inclusion of Billy the Kid in Billy's litany of "holy names" calls heroism into question.

Billy the Kid, heroically portrayed in Hollywood western, was a notorious outlaw, 251 murderer, and thief. In this light, his inclusion alongside King Billy underscores the fact that Catholics in Northern Ireland equate King Billy with thievery rather than heroism: in

Catholic cultural memory William of Orange stole the crown from James II, whom they believe was the rightful monarch of seventeenth-century England. Heroism is culturally and even personally relative in the context of Northern Ireland, where political prisoners are considered heroes by some and villainous murderers by others. Johnston interrogates the myth of heroism through questioning the very notion of heroes. Moreover, Billy and

King Billy are equally created by a mythical culture of heroism tied directly to Protestant cultural memory. The mythic nature of memory and heroism is particularly evident in a dreamlike image Billy often invoked as a child:

I used to think of King Billy on his flying horse, galloping over the clouds, the good tassels flying. Remember, it was written in big writing. Remember Derry, Enniskillen and the Boyne and it would fly, curling and uncurling, tassels, the flying horse, the sword bravely waving, through the clouds and the blue sky until they fluttered down to earth on top of the Vatican. (41)

Compelled by such a fantastical national memory, Billy and his father readily take part in this culture of heroism. Billy tells us that his father "really fancied himself a hero. He liked to think of himself as a hero" (37), while Billy and Sammy would often play heroes as adolescents, bringing Billy's toy guns to the cinema, "swager[ring] down the road twirling them round our fingers" (42). However, like their adolescent idol, James Dean, they aren't really heroes and only "pretending to be" (41). Billy's actual attempts at heroism lead him to join the Regiment following Sammy's death and consequently to an unheroic and senseless death that is far from the mythical memory presented above.

The personal and cultural memories that make up Billy's monodrama and 252 existence are part of the habits that cloud his existential awareness. Beckett argues that

"The laws of memory are subject to the more general laws of habit" (Proust 18) and "In extreme cases, memory is so closely related to habit that its word takes flesh, and is not merely available in cases of urgency, but habitually enforced" (Proust 31). According to

Beckett, "voluntary memory," the conscious recollection of yesterdays, "provides an image as far removed from the real as the myth of our imagination or the caricature furnished by direct perception" {Proust 14-15). The memories that Billy evokes, whether cultural or personal, are the stuff of fantasy, of flying horses and mythical heroes.

Tellingly, Billy's rememberings are directly linked to the cultural and personal habits that help him to ignore the suffering of (not)being. The importance of memory is highlighted by the play's title, Musn 't Forget High Noon, while the relationship between memory and myth is underscored by the imperative necessity to remember a particular Hollywood film, High Noon. Memory and myth are also equated in the image of King Billy and his banner as he flies through the sky and lands on the Vatican. However, there are some things that Billy forgets: the words to the song, "High Noon," and why he and his father celebrate the 12th of July. Ironically, Billy seems to have forgotten the core cultural memory—the triumph of William of Orange and the Protestant people against James II and Catholicism in 1690—which informs both his existence and the celebrations of the

Battle of the Boyne, and tellingly, he only remembers that "it was fun" (47). Perhaps this failure of voluntary memory suggests some resistance to the myths by which he has lived.

Although irony is central in Johnston's interrogation of the absurdities of the

Troubles and the myths and traditions that inform and perpetuate it, humour is an important means of resistance in the play. Billy's humour suggests some opposition to the

Protestant and unionist traditions that are part of his perception of the world. Billy uses humour to undermine his father's attempts to play the hero. Seeing his father, holding

"his gun loosely in his hand" and admiring himself in the mirror "like as if he was Old

Jimmy Stewart," Billy derisively comments, "if you had a white horse and a big hat now, you could let on you were going to save the world... like General Custer... like ...

King... not just snooping round the dark roads looking for Fenians" (45). Billy's father responds to his son's ridicule and blasphemy by punching him in the mouth. The episode recalls his father's anger and violence in the cinema when Billy was eleven, and the outright violence of the latter encounter underscores the magnitude of Billy's transgression. When Billy later insists, "I was only joking him," his mother counsels,

"There's jokes and jokes... did you never think?" (45). Billy's challenge to his father's pretended heroism is a means of debasement aimed at a father, and perhaps a tradition, against which he is rebelling. However, Billy recalls that he was young and most likely drunk, and thus, this act of resistance can be interpreted as adolescent defiance; moreover, Billy's challenge is undermined by his later involvement with the Regiment and the reality of his murder. Billy's resistance is also rendered questionable and ironic by his own heroic posturing when Sammy shows up at Billy's home with a gun. Billy holds Sammy's gun "loosely in [his] hand" (50) and looks at himself in the mirror.

Billy's pose is literally a mirror image of his father's earlier affectation. The critic this time, however, is Christine, who ridicules Billy's attempts to play the hero: "Who do you think you are, anyway?... Gary Cooper? James Stewart? John Wayne?... Stop playing 254 stupid games and come to bed' (50). Christine's reference to James Stewart creates an additional ironic echo between father and son and their heroic posturing.

Women are the central, comic voices of resistance in Mustn't Forget High Noon.

Billy's mother and Christine offer alternative perspectives of the myths that inform the men's existence. His mother, aware of the power and intentions of jokes, questions

Billy's humour, which only serves to belittle and thereby anger his father. She also questions her son's inability to foresee the consequences of his words and actions by rhetorically asking, "Didyou never think?'''' (45). Ironically, Billy's entire monologue is based on thought and memory, and yet he is unable to fully comprehend, even posthumously, the links between his habits, his memories, and his death. Christine's humour, however, is the most profane and resistant in the play and establishes a clear connection between Billy's existence and her own monologue in O Ananias, Azarias and

Miseal. Billy tells us about Christine's iconoclastic bowler hat joke and his outraged reaction. Christine calms his anger at her irreverence through more humour, asking,

"What's the difference between [being lackeys of Rome] and lackeys of the English?

What's a lackey anyway, she asked then and we laughed" (36). Christine, whom Billy says, "likes to laugh," (36) questions the very foundations of the conflict in Northern

Ireland: between Catholics who are afraid of becoming "lackeys of the English" and the

Protestants who are afraid of becoming "lackeys of Rome" (36). She calls into question such empty cliches by asking for a definition of the word lackey, one that is never proffered by Billy or Johnston. In the end, Christine's sarcastic litany of some of Billy's holy names underscore that the sacred names do not keep Billy safe because they are just 255 names, names that perpetuate a culture that worships heroes, guns, violence, and ultimately death.

The central irony of Billy's existence, then, is that the myths, names, and memories that are meant to protect and release him from the suffering of being literally and mercilessly kill him. In reality, he is neither a hero nor a martyr and rather just another casualty of the Troubles. Johnston, however, suggests an end to this patriarchal cycle of mythic masculinity and heroism by rendering Billy infertile. Unable to procreate,

Billy laments that he does not have sons to whom he could speak his life, language, and history. Despite an end to an ancestral, familial cycle, there is no escape for him from the habits of his life: he is trapped by his memories, his history, his language, and finally by death itself. Nevertheless, any tragic or nihilistic reading of Billy's monologue is undermined by his laughter at the end of the play. Recalling his good friend Sammy,

Billy jokes, "Pulled a fast one on your old pal, did you Sam? Hahhaha! Do not forsake me O my darling..." (53). Ironically, Billy also pulls "a fast one" through his own death.

His posthumous laugh echoes Beckett's mirthless laugh "that laughs... at that which is unhappy," in this case death itself. Moreover, although Billy sings the first line of "High

Noon" in memory of his good friend, it is the one song that he can never remember and therefore can never finish. The openendedness of the play's conclusion calls into question any real ending for Billy. Trapped in the limbo of non-being favoured by Beckett in many of his absurdist plays, Billy is literally caught between life and death. Moreover, his existence or nonexistence is not only in question, it is wholly dependent on another: Billy essentially exists "to illuminate" Christine. 256

The inclusion of Christine's words in Musn't Forget High Noon echo and recall her monologue, particularly for the audience tuning into the original broadcasts of both monodramas on BBC Radio in 1989. As companion pieces, they are also connected by humour: Billy and Christine in their respective monologues both stress that the other

"likes[/d] to laugh" (Musn't Forget High Noon 36; O Ananias, Azarias and Miseal 60).

Despite this laughter, both monodramas are essentially tragicomedies: the irony and humour in Musn't Forget High Noon is set against the tragic reality of Billy's death, while Christine's humour is set against her grief for her dead husband. Christine's humour not only underscores the irony and tragedy of Billy's life as captured in his monologue, it is also her means of survival. Moreover, the intimacy of radio, during the original airings of the two monologues, enabled Johnston to capture the solitude of Billy and Christine tragicomic, existential plight. While Christine and Billy reside in the specific context of Northern Ireland, they, like Beckett's creatures, are in essence alone when they face the inherent suffering of being. The lack of a setting or a physical, concrete playing space in both radio monodramas emphasizes this existential isolation and suffering. McMullan notes that in his play All That Fall, "Beckett exploited the intimacy of radio" in order to focus on consciousness ("From Matron" 102). Likewise,

Johnston uses radio to foreground consciousness, underscoring both the ironies of Billy's unconscious existential experience and Christine's growing awareness of her existence and the suffering of being in the complex, tragic landscape of contemporary Northern

Ireland.

O Ananias, Azarias and Miseal encompasses the transitional moment between 257

Billy's burial and Christine's move to a new life in Belfast. In this transitional space,

Christine reflects on her life with Billy, her mother, and her grandmother. She recalls the

familial and cultural habits passed down by her mother and grandmother, and she uses

incantations throughout her monologue to fill a life that has left her lonely and childless.

Part of this maternal heritage includes a profane and biting humour that mocks the

traditions by which Billy and the larger Protestant community in Northern Ireland exist.

Through humour, Christine refuses the role of tragic victim and instead evokes laughter

as an expression of resistance. Christine is the most comic of Johnston's three Northern

monologists. Her humour is edgy, biting, and not always understood by those around her.

Christine's humour not only makes her tragic existence bearable, it is also a central

component in her rejection of habit and her conscious, existential confrontation with the

suffering of being. Her humour is grotesque, literal, and profane: Christine sees the world

in practical, bodily, comic ways. Humour and laughter are not only part of her history,

her existence, and indeed her very being but also central to her voicing of self.

In the play, Johnston foregrounds Christine's conscious confrontation with her existence and the suffering of being through the intimate monodramatic form. The

monodrama, through its concentration on narrative, lends itself to explorations of self.

The depth of Christine's revelations would have been particularly evident during the

airing of O Ananias, Azarias and Miseal on BBC Radio in 1989. The radio genre, with its focus on the performance of disembodied voices, amplifies a representation of

consciousness. Beckett was aware of the advantages of the radio genre in his ontological explorations. He adamantly maintained that his play, All That Fall, was a radio play and 258 should not be performed on stage, insisting that it was written "for voices, not bodies"

(qtd. in McMullan, "From Matron" 102). Although O Ananias, Azarias and Miseal was originally performed as a stage play, it is in many ways written for a voice. Johnston's focus on the articulation of consciousness is evident from very early in the monodrama.

Christine's growing awareness is reflected in her comments regarding the workings of her mind: "...funny the way your mind works. It flies around... or maybe it's just mine.

It's probably just mine [...] I don't seem to be able to control my mind at all" (58). John

Pilling notes that both Proust and Beckett investigate "the matter of what constitutes man's essential being" through "personal identity," which "is not a matter of stable, fixed, one-to-one correspondences, but a confused and occasionally volatile chaos brought about by oscillations in the relationship between the inner self and the outer world." Through Christine's often non-linear inner ramblings, the audiences of the original radio broadcast were directly confronted with the voicing not only of a distinct personality but a personality that is confronting the relationship between her inner grief and the tragedies of her outer world. Christine's growing consciousness in the monodrama can be compared to Billy's unawareness, in Musn't Forget High Noon, of the habits and myths by which he lives and dies. Christine, while she calls on habits in her monologue—in particular, the television, her maternal language, and the angels from her childhood—retains an irreverent awareness of the limitations, even futility, of these habits amidst the isolation and suffering that is at the very root of her existence.

While Christine's memories and her maternal, cultural language encompass her being and inform her habits, her irreverent deconstruction of remembered phrases from 259

her childhood represents both Christine's humour and her nascent consciousness. In an

effort to escape the loneliness and suffering of her existence, Christine speaks the

memorable words, cliches, and proverbs—the familial and cultural language—that her

mother and grandmother spoke to her as a child: "Curiosity killed the cat" (57); "Hold your tongue" (71); and "Ififs and ands were pots and pans, there 'd be no room for

tinkers" (70). Christine's voluntary memories, like Billy's in Musn't Forget High Noon,

are "subject to the more general laws of habit" (Beckett, Proust 19). However, unlike

Billy, who embraces the language of his father and his community, Christine challenges

her mother's habitual phrases with an earthy, practical humour. In response to her

mother's insistence that "Curiosity killed the cat" Christine tells us, "I didn't believe her.

I never saw too many dead cats around the place" (57). And in response to her mother's

directive to "Holdyour tongue" Christine says, "I'd to put my tongue out of my mouth

and pinch it between my thumb and finger ... like this. I'm sure you remember doing the

same thing" (71). Tellingly, Christine draws the audience into her memory even as she destabilizes the matrilineal cliche. Pilling notes that "A Proustian [and Beckettian] trick is to employ a cliche either to make more readily accessible an unfamiliar idea or to imitate

the complexity of reality by means of one of its commonest items." While Johnston often

employs cliche to destabilize the habits of speech that children heedlessly adopt from

their elders, the particular reference to dead cats, in the complex, violent context of

Northern Ireland, along with Christine's revelation that her brother once killed a cat with an air gun and Billy's haunting presence, underscores the more ominous, literal meaning of the cliche. 260

Johnston further underscores the complex, inexorable realities of the Troubles through Christine's evocation of one her mother's proverbs while remembering her father-in-law's death:

Maybe old Mr. Maltseed would still be going strong if... If ifs and ands were pots and pans there'd be no room for tinkers. She used to say that too. If... It was the shock that killed him. If only... (70)

While Christine's repetition of the word "if' suggests an alternate possibility "if only"

Billy had chosen differently, Johnston's inclusion of "ifs" recalls Beckett's "syntax of weakness" in which "the condition of possibility for the hypothesis 'if... then... is an impossibility" (Critchley 106). The impossibility of a different outcome for either Mr.

Maltseed or Billy in the violent context of the Troubles is underscored by Christine's evocation of a proverb that is most commonly used as a comic response to an overly optimistic expression. The remembered proverb along with Christine's ifs, optimism, and hope are impossibilities and rendered meaningless when juxtaposed with the stark, complex reality of the Troubles, as well as Billy's and his father's deaths.

Despite Christine's initial rejection of her maternal, cultural language, in an effort to overcome the grief of Billy's death, she voices the religious hymns she learned as a child. Christine's favourite prayer, "Oh, let the earth bless the Lord, yea, let it praise Him and magnify Him forever" (66), includes her beloved angels, Ananias, Azarias, and

Miseal. Beckett suggests that "Habit is a compromise effected between the individual and his environment, or between the individual and his own organic eccentricities, the guarantee of a dull inviolability, the lightning-conductor of his existence" (Proust 19). 261

Christine's compromise, her "dull inviolability," manifests itself through prayer. Prayer can be interpreted as a habit not only in Beckett's definition of human existence—it is a

means to escape the suffering of being—but also in the context of the Troubles, in which

sectarianism is based on religious identity. Nevertheless, Johnston destabilizes a static reading of prayer as an embodiment of Christine's "dull inviolability" through her eccentric, profane humour. Christine's recitation of the popular Christian hymn,

"Matthew Mark Luke and John bless the bed that I lie on" and her remembrance of her mother's words that "they'll mind you" are immediately followed by her irreverent and practical realization that "They have to. I suppose. I'm not complaining. They've their work cut out for them, minding all the people who say that last thing at night" (67).

Christine's remark suggests that prayer and religion are not "the lightning-conductor[s] of

[her] existence." Rather, her irreverence signals a crisis of faith and existence that is fully captured in her conscious recognition of the minuteness of her being:

Dolores says that everything is sent by God. I can't see it like that. Why would he have me in such sorrow? What have I ever done to him? I am such a small person. I can't believe he can even see me when he looks down from the sky. I'm not like those people you see on telly. (72)

Christine's existential crisis is coupled with an ambivalent questioning of an omniscient and benevolent God. Kierkegaard argues that the highest comedy is an absurdist comedy of faith, "Since the religious man is the one who knows by his very existence that there is an endless, yawning difference between God and man, and yet he has the infinite, obsessive passion to devote himself to God, who is all, whereas man is nothing" (qtd. in

Sypher 196). While Christine does not obsessively "devote [herself] to God," she is 262 aware of the chasm between her minute self and God. Christine later insists that "I don't think I'm anything at all" (66) and thereby captures the inherent absurdity of existence and religious belief. While her response is a literal reference to her lack of faith, it also underscores an unconscious existential angst: she is not only nobody in the public, televised space of Northern Ireland but also nobody in a larger existential sense.

Johnston couples her ontological explorations with Christine's earthy, iconoclastic humour that is most often directed at the habit makers in Northern Ireland.

Christine not only speaks against the 'void' but also speaks against those who perpetuate the Troubles. Unlike Billy, who unquestioningly adopts the myths and traditions of his

Protestant, British heritage, Christine openly ridicules the political and religious figure heads of Billy's Ulster. Christine's irreverence is most often directed at "the people who run the world" (59), including the Queen, Margaret Thatcher, and the local minister. She recalls the song that her southern Irish grandmother would shout whenever Christine would visit her: "Old Queen Vic, With a walking stick, Run or she'll catch you. Quick, quick, quick" (61-62). This childish rhyme is directed at the history of colonization in

Northern Ireland, as well as the Protestant, unionist community in which Christine now exists and for which Billy lived and died. Christine's irreverence is part of her maternal heritage, and it is evident throughout her narrative that she has inherited her grandmother's humour. Recalling her mother's myth regarding squeaky shoes, Christine not only pokes fun at her mother and people from the Republic but also ridicules

Margaret Thatcher:

It's a funny thing, people's shoes don't creak nowadays. When I was a child, people's shoes used to squeak. 263

It means they haven't paid for them, my mother used to say. She was from the south, my mother. You couldn't believe everything she said. I'm sure that Mrs. Thatcher's shoes creak. I don't know why. I always get that feeling when I look at her on the telly, I think to myself, I bet your shoes creak. (59-60)

By suggesting that Thatcher's shoes are unpaid for, Christine is blithely accusing the former Prime Minister of common thievery. The darker implications of this image perhaps refer to the prolonged, harsh economic effects of Thatcher's policies in the

1980s, which literally pilfered the livelihoods of many living in Britain and Northern

Ireland. Thatcher's economic policies were particularly detrimental for the already volatile climate in Northern Ireland. Christine also dismisses the nameless politicians and newsmakers on television, whose "faces say nothing" to her, by reducing their ideologies to "Long words" and "Notions" (59).

Christine's irreverence is particularly dark and sarcastic in her reactions to the local Presbyterian minister and his words of counsel regarding Billy's involvement in the

Ulster Defense Regiment. Christine calls into question the minister's condescending and misleading use of the term "over-zealousness" in describing paramilitary activity in

Northern Ireland: "I remember that... over-zealousness. Isn't it funny the way some people talk. I suppose he got a word like that from the Bible. The Good Book he used to call it. They try to hide things sometimes in the way they talk. I think our minister's a bit fond of the sound of his own voice" (72). Christine not only destabilizes the minister's words by reducing them to meaningless euphemisms, but she also underscores the role of religion and the churches in the Troubles. Moreover, through the voicing of Christine's interpretation in the uninterrupted space of monologue, Johnston debases the minister's 264 fondness for the sound of his voice at the same time that she denies him a voice.

Christine's voicing of resistance is a conscious, empowering act, and it is set against

Billy's habitual, pernicious loyalty to the UDR, Protestantism, and the maintenance of a

British Northern Ireland as embodied by the (muted) Queen, Thatcher, the politicians on television, and the local minister.

Johnston strategically sets Christine's voicing of resistance, and in particular her conscious resistance to myth and habit, against Billy's resolute loyalties. Christine's derisive, grotesque jokes are often aimed at Billy and his friends at the lodge. She recalls a joke that she once told Billy: "I used to wonder what they were like inside, under the clothes and the sashes. I said to him once, turn a bowler hat upside down and guess what you could use it for. He wasn't all that amused" (66). Billy's failure to see the humour in

Christine's joke suggests that she has, in his mind, degraded the sacred. Christine's comic transgression is underscored by Billy's recollection of the event in Mustn 't Forget High

Noon, calling her joke "rude" and telling her outright that "She had no right to be jeering at the Lodge" (36). Christine's degradation of the bowler hat—a central, habitual part of the Orange Order's attire and proudly worn by members during marches and celebrations—dramatizes Christine's conscious destabilizing of the traditions and myths that perpetuate the Troubles and that killed her husband. Christine also openly questions

Billy and his notions of heroism: "He liked to play the big guy. You know... tough guy

Billy Malstead" (66), but she tells us that "He wasn't cut out to be a soldier. And why bring trouble on yourself? Why be a hero?" (66). While Christine ridicules Billy's bravado and heroic posturing, she also makes a more serious connection between heroism 265 and the reality of being a soldier in a war-torn Northern Ireland. Christine's words poignantly foreshadow Billy's unthinking adoption of the heroic myths and traditions of his paternal culture in Mum't Forget High Noon. Later, Christine ridicules Billy and his

"duty" by equating them with games and playing: "I think they had a bit of crack too.

Like wee boys" (74). Christine's reduction of Billy's political exploits again foreshadows

Billy's descriptions of his childhood in Musn't Forget High Noon: he and his friend,

Sammy, as "wee boys" would often take toy guns with them to the cinema. Christine's dismissal of the seriousness of their political duty, in O Ananias, Azarias and Miseal, is rendered ironic by the fact that those toy guns became the real guns that ended their lives.

Johnston heightens the ironies of Billy's heroism and loyalties through the lingering presence of his death and the central trope of loss in the play. Christine's reference to Billy as a "wee" boy is extended in the image of Christine cradling the adult, sleeping Billy in her arms. While the image may foreshadow Billy's fate, it also reflects

Christine's sense of loss due to their inability to conceive a baby. Christine tells us that she would often hold Billy and pretend he was the child whom they could never conceive. Their childlessness, like Billy's death, haunts Christine's existence, and her monologue is consumed by death and loss; the deaths of her husband and father-in-law, as well as the absent presence of their unborn child, reflect not only Christine's private suffering but also the larger losses of the Troubles. Loss is also present in the personal sacrifice Christine makes to protect Billy's manhood. Despite Christine's profane deflation of Billy's myths of heroism, she also understands the codes and norms of masculinity that informed his life. When she finds out that her husband is the cause of 266 their infertility, Christine chooses to protect him by remaining silent, and thereby, she bears the responsibility for their childlessness. This compromise, however, has confined her to a life of solitude. Johnston recognizes the tendency for women to compromise themselves: "When you start to compromise you sometimes find that you compromise yourself out of existence, and I just have the feeling that this is one of the reasons why I say that things are not right here as yet with women, because they tend to have to either compromise themselves out of existence or they have to take this other road which is that of isolation" (Gonzalez 9). For Christine, who doesn't see herself as "anything at all"

(66), her personal compromise captures a more fundamental loss of self and being.

Against this silent compromise and loss, Christine's monologue becomes an attempt to create subjectivity, to "bear witness" to her existence. Humour is central to her voicing of self; it is a humour that is often macabre and incomprehensible to others, but it is also a humour that captures Christine's essential humanity. According to Critchley,

"Laughter gives us a distance on everyday life, and there is a certain coldness at its core"

(87). This seems to apply in particular to Christine's distinctive sense of humour that others do not find very funny, as evidenced by her mother's refrain, "We are not amused'

(66). The phrase, a famous quotation attributed to Queen Victoria, captures the somber restraint of the Protestantism that informs Christine's existence and that she comically rebels against. Christine tells her most macabre joke to her Catholic neighbour, Dolores.

In the wake of her husband's and her father-in-law's deaths, Christine jokes,"Two for the price of one." Dolores was "most upset," but as Christine reminds us, "Sometimes a little joke lifts your spirits" (77). Deborah R. Geis argues that Beckett's early use of 267 monologue dramatizes speaking "as a way of struggling against silence, isolation and the

'void'" (26). Christine not only speaks but she also laughs as a means of struggling against the 'void' and the very real losses of her life and the Troubles.

Christine is both aware of the necessity of laughter and conscious of the fact that

her humour is not always understood or appreciated. In an earlier moment in the play, she signals for her audience that "That's a joke, in case you don't recognize it" (71). She also openly grants her audience license to laugh:

You can laugh. That's what we used to do... have a laugh. You have to have a laugh from time to time. Not at anyone's expense of course, just at things... you know things in general. (56-57)

Christine underscores the need to laugh: it is what makes us human and ensures our survival. Critchley argues that "What goes on in humour is a form of liberation or elevation that expresses something essential to what Plessner calls 'the humanity of the

human'" (9). Using Bergson's and Freud's theories on comedy and jokes, Critchley suggests that humour is essentially a human trait: "Homo sapiens is therefore not so much

homo ludens as John Huizinga famously argued, where humanity would be identified

with the capacity to play. Rather, we are homo ridens, laughing beings, or indeed, homo

risibilis, which suggests both 'the risible or ridiculous being,' and 'the being gifted with

laughter'" (41). Christine makes a connection with her audience not only through the gift of laughter but also through the communal and inclusive act of laughing together "at things" rather than other people. However, Christine's first sentence can also be interpreted as an imperative that calls the audience's laughter itself into question. By

telling the audience to laugh, she makes listeners aware of their laughter, underscoring 268 not only the incongruity of her humour but also the difficulty of laughing amidst her personal tragedy and the larger public tragedy of the Troubles. Through Christine,

Johnston evokes Beckett's dianoetic laughter, the conscious, "mirthless laugh" that laughs not only "at that which is unhappy" but also at laughter itself. This shared meta- laughter not only creates a bond between Christine and her audience but also underscores the absurdities of existence in a troubled Northern Ireland.

Christine's voicing of her essential humanity, her very being, is not only expressed through her humour but also through an existential experience following her husband's funeral. Ironically, Christine's existential epiphany and her direct confrontation with the suffering of being occur through the medium of television, one of the central habits of her existence. Simon Critchley maintains that "The critical distance with regard to the world and nature that opens up in the incongruities of humour is testified to in the alienation we experience with regard to our bodies" (50). This physical alienation is manifested in Christine when she sees herself on television and her metaphysical self is separated from the physical body present on the television screen:

You probably saw the funeral on the telly. I sat and watched it that evening on the news after everyone had gone home... how strange I thought to see myself on the telly. I really do exist, that's me there, walking, standing, shaking hands... that's me. I am a real person. If I'd had a video, I'd have taped it. I could have looked at it over and over again, I could have said Christine Maltseed, that's you there on the telly with the eyes bursting out of your head with pain. ... and then I cried, when I saw myself there with all those people. (78)

Tellingly, this is an ironic rather than explicitly comic moment: it is only through the distance of seeing herself on the television screen that Christine consciously 269 acknowledges her existence. This distance between physical body and metaphysical self captured in Christine's existential experience is heightened by the radio genre. During the original broadcast in 1989 listeners were confronted with a disembodied voice describing the metaphysical experience of perceiving her being through the physical manifestation of her body on the television. Moreover, the depth of Christine's confrontation with her being is more fully captured through radio, which focuses listeners on the emotional, intimate rhythms of Christine's recognition. This rhythm is suggested by the ellipses in the text: the silent moments from which Christine moves from non-being to being.

Christine's recognition of her existence through the television recalls Beckett's theatre. In particular, Johnston's inclusion of the television calls to mind Krapp, the monologist of Beckett's Krapp's Last Tape, who bears witness to his existence through private tape recordings of his past selves. Unlike Krapp, however, Christine confronts the suffering of her existence through the private, disembodied experience of observing herself on the public space of television. While Ruby Cohn places Beckett's work in the tradition of international cosmological comedy, "a comedy that resides not in any given society but in the cosmos as it appears to human sense" (14), she also notes that in

Beckett's plays "society is not entirely absent (the two sets of couples in Waiting for

Godot, the family in Endgame, the village in All That Fall). Even these creatures are essentially alone, however, when they face creation and, perhaps, a creator" (16).

Johnston's monodrama, unlike Beckett's plays, presides in a very specific society and

Christine's existential revelation occurs when she sees herself in the social context while

"shaking hands" at Billy's funeral. Nevertheless, like Beckett's characters, when 270

Christine finally confronts her existence, she is essentially alone: in her sitting room, in the narrative space of her monologue, and within the aural space of radio. During the moment that she recognizes herself—"I really do exist"—her experience of the suffering of her being is embodied in her tears. Ironically, Christine's experience recalls her earlier statement that she is "not like those people you see on telly" (72). While her image on the screen suggests that she has in fact become like the people on television, Christine's existential awareness separates her from the public figures whose political habits perpetuate the Troubles and chain the people of Northern Ireland to the nightmare of their history and their present.

Johnston dramatizes Christine's escape from habit and her existential awareness not only through her epiphany but also her unfailing humour. According to Kierkegaard,

"The more thoroughly and substantially a human being exists, the more he will discover the comical" (qtd. in Sypher 196). Rather than reverting to the habits that Beckett insists chain us, Christine decides to leave behind her angels, Ananias, Azarias, and Miseal, with

Billy. Her company in the face of existential loneliness and suffering will be her humour, as she quickly reverts to the jesting that ultimately defines her and distinguishes her from others: "I said to them [Dolores' children] now you'll be able to steal the apples in peace.

They smiled but I don't think they thought it was very funny" (79). Laughter and irreverence underline Christine's being and difference. Christine's humanity is captured not only in her humour but also in her final humility: "I hope I haven't taken up too much of your time" (79). Her final lines reflect "The modesty and limitedness of the human condition, a limitedness that calls not for tragic-heroic affirmation but comic 271 acknowledgement, not Promethean authenticity but a laughable inauthenticity" (Critchley

102). Christine's comic humility is set against Billy's tragic-heroic demise. Through the intimacy of the radio genre, listeners assume the role of confidant during a performance.

Through laughter and her essential humility, Christine creates a connection with her audience that perhaps lingers even once she has bid us a final farewell.

Neither Johnston nor Christine offer any answers and they refuse the closure that most often serves to confine the female subject. Christine says farewell, but the image of her moving on to a new life in Belfast stays with her audience. Johnston rejected closure from the first day she conceived of Christine: "She just manifested herself one day, across the kitchen table and spoke quietly, but with great insistence until her story was down on paper, and then she went back to wherever she has come from, perhaps some till in Marks and Spencers" ("Preface" 9). Likewise, Christine, her story, and her humour linger with her audience even after the performance has ended. Tellingly, while Christine leaves her three angels with Billy and speaks her final joke, she also engages in prayer one last time. This may suggest that habit is not "dead (or as good as dead, doomed to die) but sleeping" (Beckett, Proust 21). Nevertheless, Johnston juxtaposes prayer (habit) and humour and thereby underscores what Beckett calls "our smug will to live, or our pernicious and incurable optimism" (Proust 15). Ultimately, Christine captures this pernicious optimism through her dark humour and her open invitation to laugh.

Christine's humour constitutes Simon Critchely's theory of humour as a form of sensus communis: "The tiny explosions of humour that we call jokes return us to a common, familiar domain of shared life-world practices, the background meanings implicit in a 272 culture" (90). However, Critchley suggests another possible theory of humour, "namely a dissensus communis distinct from the dominant common sense" (90). Through dark humour, Christine invites her audience to confront their "notions" as well as the ideologies that inform the dominant narratives of the Troubles and Billy's monodrama.

Essentially, Christine's humour, so often misunderstood by others, represents Critchley's dissensus communis: humour that is not only distinct from but also a direct challenge to

"the dominant common sense." Nevertheless, hope and optimism reside in the comic moments of the play, as well as its openended conclusion. In order to face the suffering of being, as Christine reminds us, "You can laugh," and indeed you "have to have a laugh," in order to resist, to exist, and to persist.

Johnston continues her tragicomic, ontological explorations in her third Troubles monodrama, Txvinkletoes. Similar to Christine's monologue, Karen's monologue, in this later play, underscores her isolation and loneliness as she too confronts the suffering of being. Beckett suggests that there are "periods of transition... [which] represent the perilous zones in the life of the individual, dangerous, precarious, painful, mysterious and fertile, when for a moment the boredom of living is replaced by the suffering of being"

(Beckett, Proust 19). It is during these transitional moments that we are able to see reality, both "its cruelties and its enchantments" (22). This new perception of reality constitutes freedom for the individual, even if only with the "brief suspension of [Habit's] vigilance" (23). While Christine speaks her monologue in the aftermath of her husband's funeral, Karen speaks in the transitional space between the festive realm of her daughter's wedding day (yesterday) and the mundane reality of her tomorrow. The prevalence of 273 time and the backdrop of the Troubles in Twinkletoes suggest that Karen is defined and imprisoned by what Beckett calls "that double-headed monster of damnation and salvation—Time" (Proust 11). Like Christine, however, Karen's humour underscores her humanity, as well as her awareness, as she bears witness to the absurdities of her existence and the suffering of being. In Twinkletoes, Johnston fully captures the difficulty of real or imagined escape from the absurd, prison-like space of a troubled Northern

Ireland.

The monodramatic form of Twinkletoes and the play's sparse setting—an "empty living room" (15)—reflect Karen's existential isolation and imprisonment in life as a political prisoner's wife. Set against this mundane reality, dancing becomes the central metaphor for escape in the play and is underscored by the play's title. "Twinkletoes," we learn, was her father's nickname for her as a child and recalls the fairy tales that adults often tell children to cushion the suffering of being. In the course of her narrative, Karen reveals the contradictions of her private desires and the public role she is expected to assume and the personal compromises this entails. Finding herself alone, wanting to dance, to have more children, and to love again, she realizes that these personal needs will never be satisfied under the laws of her community. Instead, she is forced to stay loyal to her imprisoned, heroic husband. Every Thursday, she finds herself on the prison- bound bus surrounded by other women confined to the role of prisoner's wife. The underlying theme of freedom in the play emphasizes Karen's personal imprisonment by cultural norms and stereotypes. Karen, however, reconciles the contradictions and survives the public role of faithful wife through the careful distinction of what she can 274 and cannot say outside the privacy of her narrative. Hope resides in the transitional, post- wedding space of the monodrama—between yesterday and tomorrow—as well as

Karen's essential, sardonic humour. However, such hope is set against the harsh reality of her social and existential confinement, where habits are vital and escape is seemingly impossible. Karen's monologue, which takes place after the communal celebration of her daughter's wedding—often the traditional ending of festive comedy—may in fact exist in the realm of post-comedy and as such suggests that pure comedy is impossible in the context of the Troubles where tragicomedy seems to be the only possible genre.

Johnston establishes the tragicomic, absurd tone of Twinkletoes in the opening

moments of the text. The play begins with Karen's "giggles" as she talks to her hat.

Karen's giggles suggest happiness, while the fact that she speaks to her hat underscores

her isolation: there is literally no one else to talk to. The image suggests a Beckettian,

tragicomic moment. Beckett insists that "We are alone. We cannot know and we cannot

be known" {Proust 66). This inability to know or be known results from the failure of

communication and any attempt to communicate "where no communication is possible is

merely a simian vulgarity, or horribly comic, like the madness that holds a conversation

with the furniture" (Proust 63). Karen's conversation with her hat is a kind of comical

madness that accentuates the essential loneliness and absurdity of her existence.

However, Johnston sets this absurdity against a distinctly festive tone. Karen's gaiety, as

well as her clothing, embody both celebration and escape from the everyday drudgeries of her existence: she "is dressed in finery; a hat in her hand, flowers pinned to her coat,

very high-heeled shoes, a shiny bag" (15). Moreover, a sense of abandon is captured in 275 the images of Karen "flinging off her tights," her "quick step twirls," and her reference to

"spinning" (15-16). However, this sense of abandon in the opening tableau may also reflect Beckett's "periods of abandonment," in which "the cruelties and enchantments of reality" are laid bare {Proust 22). Karen captures the ambivalence of her existence—the cruelties and the enchantments—when she refers to her life as "short" and "merry" but then poses the rhetorical question, "What's merry?" (16). The reference to a "short" life underscores the cruel, often tragic context of the Troubles, while her repetition of the word "merry," as both a statement and a question, ambivalently recalls the wedding festivities from which she has just returned. Although the wedding celebration, within the realms of traditional comedy, is "merry," in the absurd space of Twinkletoes Karen's merriment ambivalently encompasses the hope (comedy) and despair (tragedy) of her reality.

Although Johnston foregrounds Karen's attempts to escape this reality through a number of habits, including vodka, cigarettes, dancing, and fairytale, she also suggests the "brief suspension of [Habit's] vigilance" (23) through Karen's caustic self-awareness.

Karen is sardonically aware of the problems and limits of her habits even as she willingly engages in them. She is particularly conscious of the consequences of habit in the form of alcohol. When she searches for a "drop of vodka," she proclaims, "Might as well be hanged for a lamb as a sheep" (20), and she later ironically toasts freedom with a glass of vodka (21). Johnston, as in O Ananias, Azarias and Miseal, uses cliche to capture "the complexity of reality by means of one of its commonest items" (Pilling). The proverb that

Karen's invokes is most often used as a justification for committing a greater offence than the one originally committed or planned.7 Karen's voicing of the cliche speaks

literally to the consequence of a hangover and ontologically to the darker consequences

of habit in her life: the image of hanging suggests that habit—both her personal habits

and the larger habits of the Troubles ("freedom")—is destroying her. Earlier in the play,

Karen searches for her matches and irreverently thanks God: "Thank you God. At least

you recognize the need for poison" (17). While Karen's latter statement emphasizes the

more lethal effects of smoking, Johnston's inclusion of God's collusion addresses the

much more precarious habit of religion in Northern Ireland. However, even religion as

habit is undermined by the lack of any obvious devotion or faith in Karen's life. Karen

also dreams of escape through dancing, simultaneously hopeful and aware that dancing

"takes your mind off things" (17). She imagines that she and her father could have

danced "a slow foxtrot" at the wedding reception and "dazzled them all" (20). However,

her fantasy is followed by her practical and caustic realization that the band probably

would not have known how to play a foxtrot: "What's that when it's at home? A slow

fucking foxtrot" (20). Dancing—as escape (habit)—is rendered impossible in Karen's

onstage, captive reality: despite "a few quick step twirls" (15) at the start of the play, and

although she later insists that she "could dance" (25), Karen never actually dances on

stage.

Johnston most fully dramatizes the suspension of Habit and Karen's awareness of

the cruelties and enchantments of her life through her ambivalent memories of her

7 The proverb's origins date back to pre-nineteenth-century England when the punishment for sheep (or lamb) stealing was hanging or deportation. If you were planning to steal a lamb, you might as well steal a sheep (more wool and meat) since the consequences were the same. 277 honeymoon:

He [Declan] laid the rag down on the bed and said, ever heard of a magic carpet? Heard of one, I said, but never came across one. Not too many magic carpets in Derry. Come here to me and I'll show you just how magic a carpet can be. He was so sweet. We didn't get to America, but we forgot about the rain for a while. Magic carpets. Happy ever after. Fairy tales. Shit, all shit. But we tell them to our children just the same. (25)

While Karen, like Christine, debases the myths that are heedlessly passed down to children, her reference to magic carpets recalls an earlier allusion to the blue rug that she and Declan bought on their honeymoon in Gal way. Beckett notes that "'enchantments of reality' has an air of paradox"; however, such enchantments happen when we perceive an object in its essence, "when it appears independent of any general notion and detached from the sanity of any cause" and before it is transformed in "the haze of conception"

(.Proust 22-23). Karen's perception of the rug in its essence, a wet blue rug, dramatizes

Beckett's theory; here, she fully perceives the rug in its essence, devoid of the romantic myths later attached to it. Karen's tears, when she sees the rug, suggest the suspension of

Habit and a confrontation with the suffering of being. Tellingly, Karen's perception of the blue rug before "the haze of conception" leads not only to her tears but also to her caustic declaration that magic rugs, like fairy tales and happy ever after, are "Shit, all shit."

Johnston juxtaposes Karen's self-conscious engagement in and rejection of habit with the graver, widespread use of prescription drugs among Northern Irish women since the start of the Troubles. According to Beckett, the suffering of being involves "the free

play of every faculty. Because the pernicious devotion of habit paralyses our attention,

drugs those handmaidens of perception whose cooperation is not absolutely essential"

(Proust 20). The common habit of prescription drugs among Northern Irish women,

which literally "drug[s] those handmaidens of perception," is dramatized through Karen's story of Danny McCarthy's wife. Danny, Karen's potential, married love interest in the

present tense of her monologue, shares her loneliness and isolation due to his equally

'absent' spouse. Karen informs us that Danny's wife started taking pills after her brother's death and now spends her days "staring at the wall" (20). Margaret Ward and

Marie Therese McGivern note that the use of medication to relieve mental anguish is a characteristic feature in the lives of Northern Irish women: "Thirty-five million tranquilizers are consumed by the people of this province every year, and, significantly, twice as many women as men are dependent on such relief' (580). Karen, who says she's thirty-five "coming on seventy," prefers feeling to a bottle of pills: "The doctor wanted to put me on tablets, but I wouldn't take them. I'd seen what the tablets did to other women.

Like Danny McCartney's wife. I'd rather feel" (22-23). Karen's choice of feeling over mind-numbing pills, which would literally leave her "staring at the wall" (20), seems life affirming. However, in the drunken, smoke-filled haze of her post-wedding celebration,

Karen's rejection of prescription drugs ironically highlights the fundamental role of habit in both Northern Ireland and her life. Nevertheless, Karen's insistence on "feel[ing]" perhaps alludes to a "free[r] play of every faculty" by which she can escape her imprisoned, habit-ridden existence and enter the "perilous zone... when for a moment, the 279

boredom of living is replaced by the suffering of being" (Beckett, Proust 19).

Despite these brief transitional, "perilous" moments, Johnston accentuates

Karen's essential confinement through the pernicious presence of time in her life and

monologue. The immediacy of time in Twinkletoes underscores the link between the

contemporary Troubles and Northern Ireland's past: a long history (yesterdays) has led to

the violent context in which Johnston's characters exist (today and tomorrow). Like

Proust's and Beckett's creatures, Karen is a victim and prisoner of time: as in Proust

"There is no escape from the hours and the days. Neither from tomorrow nor from

yesterday. There is no escape from yesterday because yesterday has deformed us, or been

deformed by us" (Beckett, Proust 13). Karen's very existence is based on her scheduled,

habitual visits to the Maze prison. As she tells us, "I could die in my bed tonight and no

one would know. Till Thursday. Someone would be sure to know on Thursday" (16).

Every Thursday, for nine years, Karen boards a bus to visit her husband, Declan, who is

serving three life sentences in prison for his involvement in the IRA. The historical

context of the Troubles (yesterdays), and Declan's paramilitary involvement in this

history, has imprisoned both Declan and Karen. Beckett suggests that "We are not merely

more weary because of yesterday, we are other, no longer what we were before the

calamity of yesterday" (Proust 13). Karen, no longer a simply a wife, a mother, or a

woman, now defines herself by her existence as a prisoner's wife. She tells us that "It's

hard being married to a hero. It's a bit like being in prison too" (22). Karen is imprisoned

by the larger culture of heroism that informs and perpetuates the Troubles and has condemned her to three life sentences of Thursdays. The distortion experienced by Karen 280 and her contemporaries is most fully captured in Karen's reference to non-being: "We

[Danny and Karen] both been alone such a long time. What with [Danny's wife] being in and out staring at the wall. Not alive really" (20). Danny McCarthey's wife, strung out on prescription drugs, has been deformed by the Troubles. She is "Not alive really," but neither are Danny nor Karen, trapped as they are by the solitary, troubled yesterdays and tomorrows—and for Karen, the Thursdays—of their lonely lives.

Johnston also uses repetitions throughout Twinkletoes to dramatize the pernicious, cyclical nature not only of time but also politics and history in contemporary Northern

Ireland. Karen ambivalently repeats the word freedom throughout her monologue.

Despite her own attempts to imagine freedom—through fairy tales and magic carpets—

Karen recognizes the meaninglessness of this multivalent term in the specific context of the Troubles. As Karen tells us, "All the people I love most of all go on and on about freedom. I don't know what it means. I don't see it around" (26). Here, Johnston destabilizes the ideological, republican meaning attached to the term freedom, and expounded by Declan and the IRA, by underscoring Karen's inability to see its literal and physical manifestations. For Karen, the people she loves are all physically trapped:

Declan, through his imprisonment in Long Kesh; Danny, through his marriage to a comatose wife; and Karen's daughter, Noreen, through her pregnancy and shotgun wedding. Johnston underscores the cyclical, constrained existence for women in Northern

Ireland, in particular, through Karen and her daughter. Karen tells us that Noreen has also married a man named Declan. The echoes created between mother and daughter in the play—they both married young, they both left school early, and they both became 281 pregnant out of wedlock—reflect the cycles and habits that entrap women in Northern

Ireland. Karen, in making the connection between the two Dedans and their names, says

"Isn't that funny" (27). Philip Tew states that "An English rejoinder when faced with the claim that something is 'funny,' is to inquire whether it might be something 'funny peculiar' or something 'funny ha-ha'" and further suggests that the two meanings combine Beckettian and critical possibilities (106). While Karen's rhetorical question highlights the peculiar coincidence that both she and her daughter have married a man named Declan, the fact that she poses her comment as a question opens up a darker, ironic reading: Noreen has already adopted the socially constructed roles—wife and mother—that have trapped Karen. The 'funny ha-ha' possibility suggests a larger and bleaker cosmic joke: Noreen is marrying another Declan and thus continuing the cycle of violence and imprisonment represented by her father in the play. Karen's irony echoes

Christine in O Ananias, Azarias and Miseal, who utters the same phrase to challenge the

Presbyterian minister's cloaked defense of Billy's involvement in the UDA. However,

Johnston complicates the latter interpretation of Karen's comment by making important distinctions between the two Dedans. There is no indication in the play that the younger

Declan will repeat the mistakes of the elder Declan. Karen calls the former "a harmless young fella" (18) and Noreen reassures her grandfather that her Declan is "not in the same business" as her father (30). Perhaps the younger, apolitical Declan, despite his name, suggests a break in the pernicious cycle of political strife that has entrapped both

Karen and Northern Ireland.

The glimmer of hope represented by the younger Declan, Noreen, and their 282

unborn child is also evident in Karen's comic resistance to the myths that both confine

her existence and perpetuate the Troubles. Karen's wit during her interaction with Danny

McCartney suggests both resistance and hope:

I called [Danny] Twinkletoes once. One night 1 was out with our Mary and the girls and he asked me onto the floor. Right enough, he was a great dancer. So I said it. I gave him that name. There's other parts of him that twinkle too. Keep your twinkling hands off me or I'll deck you. He laughed. (17)

Karen's humour here is double-edged: she recalls the "twinkle" of the title, her

childhood, and fairytale but also employs the term as both a euphemism and a sexual

reference. Karen's allusion to the "other parts of [Danny] that twinkle too" implies a comic refusal of her role as a chaste and loyal prisoner's wife. Karen's humour, however, can also be resistant, angry, and derisive when directed at Declan and his republican cause: "You're a hero. Wear it well. I'm just a woman whose plastic shoes hurt. (She laughs suddenly)" (29). Karen irreverently equates heroism with her plastic shoes and thereby reduces Declan's political activism to the realm of myths and fairytales. Karen's ridiculing of Declan's heroism reflects the myths that inform the Troubles and republicanism, while her derisive comment, "Wear it well," reduces Declan's heroism to a mere costume or affectation. Moreover, Karen's sudden laughter recalls Beckett's dianoetic laughter, the conscious, "mirthless laugh" and underscores not only her despair and discomfort but also her realization of the absurdities and ironies of her life: the fairytales and traditions that perpetuate myths of heroism are far removed from the reality of her existence. She is not a princess in a fairytale and instead just "a woman whose 283 plastic shoes hurt." Karen's ambivalent laughter is set against her daughter's sarcasm about waiting to be wed until after her father is released: "Thanks, [Noreen] said. We've better things to do with our lives than wait for miracles to happen" (28). The miracles and happy ever afters of fairytale are indeed "Shit, all shit," and they are both impossible and unimaginable in the women's lives. The irony and derision evident in both Karen's and

Noreen's words underscore their resistance to the violent, androcentric culture of heroism

"worn" by the elder Declan.

Karen's resistance to Declan's heroism also manifests itself in her inability to openly communicate with him. As she tells us, "He did what he had to do. Even after nine years I haven't worked out what to say to him" (29). Johnston employs the troubled relationship between Karen and Declan to dramatize the difficulty of communication in the absurd world of contemporary Northern Ireland. Karen, when confronted with

Declan's desire for political freedom, insists that "Words are such silly things. I'll say nothing yet awhile. Stay mum" (23). Karen's choice of silence not only underscores the futility of words like "freedom" in the sociopolitical context of Northern Ireland but also

Karen's awareness, as a republican prisoner's wife, of what she can and cannot say outside of her private musings. Moreover, Karen's decision to stay "mum" reflects the challenges of communication in the restrictive site of Long Kesh. Karen deliberately and strategically rehearses what she will say to Declan when she visits him in prison:

On Thursday I'll tell him... everything and nothing. I'll smile and talk about the band. And the roses. And the way my daddy walked up the aisle. And about my hat and how my shoes hurt me. Everything and nothing. (30) 284

While Karen's repetition of the word "nothing" literally refers to Noreen's pregnancy, it

also contains Beckettian echoes. As Beckett argues in Proust, "There is no

communication because there are no vehicles for communication. Even on the rare

occasion when the word and gesture happen to be valid expressions of personality, they

lose their significance on their passage through the cataract of the personality that is

opposed to them" (64). In the absurd space of Northern Ireland—and specifically,

Thursdays at Long Kesh—dialogue between a husband and wife is rendered

incomprehensible, encompassing everything (the mundane happenings and empty

gestures) and nothing (none of the deeper meanings and truths). Karen's and Declan's

opposing personalities—imprisoned as they are by the Troubles—are unable to openly

communicate. The monodramatic form of the play embodies this failure of

communication: we never see or hear Karen and Declan in active dialogue. Karen's final

words call to mind Winnie in Beckett's Happy Days. While Karen does not share the

absurdities of Winnie's loquaciousness, repetitive movements, and embodied

confinement, in the final moments of Twinkletoes, Karen, like Winnie through her

repetitive movements, focuses on mundane objects and rituals and thereby

simultaneously obscures and exposes a deeper existential crisis. Karen's existential

isolation is underscored by the final word of the play, "nothing." Like Winnie (despite the

presence of Willie), Karen is essentially alone: she "cannot know" and "cannot be

known" (Beckett, Proust 66).

Johnston, in the midst of the existential impasse of Karen's monologue and the

Troubles, offers intermittent glimmers of possibility and change. Hope is most evident 285 not only in Karen's humour but also through Noreen's insistence that "Things have changed" (30). However, this optimism is also set against Karen's response that "Nothing changes and everything changes" (30). Karen, who once dreamt of a magical, fairy tale ending filled with laughter and magic carpets, ends with the absurd condition of

"Everything and nothing" (30). While monodrama, through its focus on narrative, enables imaginative escape beyond the confines of the theatre and the immediacy of Karen's being, her existential reliance on "that double-headed monster of damnation and salvation"—Thursdays reflects a Beckettian, absurdist view of life in Northern Ireland.

Johnston, once again, resists a comic, tidy ending. The final lines underscore not only

Karen's difficulty in communicating with her imprisoned husband but also the difficulty of communicating in an absurd world where people are imprisoned by cultural, mythical, and historical habits and where simple words like "freedom" and "hero" are so culturally and historically multivalent (everything) that they have essentially lost their meaning

(nothing).

Johnston recognizes the need to demythologize oppressive images and symbols in order to release her texts and characters from the confines of tradition. She is also aware of the bleak existence for many men and women living through the Troubles. Through the use of the monodramatic form, which refiises the response and interruption of another, Johnston creates male and female authoritative voices that are not directly threatened by a dominant theatrical or public voice. Rather, what we witness in Mustn't

Forget High Noon, O Ananias, Azarias and Miseal, and Twinkletoes is a subversion of dominant dramaturgy and linear narrative that recalls the plays of Beckett. As McMullan notes, Beckett's work interrogates and challenges "the dominant epistemological systems and values of Western patriarchal history, opening up the spaces erased or repressed by the dominant languages of that history" (Theatre 2). Likewise, Johnston challenges the myths, ideologies, and "notions" that inform the epistemological systems and values of

Northern Irish patriarchal myth and history. Beckettian echoes are most evident in the openendedness of Johnston's conclusions: Christine says goodbye, but there is no physical indication that she actually leaves. Billy ends singing, but like many of Beckett's characters he is trapped in a kind of limbo: the ellipses in the text suggest that his song never quite finishes, and thus, there is no real ending for Billy even in death. Finally,

Karen's closing reference to "Everything and nothing" alludes to the nothingness of

Beckett's theatrical world. The existential angst of the three monologists is set against the more hopeful future for Karen's newly wedded and pregnant daughter, Noreen.

Nevertheless, as Karen reminds us, "Nothing changes and everything changes," which underscores the tragicomic irony of human existence and more specifically existence in the immediacy of the Troubles. For each monologist, the irony resides in the simultaneous hope of imaginative escape within the magic of theatre and the stark reality that, as for many of Beckett's characters, there is no real escape from their existence. This irony is embedded in the title of each play: O Ananias, Azarias and Miseal underscores

Christine's fleeting attempts to escape through the religious hymns of her childhood;

Mustn't Forget High Noon speaks directly to Billy's attempts to escape through

Hollywood film; and Twinkletoes alludes to Karen's desire to find escape from the loneliness of her life through dancing. Each means of escape, however, is doomed to fail: 287

Christine finds no lasting comfort or refuge in the hymns she carries with her from childhood, which essentially allude to the role of religion in Ireland and Northern

Ireland's troubled history; Billy's passion for Hollywood film, ironically, does not enable escape and instead feeds the myths of heroism that eventually kill him; and Karen, while she speaks of dancing, never fully engages in this physical manifestation of celebration on stage. Although moments of humour suggest some hope, the ironic overtones in the plays underscore that in the absurd world of the Troubles where tragedy seems inevitable, comedy becomes an essential expression of "our smug will to live, or our pernicious and incurable optimism" (Beckett, Proust 15). Ultimately, the laughter of Johnston's characters and their audiences is essential: "We have to [laugh]. It's this country. If we didn't laugh we might drown in our own tears!" (Johnston, Foolish Mortals 197). 288

Conclusion: The Comic Play-ground

Comedy is tragedy interrupted. (Alan Ayckbourn)

The theatre space has often been understood as a place that allows for difference

and innovation. At the same time, it is a social institution that serves to uphold the values

of a given society. This inherent contradiction of theatre is reconciled by the fictive

nature of performance. Victor Turner describes the stage as being "on the threshold,

[which] means a state or process which is betwixt and between the normal cultural and

social states... a time of enchantment when anything might, even should, happen" (qtd. in

Austin 43). This threshold is akin to what Peter Brook has deemed the "empty space" of

theatre: a liminal, bare, and open space that can materialize anywhere "a man walks

across this empty space whilst someone else is watching him" (9) and whose meanings

and forms continually evolve. The liminal, ambivalent space of theatre is also prevalent

in the imaginative realms of comedy and the world of play. Like theatre, comedy is often a conservative and stabilizing force in the world, and yet comedy also includes a

playfulness that reveals its potential as subversive. Johan Huizinga draws a clear connection between play as a cultural phenomenon and theatrical performance by insisting that the stage is itself a "play-ground," an impermanent world "within the ordinary world, dedicated to a performance of an act apart" (10). Huizinga notes that play is a "temporary activity" (9) that is outside—and thereby interrupts—ordinary life. The play-spirit of comedy, as "an act apart," likewise creates a space to interrupt "ordinary life," and the prevailing truths of a given society. Devlin, Reid, Jones, and Johnston employ the multivalent, ambivalent play-spirit of comedy not only to interrupt the 289 tragedies of their society but also to create temporary, imaginative worlds in which characters and audience members can confront, re-imagine, and perhaps transcend the

Troubles.1

Comedy in the plays by Devlin, Reid, Jones, and Johnston is ambivalent, capturing both the despair of their characters and Northern Ireland as well as an underlining hope, even joy. Huizinga argues that play itself is ambivalent: while "it is precisely [the] fun-element that characterizes the essence of play" (2), play can be very serious, "absorbing the player intensely and utterly" (5,13). Nevertheless, "the contrast between play and seriousness is always fluid" (8). The ambivalent, fluid nature of this play-spirit is evident in the manifold manifestations of comedy throughout the plays in this study and is also reflected in the various comic traditions invoked by all four playwrights. The feminist comedies of Devlin and Jones and Charabanc fuse social commentary with profane, sardonic humour to both capture and deconstruct the absurdities of the androcentric, public world of the Troubles and to suggest hope— however imaginative—for their female characters. Both Devlin and Jones demonstrate how women's humour can be caustic, angry, and very serious and how it can be a used as a "political weapon" (Cerquoni 119) to challenge "long-held and oppressive ideas"

(Barreca, They Used 185). Feminist comedy, however, is also ambivalent, often combining anger with an underlining joy. Glimmers of joy are most fully captured in the communities of laughing women on stage in Reid's The Belle of Belfast City and Tea in a

1 Huizinga makes a clear distinction between play, the "comic," and laughter. He notes that laughter is not "absolutely bound up with play"; there are many games in which the players never laugh. He also notes that while clear connections can be drawn between the comic and laughter, "In itself play is not comical either for player or public" (6). Nevertheless, comedy itself, like play, while it sometimes produces laughter, can also be very serious. 290

China Cup, in Jones' and Charabanc's Now You're Talkin' and Somewhere Over the

Balcony, and in Devlin's Ourselves Alone and After Easter. Devlin also combines the

mythic genres that Northrop Frye categorizes—comedy, romance, and tragedy—to create

a feminist, matrilineal, and mythic comedy that both confronts the Troubles and attempts

to imagine more. Huizinga draws a connection between myth and play: "In all the wild

imaginings of mythology a fanciful spirit is playing on the border-line between jest and

earnest" (5). The fanciful, play-spirit in Devlin's matrilineal, mythic comedy is Greta, the

wise fool, who is often very funny and also quite serious. Likewise, this ambivalent play- spirit manifests in Reid's theatre through performers and comedians from the traditions of stage comedy. Reid invokes the ambivalent clowns of vaudeville and Brecht and thereby captures the power of humour as a political tool and as a method of estrangement, combining thought and entertainment in her interrogation of the Troubles.

The ambivalent, fluid nature of comedy, however, is perhaps most evident in the

Irish comic tradition, Bakhtinian carnival, and Beckett's dianoetic laugh. All three traditions capture the interconnectivity of comedy (despair) and tragedy (hope) in late twentieth-century Northern Ireland. The prevalence of the grotesque (sex/reproduction) and the macabre (death) in a great deal of Irish literature exposes the darker tones and manifestations of comedy. Devlin most directly invokes this Irish comic tradition in the wake scene—the "funferall" (Mercier 49)—in After Easter, which is tellingly followed by Greta's rebirth and her reintegration into a matrilineal community. Beckett's tragicomic understanding of existence derives from this ancient Irish comic tradition.

Johnston invokes Beckett's dianoetic laughter, the conscious, "mirthless laugh" that laughs "at that which is unhappy," to capture not only the absurdities and tragedies of contemporary Northern Ireland but also her characters and indeed "our smug will to live, or our pernicious and incurable optimism" (Beckett, Proust 15).

As Mercier notes, the comic tradition in Ireland finds its roots in an archaic culture, and it shares a number of affinities with Bakhtin's theories of carnival. The intersections between the grotesque and the macabre are evident in both traditions, and

Bakhtin insists that in carnival death and decay are intimately connected to rebirth and renewal. The multivalent possibilities of carnival are most fully dramatized in Jones' theatre. The ironic songs that conclude Jones' and Charabanc's Now You 're Talkin' and

Somewhere Over the Balcony capture the stark realities of the Troubles while simultaneously capturing a carnivalesque integration of polyphonic, "fully valid voices"

(Bakhtin, Problems 6). According to Bakhtin, the laws of carnival are the laws of freedom; carnival allows for world's "revival and renewal" {Rabelais 7). He argues that

"the carnival spirit offers the chance to have a new outlook on the world, to realize the relative nature of all that exists, and to enter a completely new order of things" (.Rabelais

34). The transgressive, fluid possibilities of carnival are best captured in the festive, liminal space of the second act of Jones' A Night in November. Nevertheless, amid the communal, carnivalesque celebrations in New York, the news of more violence in

Northern Ireland reminds audiences of the malleable, intimate relationship between rebirth (comedy) and death (tragedy) in the complex, troubled space of Northern Ireland.

The equivocal, expansive nature of comedy is also evident in the openended conclusions of the plays by Devlin, Reid, Jones, and Johnston. The lack of closure in 292 many of their Troubles plays underscores the difficulty of finding resolution or reconciliation amidst the darker realities of contemporary Northern Ireland. Nevertheless, such openendedness also often suggests the possibilities of imaginative transcendence.

While this openendedness is characteristic of a great deal of contemporary drama, it is particularly significant in Troubles plays by women. According to Cixous, women's writing includes "a nonclosure that is not submission but confidence and comprehension; that is not an opportunity for destruction but for wonderful expansion" (qtd. in Barreca,

"Introduction" 17). This wonderful expansion in the Troubles plays in this study exists most often within the realms of mythic and comic storytelling, communal song, and carnival celebration. The communal nature of theatre includes the audience in this

"nonclosure," whereby the refusal to fully reinstate Northern Ireland's troubled status quo produces open, imaginative spaces where hope for the future rests. These fictive sites create a space in which to envision what might be rather than what is. Northrop Frye suggests that "civilizations which stress the desirable rather than the real, and the religious as opposed to the scientific perspective, think of drama almost entirely in terms of comedy" (171). Likewise, Huizinga argues that "play is irrational" (4). Devlin, Reid,

Jones, and Johnston defy the unitary, lateral, and rational thinking of a "scientific perspective" and instead invoke a spirit of play to interrupt, intrude, and invent: Jones and

Reid through their satirical songs; Reid and Devlin through revisionist, woman-centered stand-up routines and stories respectively; Johnston through dianoetic laughter; and Jones through the ambivalences of carnival. The image of the thawing north in Greta's matrilineal story at the end of Devlin's After Easter and the integrative carnival 293

celebration that concludes Jones' A Night in November are perhaps the most desirable,

inventive, and hopeful alternative visions for Northern Ireland.

Bakhtin suggests that carnival shares many qualities with spectacle and play, and

he makes a clear connection between folk carnival culture and the theatre in medieval

Europe (Rabelais 7). Nevertheless, he argues that carnival is not itself an art form:

But the basic carnival nucleus of [medieval] culture is by no means a purely artistic form nor a spectacle and does not, generally speaking, belong to the sphere of art. It belongs to the borderline between art and life. In reality, it is life itself, but shaped according to a certain pattern of play. (Rabelais 7)

Huizinga makes a similar connection between carnival, life, and play, insisting that

"Everything that belongs to saturnalia and carnival customs belongs to [play]" (12-13).

He also proposes that although play is "an interlude" it is also "an integral part of life in

general" (9). In the case of comic theatre, carnival belongs to the borderline, indeed the

"play-ground," between the stage and the audience, as well as between the auditorium

and the real world beyond the theatre doors. Through their potential, festive laughter in

the liminal space "betwixt and between" stage and life, the audience becomes the central

site of renewal and union. Huizinga suggests that "play casts a spell over us; it is

'enchanting,' 'captivating.' It is invested with the noblest qualities we are capable of

seeing in things: rhythm and harmony" (Huizinga 10). Huizinga's theory of the essential

"order" of play, its rhythm and harmony, is particularly significant in light of the original

performances of Jones' and Charabanc's plays. In their ten years of operation, Charabanc

used their "captivating" performances to literally transcend the traditional divisions of

their society: their initial performances in community centres in Northern Ireland became

sites of harmony and integration, where Protestants and Catholics, working-class and 294 middle-class, nationalist, unionist, and apolitical, and men and women formed a community of audience members. Semiotic theatre studies and recent performance theory have highlighted the social and productive role of theatre audiences. According to Susan

Bennett, the social occasion of theatre and the presence of a community of listeners ensures that the space in which the plays are performed opens up dialogue in that community (20-21, 130). In the "playground" of comic theatre, this play-community enters fully into the realm of imaginative harmony.

Theatre, comedy, and play intersect in numerous ways in Northern Irish life and suggest an underlining hope among a people divided by a long history of sectarianism and civil strife. This hope, along with the everyday theatre of "play-actin'," is not only evident in the plays of Devlin, Reid, Jones, and Johnston but also in the work of the Beat

Initiative in Northern Ireland, which began in 1995 and continues today. Helen Gould, coordinator of Creative Exchange, a forum for cultural development in Northern Ireland, writes about the cultural transformations through the arts, which have "played a supporting role in establishing a climate for coexistence, peace-building and reconciliation." Tellingly, the initiative she highlights is the Belfast Carnival, "a new project developed by a community art organization, The Beat Initiative, to encourage community-wide celebration and build a positive atmosphere and image of Belfast." The inclusiveness of a cultural festival such as the Belfast Carnival strives to surmount the sectarian traditions of Protestant parades and partisan neighbourhoods. This extension of the 'playground' of theatre into the streets underscores the essential link between theatre, play, and everyday existence. Although theatre itself cannot, in the words of Gould, "claim credit for the historic Northern Ireland Peace Accord in 1998," it can create a space in which to envision more. Huizinga argues that "A play-community generally tends to become permanent even after the game is over. ...the feeling of being 'apart together' in an exceptional situation, of sharing something important, of mutually withdrawing from the rest of the world and rejecting the usual norms, retains its magic beyond the duration of the individual game" (12). The play-community of theatre audiences—while they may not go on to form the groups and clubs to which Huizinga is referring—through their communal experience of being "apart together" from the realities of their society, represent the most tangible contingent for imaginative integration and transcendence. Theatre, comedy, and carnival embody the seeds of ambivalence—the fun and the seriousness—of play. Their materialization outside

"ordinary life" interrupts and disrupts the larger, seemingly intransigent tragedy of the

Northern Irish Troubles. Ultimately, play, in its varying manifestations in contemporary

Northern Ireland and specifically in the Troubles drama of Devlin, Reid, Jones, and

Johnston, reflects the comic road to wisdom, indeed the comic control of life that "may be more usable, more relevant to the human condition in all its normalcy and confusion, its many unreconciled directions" (Sypher 254). 296

Selected Bibliography

Works Cited

Primary Texts

Devlin, Anne. After Easter. London: Faber, 1994. Print.

—. "Five Notes After a Visit." The Way-Paver. London: Faber, 1986. 121-31. Print.

—. Ourselves Alone. London: Faber, 1990. Print.

—. "Passages." The Way-Paver. London: Faber, 1986. 1-22. Print.

Johnston, Jennifer. Foolish Mortals. London: Headline, 2007. Print.

—. "Introduction." Selected Short Plays. Dublin: New Island, 2003. ix-xii. Print.

—. "Keynote Address." Culture in Ireland—Division or Diversity; Proceedings of the Cultures in Ireland Group Conference. Ed. Edna Longley. Belfast: Queens UP, 1991. 10-18. Print.

—. Musn't Forget High Noon. Selected Short Plays. Dublin: New Island, 2003. 31-53. Print.

—. O Ananias, Azarias and Miseal. Selected Short Plays. Dublin: New Island, 2003. 55- 79. Print.

—. "Preface." Three Monologues: Twinkletoes, Mustn't Forget High Noon, Christine. Belfast: Lagan, 1995. 9-11. Print.

—. Shadows on Our Skin. London: Review, 2002. Print.

—. The Gingerbread Woman. London: Headline, 2001. Print.

—. The Railway Station Man. London: Headline, 1998. Print.

—. Twinkletoes. Three Monologues: Twinkletoes, Mustn 7 Forget High Noon, Christine. Belfast: Lagan, 1995. 13-30. Print.

Jones, Marie. A Night in November. Dublin: New Island, 1995. Print.

—. Somewhere Over the Balcony. The Charabanc Theatre Company: Four Plays: 'Inventing Women's Work'. Ed. Claudia Harris. Gerrards Cross: Smythe, 2006. 297

181-224. Print.

Jones, Marie and Charabanc Theatre Company. Gold in the Streets. The Charabanc Theatre Company: Four Plays: 'Inventing Women's Work'. Ed. Claudia Harris. Gerrards Cross: Smythe, 2006. 55-108. Print.

—. Now You 're TalkinThe Charabanc Theatre Company: Four Plays: 'Inventing Women's Work'. Ed. Claudia Harris. Gerrards Cross: Smythe, 2006. 1-54. Print.

Reid, Christina. Plays: 1. London: Methuen, 1997. Print.

Secondary Texts

Asquith, Ros. Rev. of Now You 're Talkinby Marie Jones and Charabanc Theatre Company. Drill Hall. London Theatre Record 5.18 (1985): 861. Print.

Austin, Gayle. Feminist Theories for Dramatic Criticism. Ann Arbor: U of Michigan P, 1990. Print.

Barry, Sebastian. "Introduction." The Essential Jennifer Johnston. London: Review, 1999. ix-xi. Print.

Bakhtin, Mikhail. "Discourse in the Novel." The Dialogic Imagination: Four Essays. Ed. Michael Holquist. Trans. Caryl Emerson and Michael Holquist. Austin: U of Texas P, 1981.259-422. Print.

—. Problems of Dostoevsky's Poetics. Ed. and trans. Carl Emerson. Minneapolis: U of Minnesota P, 1984. Print.

—. Rabelais and his World. Trans. Helene Iwolsky. Bloomington: Indiana UP, 1984. Print.

Barber, John. Rev. of Ourselves Alone, by Anne Devlin. Royal Court Theatre Upstairs. London Theatre Record (1985): 1176. Print.

Barreca, Regina. "Introduction." Last Laughs: Perspectives on Women and Comedy. Ed. Regina Barreca. Philadelphia: Gordon and Breach, 1992. 1-22. Print.

—. "Making Trouble: An Introduction." New Perspectives on Women and Comedy. Ed. Regina Barreca. London: Gordon and Breach, 1988. 1-11. Print.

—. They Used to Call Me Snow White... But I Drifted: Women's Strategic Use of Humour. New York: Penguin, 1991. Print. 298

Bassett, Kate. Rev. of A Night in November, by Marie Jones. Tricycle. London Theatre Record 15 (1995): 263. Print.

Battersby, Eileen. "Voice of the Ordinary People." Irish Times. 24 June 1999. Web. 6 Aug. 2009.

Beckett, Samuel. Breath. Collected Shorter Plays. New York: Grove, 1994. 209-11. Print.

—. Happy Days. New York: Grove, 1961. Print.

—. Krapp's Last Tape. Collected Shorter Plays. New York: Grove, 1994. 53-63. Print.

—. Proust and Three Dialogues. London: Calder, 1999. Print.

—. Watt. New York: Grove, 1953. Print.

Bennett, Susan. Theatre Audiences: A Theory of Production and Reception. New York: Routledge, 1997. Print.

Bergson. Henri. "Laughter." Comedy. Ed. Wiley Sypher. Baltimore: John Hopkins UP, 1980. 59-190. Print.

Billington, Michael. Rev. of Ourselves Alone, by Anne Devlin. Royal Court Theatre Upstairs. London Theatre Record (1985): 1177. Print.

Booker, Keith. Joyce, Bakhtin and the Literary Tradition: Toward a Comparative Cultural Poetics. Ann Arbor: U of Michigan P, 1996. Print.

Bosley, Sara. Rev. of Now You're Talkin', by Marie Jones and Charabanc Theatre Company. Drill Hall. London Theatre Record 5.18 (1985): 861. Print.

Boyle Haberstroh, Patricia and Christine St. Peter. "Introduction." Opening the Field: Irish women: Texts and Contexts. Ed. Patricia Boyle Haberstroh and Christine St. Peter. Cork: Cork UP, 2007. 1-14. Print.

Brecht, Bertolt. A Man's a Man. Three Plays: Baal, A Man's a Man and The Elephant Calf. Ed. Eric Bentley. New York: Grove, 1989. 117-99. Print.

—. "On Gestic Music." Brecht on Theatre: The Development of an Aesthetic. Trans, and ed. John Willett. London: Methuen, 1964. 104-06. Print.

—. "On the Use of Music in Epic Theatre." Brecht on Theatre: The Development of an Aesthetic. Ed. and trans. John Willett. London: Methuen, 1964. 84-90. Print. 299

Brighton, Pam. "Six Characters in Search of a Story." Theatre Ireland 6 (1984): 144-48. Print.

Brook, Peter. The Empty Space. New York: Simon, 1996. Print.

Brown, Georgina. Rev. of Somewhere Over the Balcony, by Marie Jones. Drill Hall. London Theatre Record 7 (1987): 1183. Print.

Brown Jackson, Fleda. "Jennifer Johnston." British Novelists Since 1960. Part 2: H-Z. Ed. Jay L. Halio. Detroit: Gale, 1983.445-51. Print.

Burleigh, David. "Dead and Gone: The Fiction of Jennifer Johnston and Julia O'Faolain." Irish Writers and Society at Large. Ed. Masaru Sekine. Gerrards Cross: Smythe, 1985. 1-15. Print.

Carlson, Susan. Women and Comedy: Rewriting the British Theatrical Tradition. Ann Arbor: U of Michigan P, 1991. Print.

Castagno, Paul C. The Early commedia dell'arte (1550-1621): The Mannerist Context. New York: Lang, 1994. Print.

Cerquoni, Erica. "Anne Devlin in Conversation with Erica Cerquoni." Theatre Talk: Voices of Irish Theatre Practitioners. Ed. Lilian Chambers, Ger Fitzgibbon, and Eamonn Jordon. Dublin: Carysfort, 2001. 107-23. Print.

Clutterbuck, Catriona. "Lughnasa After Easter. Treatments of Narrative Imperialism in Friel and Devlin." Brian Friel. Spec, issue of Irish Review: A Journal of Irish Studies 29.1 (1999): 101-118. Print.

Cohn, Ruby. "The Comedy of Samuel Beckett: 'Something Old, Something New..."' Yale French Studies 23 (1959): 11-17. Print.

Cottreau, Deborah. "Matriarchy Ascending: The Feminist Mytho-Poetics of Anne Devlin's After Easter." Hungarian Journal of English and American Studies 5.1 (1999): 199-223. Print.

Cousin, Geraldine. Women in Dramatic Place and Time: Contemporary Female Characters on Stage. New York: Routledge, 1996. Print.

Cowan, Rosie. "The Quiet Woman." Guardian. Guardian, 11 Feb. 2004. Web. 9 Feb. 2009.

Critchely, Simon. On Humor. London: Routledge, 2002. Print. 300

Cullingford, Elizabeth Butler. "'Thinking of Her... as... Ireland': Yeats, Pearse and Heaney." Textual Practice 4.1 (1990): 1-21. Print.

Curtis, Nick. Rev. of A Night in November, by Marie Jones. Tricycle. London Theatre Record 15 (1995): 264. Print.

Delgado, Maria M. '"Beyond the Troubles': The political drama of Christina Reid." Plays: 1. London: Methuen, 1997. vii-xxii. Print.

DiCenzo, Maria R. "Charabanc Theatre Company: Placing Women Center-Stage in Northern Ireland" Theatre Ireland45.2 (1993): 175-84. Print.

Double, Oliver and Michael Wilson. "Brecht and Cabaret." The Cambridge Companion to Brecht. 2nd ed. Ed. Peter Thomson and Glendyr Sacks. New York: Cambridge UP, 2006. 40-61. Print.

Drohan, Declan. "Hamlet vs. the Rubber Chicken: The Learning Trajectory for a Theatre Practitioner." The Power of Laughter: Comedy and Contemporary Irish Theatre. Ed. Eric Weitz. Dublin: Carysfort. 145-56. Print.

Eagleton, Terry. Walter Benjamin or Towards a Revolutionary Criticism. London: Verso, 1981. 143-72. Print.

Edgerton, Gary. "Quelling the 'Oxygen of Publicity': British Broadcasting and 'The Troubles' During the Thatcher Years ."Journal of Popular Culture 30.1 (2004): 115-32. Print.

Elam, Keir. The Semiotics of Theatre and Drama. New York: Routledge, 1980. Print.

Fairweather, Eileen. Roisin McDonough, and Melanie McFadyean. Only the Rivers Run Free: Northern Ireland, the Women's War. London: Pluto, 1980. Print.

Feay, Suzi. Rev. of A Night in November, by Marie Jones. Tricycle. London Theatre Record 15 (1995): 263. Print.

Finney, Gail."Unity in Difference?" Look Who's Laughing: Gender and Comedy. Ed. Gail Finney. New York: Gordon and Breach, 1994. 1-13. Print.

Fitzpatrick, Lisa. "Disrupting Metanarratives: Anne Devlin, Christina Reid, Marina Carr, and the Irish Dramatic Repertory." Irish University Review 35.2 (2005): 320-33. Print.

Fitzgerald-Hoyt, Mary. "Introduction." Irish Women Writers: An A-to-Z Guide. Ed. Alexander G. Gonzalez. Westport: Greenwood, 2006. 1-8. Print. 301

Foley, Imelda. The Girls in the Big Picture: Gender and Contemporary Theatre in Ulster. Belfast: Blackstaff, 2003. Print.

Friedan, Ken. Genius and Monologue. Ithaca: Cornell UP, 1985.

Frye, Northrop. Anatomy of Criticism: Four Essays. Oxford: Princeton UP, 2000. Print.

Gale, Mandarine. Rev. of Clowns, by Christina Reid. Orange Tree Room. London Theatre Record 16 (1996): 370. Print.

Gardner, Lyn. "The Bard of Belfast." Guardian. 11 Aug. 2004. Web. 24 July 2009.

Geis, Deborah R. Postmodern Theatric(k)s: Monologue in Contemporary American Drama. Michigan: U of Michigan P, 1993. Print.

Godiwala, Dimple. Breaking the Bounds: British Feminist Dramatists Writing in the Mainstream since c. 1980. New York: Lang, 2003. Print.

Gonzalez, Rosa. Interview with Jennifer Johnston. Ireland in Writing: Interview with Writers and Academics. Ed. Jacqueline Hurtley et al. Amsterdam: Rodopi, 1998. 7-19. Print.

Gould, Helen. "The Arts' Contribution to Peace in Northern Ireland: Encouraging the Community to Have Fun." People Building Peace: European Platform for Conflict Prevention and Transformation. N.p. n.d. Web. 23 Aug. 2010.

Gray, Frances. Women and Laughter. London: MacMillan, 1994. Print.

Greene, Nicholas. The Politics of Irish Drama: Plays in Context from Boucicault to Friel. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1999. Print.

Griffiths, Trevor. Comedians. London: Faber, 1976. Print.

Hamilton, A. C. Northrop Frye: Anatomy of his Criticism. Toronto: U of Toronto P, 1990. Print.

Harrington, John P. and Elizabeth J. Mitchell. "Introduction." Politics and Performance in Contemporary Northern Ireland. Ed. John P. Harrington and Elizabeth J. Mitchell. Amherst: U of Massachusetts P, 1999.1-6. Print.

Harris, Claudia. "Inventing Women's Work: The Legacy of the Charabanc Theatre Company." The Charabanc Theatre Company: Four Plays: 'Inventing Women's Work'. Ed. Claudia Harris. Gerrards Cross: Smythe, 2006. ix-liii. Print. 302

—. Rev. of Somewhere Over the Balcony, by Marie Jones. Drill Hall. Theatre Ireland. 13 (1987): 47-48. Print.

Harrison, Martin. The Language of Theatre. Manchester: Carcanet, 1998. Print.

Haslett, Sophie. An Interview with Jennifer Johnston. Zoho Writer. St. Columba's College, n.d. Web. 2 July 2009.

Headrick, Charlotte. "Anne Devlin's After Easter: Toward Reconciliation." Working Papers in Irish Studies 3 (1995-1996): 1-12. Print.

Hendrick Wehmeyer, Jan. "'Good luck to ya': Fast-food Comedy at McDonagh's." The Power of Laughter: Comedy and Contemporary Irish Theatre. Ed. Eric Weitz. Dublin: Carysfort. 87-94. Print.

Hiley, Jim. Rev. of Now You 're Talkin', by Marie Jones and Charabanc Theatre Company. Drill Hall. London Theatre Record 5.18 (1985): 861. Print.

Hills Goldsmith, Robert. Wise Fools in Shakespeare. Liverpool: Liverpool UP, 1958. Print.

Hogan, Robert. Dictionary of Irish Literature. Vol. 2. Westport: Greenwood, 1986. Print.

Hoyle, Martin. Rev. of Tea in a China Cup, by Christina Reid. Riverside Studios. London Theatre Record A (1984): 926. Print.

Huizinga, Johan. Homo Ludens: A Study of the Play Element in Culture. Boston: Beacon, 1955. Print.

Hutcheon, Linda. Politics of Postmodernism: History, Theory, Fiction. London: Routledge, 1988. Print.

Innes, Christopher. Modern British Drama: 1890-1990. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1992. Print.

Johnston, Alex. "Notes Toward a Foundation for a Theory of Comedy." The Power of Laughter: Comedy and Contemporary Irish Theatre. Ed. Eric Weitz. Dublin: Carysfort, 173-86. Print.

Kearney, Eileen. "Current Women's Voices in the Irish Theatre: New Dramatic Visions." Colby Quarterly 27.4 (1991): 225-32. Print.

Kearns, Michael. The Solo Performer's Journey: From the Stage to the Page. Portsmouth: Heinemann, 2005. Print. 303

Kirkpatrick, Kathryn. "Introduction." Border Crossings: Irish Women Writers and National Identities. Tuscaloosa: U of Alabama P, 2000. 1-12. Print.

Krause, David. "The Principle of Comic Disintegration." James Joyce Quarterly 8.1 (1970): 3-12. JSTOR. Web. 28 July 2011.

—. The Profane Book of Irish Comedy. Ithica: Cornell UP, 1982. Print.

Kurdi, Maria. "Female Self Cure through Revisioning and Refashioning Male/Master Narratives in Anne Devlin's After EasterHungarian Journal of English and American Studies 2.2 (1996): 97-110. Print.

Little, Judy. Comedy and the Woman Writer: Woolf Spark, and Feminism. Lincoln: U of Nebraska P, 1983. Print.

Llewellyn-Jones, Margaret. Contemporary Irish Drama and Cultural Identity. Bristol: Intellect, 2002. Print.

Lojek, Helen. "Difference Without Indifference: The Drama of Frank McGuinness and Anne Devlin." Eire-Ireland 25.2 (1990): 56-68. Print.

—. "Eleanor Methven and Carol Moore (Scanlan) in Conversation with Helen Lojek." Theatre Talk: Voices of Irish Theatre Practitioners. Ed. Lilian Chambers, Ger Fitzgibbon, and Eamonn Jordon. Dublin: Carysfort, 2001. 342-54. Print.

—. "Playing Politics with Belfast's Charabanc Theatre Company." Politics and Performance in Contemporary Northern Ireland. Ed. John P. Harrington and Elizabeth J. Mitchell. Amherst: U of Massachusetts P, 1999. 82-102. Print.

Lonergan, Patrick. "Marie Jones." Irish Women Writers: An A-to-Z Guide. Ed. Alexander G. Gonzalez. Westport: Greenwood, 2006. 164-68. Print.

Luft, Joanna. "Brechtian Gestus and the Politics of Tea in Christina Reid's Tea in a China Cup." Modern Drama 42:2 (1999): 214-22. Print.

Macaulay, Alastair. Rev. of After Easter, by Anne Devlin. The Other Place, Stratford- Upon-Avon. London Theatre Record 14 (1994): 699. Print.

MacCurtain, Margaret. "Moving Statues and Irish Women." Studies 76 (1987): 139-47. Print.

Maguire, Tom. Making Theatre in Northern Ireland: Through and Beyond the Troubles. Exeter: U of Exeter P, 2006. Print. 304

—. "Northern Irish Drama: Speaking the Peace." A Concise Companion to Contemporary British and Irish Drama. Ed. Nadine Holdsworth and Mary Luckhurst. Maiden: Blackwell, 2008. 66-84. Print.

Marlow, Stuart. "The Northern Irish Troubles: A Problem of Representation." The State of Play: Irish Theatre in the Nineties. Ed. Bernhard Rutz. Trier: Wissenchafitlicher Verlag Trier, 1996. 146-66. Print.

Martin, Carol. "Charabanc Theatre Company: 'Quare' women 'Sleggin' and 'Geggin' the Standards of Northern Ireland by 'Tappin' the People." Drama Review 31.2 (1987): 88-99. Print.

McDonnell, Bill. Theatres of the Troubles: Theatre, Resistance and Liberation in Ireland. Exeter: U of Exeter P, 2008. Print.

McDonough, Carla, J. "Christina Reid." Irish Playwrights, 1880-1995: A Research and Production Sourcebook. Ed. Bernice Schrank and William W. Demastes. Westport: Greenwood, 1997. 300-07. Print.

—. '"I've Never Been Just Me': Rethinking Women's Positions in the Plays of Christina Reid." A Century of Irish Drama: Widening the Stage. Ed. Stephen Watt, Eileen Morgan, and Shakir Mustafa. Bloomington: Indiana UP, 2000. 179-92. Print.

McKenna, Bernard. Rupture, Representation and the Refashioning of Identity in Drama from the North of Ireland, 1969-1994. Westport: Praeger, 2003. Print.

McLaughlin, Barbara E. "Jennifer Johnston." Modern Irish Writers. Ed. Alexander G. Gonzalez. Westport: Greenwood, 1997. 124-28. Print.

McMullan, Anna. "'From Matron to Matrix': Authority and Dis(embodiment) in Beckett's Theatre." Women in Irish Drama: A Century of Authorship and Representation. Ed. Melissa Sihra. New York: Palgrave, 2007. 97-108. Print.

—. "Gender, Authorship and Performance in Selected Plays by Contemporary Irish Women Playwrights: Mary Elizabeth Burke-Kennedy, Marie Jones, Marina Carr, Emma Donoghue." Theatre Stuff: Critical Essays on Contemporary Irish Theatre. Ed. Eamonn Jordan. Dublin: Carysfort, 2000. 34-46. Print.

—. "Irish Women Playwrights since 1958." British and Irish Women Dramatists since 1958: A Critical Handbook. Ed. Trevor Griffiths and Margaret Llewellyn-Jones. Buckingham: Open UP, 1993. 110-23. Print.

—. Theatre on Trial: Samuel Beckett's Later Drama. London: Routledge, 1993. Print. 305

McWilliams, Monica. "The Church, the State and the Women's Movement in Northern Ireland." Irish Women's Studies Reader. Ed. Ailbhe Smyth. Dublin: Attic, 1993. 79-99. Print.

Mercier, Vivian. The Irish Comic Tradition. London: Souvenir, 1991. Print.

Moloney, Caitriona. Interview with Jennifer Johnston. Irish Women Writers Speak Out: Voices From the Field. Ed. Caitriona Maloney and Helen Thompson. Syracuse: Syracuse UP, 2003. 65-74. Print.

Moynihan, Mary and Paul Kennedy. "Laughing Together: Community-based Theatre's Vital Sense of Humour." The Power of Laughter: Comedy and Contemporary Irish Theatre. Ed. Eric Weitz. Dublin: Carysfort, 2004. 118-28. Print.

Murray, Christopher. Twentieth Century Irish Drama: Mirror up to Nation. New York: Manchester UP, 1997. 187-222. Print.

Nightingale, Benedict. Rev. of After Easter, by Anne Devlin. The Other Place, Stratford- Upon-Avon. London Theatre Record 14 (1994): 700. Print.

O'Casey, Sean. "The Power of Laughter." The Green Crow. New York: Braziller, 1956. 226-32. Print.

—. The Shadow of a Gunman. Three Plays. London: Macmillan, 1966. Print.

O'Connor, Theresa. "Introduction: Tradition and the Signifying Monkey." The Comic Tradition in Irish Women Writers. Ed. Theresa O'Connor. Gainesville: U of Florida P, 1996. 1-7. Print.

O Suilleabhean, Sean. Irish Wake Amusements. Cork: Mercier, 1967. Print.

O'Toole, Fintan. "But Not in the Eye: Beckett's comedy." Local Motives N.p. n.d. Web. 27 July 2010.

Parker, Stewart. Dramtis Personae. John Malone Memorial Lecture. Queen's U Belfast. 5 June 1986. Belfast: John Malone Memorial Committee. ARRT Space. Teaching Council for Northern Ireland. Web. 2 Aug. 2010.

Perri, Dean. "Communionis Notion." Seminarians. 10 Aug. 2005. Web. 20 Aug. 2010.

Peter, John. Rev. of After Easter, by Anne Devlin. The Other Place, Stratford-Upon- Avon. London Theatre Record 14 (1994): 697-98. Print. 306

Phelan, Mark. "Beyond the Pale: Neglected Northern Irish Women Playwrights, Alice Milligan, Helen Waddell and Patricia O'Connor." Women in Irish Drama: A Century of Authorship and Representation. Ed. Melissa Sihra. New York: Palgrave, 2007. 109-29. Print.

Phelan, Rebecca. Two Irelands: Literary Feminisms North and South. Syracuse: Syracuse UP, 2005. Print.

Pilkington, Lionel. Theatre and the State in Twentieth-century Ireland: Cultivating the People. London: Routledge, 2001. Print.

Pilling, John. "Beckett's 'Proust.'" Journal of Beckett Studies 1 (1976). Florida State University. 2000. Web. 30 June 2010.

Rea, Ann. "Reproducing the Nation: Nationalism, Reproduction and Paternalism in Anne Devlin's Ourselves Alone." Border Crossings: Irish Women Writers and National Identities. Ed. Kathryn Kirkpatrick. Tuscaloosa: U of Alabama P, 2000. 204-26. Print.

Reinelt, Janelle. After Brecht: British Epic Theatre. Ann Arbor: U of Michigan P, 1996. Print.

Robinson, Fred Miller. The Comedy of Language: Studies in Modern Comic Literature. Amherst: U of Massachusetts P, 1980. Print.

Roche, Anthony. Contemporary Irish Drama: From Beckett to McGuinness. Dublin: Gill and MacMillan, 1994. Print.

—. "The 'Irish' Play on the London Stage 1990-2004." Players and the Painted Stage: Aspects of Twentieth Century Theatre in Ireland. Ed. Christopher Fitz-Simon. Dublin: New Island, 2004. 129-42. Print.

Roll-Hansen, Diderik. "Dramatic Strategy in Christina Reid's Tea in A China Cup." Modern Drama 30.3 (1987): 389-95. Print.

Rosslyn. Felicity. "The Importance of Being Irish: Jennifer Johnston." Cambridge Quarterly 32.3 (2003): 239-44. Print.

—. "'The Nonsense about Our Irishness': Jennifer Johnston." Contemporary British Women Writers. Ed. Emma Parker. Woodbridge: Brewer, 2004. 104-22. Print.

Rubik, Margarete. "Fringe or Mainstream? What is Marketable?" Beyond the Mainstream. Ed. Peter Paul Schnierer. Trier: Wissenchaftlicher Verlag Trier, 1997. 15-24. Print. 307

Sakellaridou, Elizabeth. "Religion as Strategy." Race and Religion in Contemporary Theatre and Drama in English Ed. Bernhard Reitz. Trier: Wissenchaftlicher Verlag Trier, 1999. 85-94. Print.

Sales, Rosemary. "Gender and Protestantism in Northern Ireland." Who Are the 'People'?: Unionism, Protestantism and Loyalism in Northern Ireland. Ed. Peter Shirlow and Mark McGivern. Chicago: Pluto, 1997. 140-57. Print.

Schechter, Joel. "Brecht's Clowns: Man is Man and after." The Cambridge Companion to Brecht. Ed. Peter Thomson and Glendyr Sacks. New York: Cambridge UP, 2006. 90-100. Print.

Shannon, Catherine. "The Writer as Historical Witness." Women and Irish History. Ed. Maryann Gialanella Valiulis and Mary O'Dowd. Dublin: Wolfhound, 1997. 239- 59. Print.

Shannon, Elizabeth. Iam of Ireland: Women of the North Speak Out. Amherst: U of Massachusetts P, 1997. Print.

Sihra, Melissa. "Introduction: Figures at the Window." Women in Irish Drama: A Century of Authorship and Representation. Ed. Melissa Sihra. New York: Palgrave, 2007. 1-22. Print.

Spencer, Charles. Rev. of After Easter, by Anne Devlin. The Other Place, Stratford- Upon-Avon. London Theatre Record 14 (1994): 698. Print.

Stafford, Janet. "I Guess Trouble Was My Middle Name" Irish Times. Irish Times, 5 Feb. 2002. Web. 6 Aug. 2009.

Stenson, Sara E. "Anne Devlin." Irish Women Writers: An A-to-Z Guide. Ed. Alexander G. Gonzalez. Westport: Greenwood, 2006. 88-93. Print.

Sullivan, Esther Beth. "What is 'Left to a Woman of the House" when the Irish Situation is Staged?" Staging Resistance: Essays on Political Theatre. Ed. Jeanne M. Colleran. Ann Arbor: U of Michigan P, 1998. 213-26. Print.

Sweeney, Bernadette. "Form and Comedy in Contemporary Irish Theatre." The Power of Laughter: Comedy and Contemporary Irish Theatre. Ed. Eric Weitz. Dublin: Carysfort, 2004. 8-18. Print.

Sypher, Wiley. "The Meanings of Comedy." Comedy. Ed. Wiley Sypher. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins UP, 1980. 191-255. Print. 308

Taggart, Ashley. "Theatre of War? Contemporary drama in Northern Ireland." Theatre Stuff: Critical Essays on Contemporary Irish Theatre. Ed. Eamonn Jordan. Dublin: Carysfort, 2000. 67-83. Print.

Taylor, Paul. Rev. of After Easter, by Anne Devlin. The Other Place, Stratford-Upon- Avon. London Theatre Record 14 (1994): 698-99. Print.

Tew, Philip. "Three Dialogues as a Laughable Text: Beckett's Bergsonian Comedy." Three Dialogues Revisited. Ed. Marius Buning et al. NewYork: Rodopi, 1994. 105-18. Print.

Todorov, Tzvetan. Mikhail Bakhtin: The Dialogic Principle. Trans. Wlad Godzich. Minneapolis: U of Minnesota P, 1984. Print.

Trotter, Mary. "Translating Women into Irish Theatre History." A Century of Irish Drama: Widening the Stage. Ed. Stephen Watt, Eileen Morgan, and Shakir Mustafa. Indiana: Indiana UP, 2000. 163-78. Print.

—. "Women Playwrights in Northern Ireland." Modern British Women Playwrights. Ed. Elaine Aston and Janelle Reinelt. New York: Cambridge UP, 2000. 119-33. Print.

Wachtel, Eleanor. Interview with Jennifer Johnston. Queen's Quarterly 104.2 (1997): 318-29. Print.

Wardle, Irving. Rev. of After Easter, by Anne Devlin. The Other Place, Stratford-Upon- Avon. London Theatre Record 14 (1994): 699-700. Print.

Ward, Margaret and Marie Therese McGivern. "Images of Women in Northern Ireland." Crane Bag Book of Irish Studies 4.1 (1982): 579-85. Print.

Waters, Maureen. The Comic Irishman. Albany: State U of New York P, 1984. Print.

Weekes, Ann Owen. Unveiling Treasures: The Attic Guide to the Published Works of Irish Women Literary Writers: Drama, Fiction, Poetry. Dublin: Attic, 1993. Print.

White, Victoria. "Cathleen Ni Houlihan is not a Playwright." Theatre Ireland 30 (1993): 26-29. Print.

—. "Towards a Post-Feminism?" Theatre Ireland 18 (1989): 33-35. Print.

Winkler, Elizabeth Hale. The Clown in Modern Anglo-Irish Drama. Frankfurt: Lang, 1977. Print. 309

Woddis, Carole. Rev. of A Night in November, by Marie Jones. Tricycle. London Theatre Record 15 (1995): 263. Print.

Wood, Chris. '"My Own Story': Woman's Place, Divided Loyalty, and Patriarchal Hegemony in the Plays of Anne Devlin." Canadian Journal of Irish Studies 25.1- 2 (1999): 291-308. Print.

Wright, Elizabeth. Postmodern Brecht: A Re-Presentation. New York: Routledge, 1989. Print.

Yeats, W. B. Cathleen Ne Houlihan. Modern Irish Drama. Ed. John P. Harrington. New York: Norton, 1991. 3-11. Print.

—. Selected Poetry. Ed. A Norman Jeffares. London: Pan, 1974. Print.

Young, Jennifer. "Bakhtin's Polyphonic Novel and the Polyphonic Potential of David Mamet's American BuffaloLore: Rhetoric, Writing, Culture 1.2 (2001). Web. 11 July 2011.

Young, Jordan R. Acting Solo: the Art of One-Man Shows. Beverley Hills: Moonstone, 1989. Print.

Zarrilli, Phillip, B. et al. Theatre Histories: An Introduction. 2nd ed. Ed. Gary Jay Williams. New York: Routledge, 2010. Print.

Works Consulted

Anderson, Lisa M. "Anne Devlin." Irish Playwrights, 1880-1995: A Research and Production Sourcebook. Ed. Bernice Shrank and William Demastes. Westport: Greenwood, 1997. 93-96. Print.

Aretxaga, Begona. Shattering Silence: Women, Nationalism and Political Subjectivity in Northern Ireland. Princeton: Princeton UP, 1997. Print.

Cannon Harris, Susan. "Introduction: Bodies and Blood." Gender and Modern Irish Drama. Bloomington: Indiana UP, 2002. 1-27. Print.

Cliff, Brian and Eibhear Walshe, eds. "Writing the Troubles: Talks by Glenn Patterson, Anne Devlin and Colm Toibin." Representing the Troubles: Texts and Images, 1970-2000. Dublin: Four Courts, 2004. 15-26. Print.

Corrigan, Robert W. "Tragicomedy." The World of Theatre. Glenview: Scott, 1979. 222- 27. Print. 310

Coyle, Jane. "Charabanc Motors On." Theatre Ireland 18 (1989): 41-42. Print.

Cullen, Mary. "Towards a New Ireland: Women, Feminism and the Peace Process." Women and Irish History. Ed. Maryann Gialanella Valiulis and Mary O'Dowd. Dublin: Wolfhound, 1997. 260-77. Print.

Diamond, Elin. "Brechtian Theory / Feminist Theory: Toward a Gestic Feminist Criticism." TDR 32.1 (1988): 82-94. Print.

Duchartre, Pierre Louis. The Italian Comedy: The Improvisations, Scenarios, Lives, Attributes, Portraits and Masks of the Illustrious Characters of the Comedia dell' Arte. New York: Dover, 1966. Print.

Duggan, G. C. The Stage Irishman: A History of the Irish Play and Stage Characters from the Earliest Times. New York: Blom, 1969. Print.

Eatherton, Michael. Contemporary Irish Dramatists. London: Macmillan, 1989. Print.

Evason, Eileen. Against the Grain: The Contemporary Women's Movement in Northern Ireland. Dublin: Attic, 1991. Print.

Fitz-simon, Christopher. The Irish Theatre. London: Thames and Hudson, 1983. Print.

Grant, David. "Orality and the Ethics of Ownership in Community-based Drama." Political Performances: Practice and Theory. Ed. Susan C. Haedicke et al. Amsterdam: Rodopi, 2009. 55-69. Print.

Henderson, Lynda. "Theatre Beyond the Black Pigs' Dyke: Ulster Drama." Players and the Painted Stage: Aspects of Twentieth Century Theatre in Ireland. Ed. Christopher Fitz-Simon. Dublin: New Island, 2004. 75-88. Print.

Hengen, Shannon, ed. Performing Gender and Comedy: Theories, Texts and Contexts. Amsterdam: Gordon and Breach, 1998. Print.

Hill, Ian. "Staging the Troubles." Theatre Ireland 31 (1993): 42-46. Print.

Hirst, David L. Tragicomedy. New York: Methuen, 1984. Print.

Huizinga, Johan. Homo Ludens: A Study of the Play Element in Culture. Boston: Beacon, 1955. Print.

Hunt Mahony, Christine. Contemporary Irish Literature: Transforming Tradition. New York: St. Martin's, 1998. Print. 311

Johnston, Jennifer. "Jennifer Johnston." A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Girl. Ed. John Quinn. London: Mandarin, 1990. 49-62. Print.

Kane, Laura. "De/re/construction Work: Female Performances of Northern Irish Nationalism in the Works of Anne Devlin and Christina Reid." New Voices in Irish Criticism. Ed. Ruth Connolly and Ann Coughlin. Dublin: Four Courts, 2005. 32-41. Print.

Kenneally, Michael. "Q & A: An Interview with Jennifer Johnston." Irish Literary Supplement 3.2 (1983): 25-27. Print.

Kompooraly, Jozefina. "The Troubles and the family: women's theatre as political intervention." Representing the Troubles: Texts and Images, 1970-2000. Ed. Brian Cliff and Eibhean Walshe. Dublin: Four Counts, 2004. 67-78. Print.

Lojek, Helen. "Seeding New Writing, Seeking More Analysis: Belfast's Charabanc Theatre Company." Irish Studies Review 8 (1994): 30-34. Print.

—. "Troubling Perspectives: Northern Ireland, the 'Troubles' and Drama." A Companion to Modern British and Irish Drama: 1880-2005. Ed. Mary Luckhurst. Maiden: Blackwell, 2006. 329-40. Print.

Lonergan, Patrick. "Christina Reid." Irish Women Writers: AnA-to-Z Guide. Ed. Alexander G. Gonzalez. Westport: Greenwood, 2006. 294-98. Print.

Longley, Edna. "From Cathleen to Anorexia: The Breakdown of Irelands." A Dozen Lips. Dublin: Attic, 1990. 162-87. Print.

Maxwell, D. E. S. A Critical History of Modern Irish Drama, 1891-1980. New York: Cambridge UP, 1984. Print.

—. "Northern Ireland's Political Drama." Modern Drama 33.1 (1990): 1-14. Print.

Meaney, Helen. "The State of Play." Theatre Ireland 30 (1993): 32-34. Print.

Meredith, George. "The Meanings of Comedy." Comedy. Ed. Wylie Sypher. Baltimore: John Hopkins UP, 1980. 1-57. Print.

Morash, Christopher. A History of Irish Theatre: 1601-2000. New York: Cambridge UP, 2002. Print.

Nelson, T. G. A. Comedy: The Theory of Comedy in Literature, Drama, and Cinema. New York: Oxford UP, 1990. Print. 312

Nolan, David. "Writing Plays in Ireland Today." A Brave and Violent Theatre. Ed. Michael Bigelow Dixon and Michele Volansky. Lyme: Smith and Kraus, 1995. 22-31. Print.

O'Dwyer, Riana. "The Imagination of Women's Reality: Christina Reid and Marina Carr." Theatre Stuff: Critical Essays on Contemporary Irish Theatre. Ed. Eamonn Jordan. Dublin: Carysfort, 2000. 236-48. Print.

O'Reilly, Anne F. Soul Journeys in Contemporary Irish Theatre. Dublin: Carysfort, 2004. Print.

O'Toole, Fintan. Rev. of Ourselves Alone, by Anne Devlin. Peacock Theatre. Critical Moments: Fintan O'Toole on Modern Irish Theatre. Dublin: Carysfort, 2003. 55. Print.

Pilkington, Lionel. "Irish Theatre Historiography and Political Resistance." Staging Resistance: Essays on Political Theater. Ed. Jeanne Colleran and Jenny S. Spencer. Ann Arbor: U of Michigan P, 1998. 13-30. Print.

Quinn, Kathleen. "Silent Voices." Theatre Ireland 30 (1993): 9-11. Print.

Rooney, E. and M. Woods. Women, Community and Politics in Northern Ireland: A Belfast Study. Belfast: U of Ulster P, 1996. Print.

Sales, Rosemary. Women Divided: Gender, Religion and Politics in Northern Ireland. London: Routledge, 1997. Print.

Sloan, Barry. Writers and Protestantism in the North of Ireland: Heirs to Adamnation? Dublin: Irish Academic, 2000. 294-327. Print.

Smyth, Damian. Rev. of The Belle of Belfast City, by Christina Reid. The Lyric Theatre, Belfast. Theatre Ireland 19 (1989): 42-43. Print.

Smyth, Gerry. The Novel and the Nation: Studies in the New Irish Fiction. Chicago: Pluto, 1997. Print.

Spurr, Chris. "Joyriders USA." Theatre Ireland 28 (1992): 62-65. Print.

Sternlicht, Stanford. A Reader's Guide to Modern Irish Drama. Syracuse: Syracuse UP, 1998. 137-138. Print.

Sullivan, Megan. Women in Northern Ireland: Cultural Studies and Material Conditions. Gainesville: U of Florida P, 1999. Print. 313

The Beat Initiative. The Beat. Beat Initiative, n.d. Web. 23 Aug. 2010.

Tylee, Claire. '"Name Upon Name': Myth, Ritual and the Past in Recent Irish Plays Referring to the Great War." Dressing Up for War: Transformations of Gender and Genre in the Discourse and Literature of War. Ed. Aranzazu Usandizaga and Andrew Mannickendum. New York: Rodopi, 2001. 271-87. Print.

Ward, Margaret. "The Women's Movement in Northern Ireland: Twenty Years On." Ireland's Histories: Aspects of State, Society and Ideology. Ed. Sean Hutton and Paul Stewart. London: Routledge, 1991. 149-63. Print.

Weitz, Eric. "Comic Patterns in Kevin's Bed and Twenty Grand" The Power of Laughter: Comedy and Contemporary Irish Theatre. Ed. Eric Weitz. Dublin: Carysfort, 2004. 103-17. Print.

—. "Introduction." The Power of Laughter: Comedy and Contemporary Irish Theatre. Ed. Eric Weitz. Dublin: Carysfort, 2004.1-7. Print.

Williams, Carol. "This is One for the Sisters." Theatre Ireland 30 (1993): 6-8. Print.

Worth, Katherine. "Beckett's Divine Comedy." A Companion to Modern British and Irish Drama: 1880-2005. Ed. Mary Luckhurst. Maiden: Blackwell, 2006. 237-46. Print.

Yagi, Naoko. "Multiple Monologues as a Narrative: From Beckett to McPherson." Ireland on Stage: Beckett and After. Ed. Hiroko Mikami, Minako Okamuro, and Naoko Yagi. Dublin: Carysfort, 2007. 107-17. Print.