Conor Mcpherson's the Weir

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CONOR MCPHERSON’S THE WEIR: NEW MASTER OF IRISH STORYTELLING

CONOR MCPHERSON’UN THE WEIR OYUNU: İRLANDA ÖYKÜ GELENEĞİNİN YENİ USTASI

dilek inan*

ABSTRACT This paper considers the contemporary Irish playwright Conor McPherson’s award-winning play The Weir (1997), as a depiction of Ireland’s storytelling culture, especially in the countryside. Critics and scholars have frequently characterized Irish writers as great story-tellers and Conor McPherson, who has been considered as the new master of old-fashioned Irish art of storytelling, continues this tradition. In The Weir the dwellers of the local pub occupy themselves by drinking, teasing each other and recollecting events from past times. By reciting a sequence of narratives in the form of dramatic monologues, these men wish to impress a young woman from Dublin who has rented a neighborho- od house. They familiarize her to this idyllic part of Ireland by telling a series of stories that include fairies, ghosts, mystery and the supernatural. While acknowledging an ages-old tradition, - a tale of local folklore about fairies - McPherson explores moving themes of loss, abandonment, loneliness and regret through haunting and entertaining ghost stories. Keywords: Conor McPherson, The Weir, Storytelling, Monologue, Ghost Stories

ÖZET Bu çalışma günümüz İrlandalı oyun yazarı Conor McPherson’ın 1997 yılında yazdığı bol ödüllü The Weir adlı oyununu özellikle İrlanda kırsalının en yaygın geleneği olan öykü anlatımı açısından inceler. Tiyatro eleştirmenleri ve araştırmacılar sık sık İrlandalı yazarların öykü anlatımı alanındaki ustalığını vurgular. McPherson yazdığı oyunlarda İrlanda’nın eski bir geleneği olan öykü anlatımı sanatının yeni ustası olarak dikkat çeker. The Weir oyununda orta-yaşlı, işçi sınıfından erkek karakterler her zamanki yaptıkları gibi mahalli meyhanede biraraya gelirler. İçki eşliğinde, sohbet eder, şakalaşır ve geçmişi yadederler. Karakterler, Dublin’den gelen ve İrlanda’nın kırsal bölgesine yeni yerleşen genç bir kadın karakteri etkilemek üzere dramatik monolog formatında öyküler anlatırlar. Peri, hayalet, gizem ve doğaüstü olaylar içeren öyküler vasıtasıyla Valerie’ye bulundukları kırsal yöreyi tanıtırlar. Karakterlerin birbirlerine anlattıkları bazen eğlenceli bazen düşündürücü öyküler sayesinde, McPherson nesillerdir süregelen öykü geleneğine dikkat çekerken ayrıca karakterlerin yal- nızlık, sıkıntı, pişmanlık gibi duygular içeren iç dünyalarını yansıtır. Anahtar Sözcükler: Conor McPherson, The Weir, Öyküleyici Anlatım, Monolog, Hayalet Öyküleri

* Doç.Dr., Balıkesir Üniversitesi İngiliz Dili Eğitimi Irish drama and Irish playwrights McPherson, as one of the most prolific have played a significant role on world the- young Irish playwrights along with Martin atre. As a contemporary playwright Conor McDonagh and Marina Carr, finds a new McPherson has inherited a rather strong theatrical voice and device in order to pre-

dilek inan Irish dramatic tradition which boasts its sent contemporary Ireland. Irish folklore, fame with chief names such as Wilde, She- which is full of versatile, witty and inven- ridan, Goldsmith, Congreve, G.B. Shaw, tive stories, provides great resources for J.M. Synge, Sean O’Casey, Samuel Beckett, McPherson’s plays. He makes use of mo- and Brian Friel. These world-renowned nologues and storytelling technique in his playwrights have not only created stori- plays which have mostly linear narratives. es that have become central to Western One needs to bear in mind that, on one literature, but they have also created new hand, the contemporary Irish playwrights theatrical attitudes politically and stylisti- are fostered by Celtic folk tales and are no- cally. Within the twentieth century, from urished by the values and stories of the old the efforts of the Irish literary revivalists days; on the other hand, they have inheri- like W. B. Yeats to extremely important ted a very different Ireland from their pre- government efforts, Irish folklore has been decessors. Once a traditional rural culture, assured a central place within the identity today Ireland has become a predominantly of the Republic of Ireland – a country of urban country that is supported by the tales, myths, and legends and thus Irish global economy and is part of the new in- storytellers have become world-famous formation age. Indeed, Heilpern is among for their wit and inventiveness. The extra- many other critics who does not approve ordinary range of Irish stories comes from of the backward-looking view of Ireland a folklore tradition more than 2,000 years that seems to dominate the new dramas old, which successfully blended Celtic, with their impoverished rural types, the Christian, and English influences to create seemingly endless supply of stormy nights, some of the most distinctive oral literature of ghosts, goblins and Guinness: “It’s as if in all of Europe. Although the traditional 62 Ireland were still locked in the turn of the format for Irish storytelling is dying out, 20th century and its flattery of fanciful ste- its legacy continues in books and in po- reotypes of melancholy Irish manhood. As etry. One of the most popular themes for stories has been the spirit world. Ireland if it has never become a part of the contem- has been widely known to be inhabited porary globe” (Heilpern, 1999). However, by all manner of fairies. The fairies were McPherson brings old and new Ireland notoriously mischievous, and a vast array together to question the place of myth and of stories described the mysterious tricks storytelling in a skeptical modern world. they played on innocent mortals. In The Weir, he uses the idea of super-

Tiyatro Araştırmaları Dergisi, 36:2013/2 • ISSN: 1300-1523 natural visitation as a way of exploring his Doritt Cohn has described as the “transpa- favorite theme of the ingrained solitude of rent mind, allowing audiences entry into the Irish male. He uses typical Gothic equ- the characters’ consciousness; their moti- ipment to recognize an ages-old tradition, vations, history, or point of view” (Cohn, the idea of wayfarers assembling under si- 1978: p.5). McPherson’s plays are based ege to swap information and accounts of on narratology. In this respect, his mono- lives as they do in Boccaccio’s Decameron, logues reveal his characters’ consciousness and Chaucer’s The Canterbury Tales. The and their moments of epiphany powerfully Weir makes a lively case for the spirit of especially when sharpened by lighting that tradition and for the important value and staging effects. As Castagno observes of telling stories. In this respect, this study monologue allows telescopic glimpses of will begin with ‘storytelling’, which is an characters beyond the capacity of conver- inseperable part of McPherson’s writing sational discourse, thus ensuring a grea- presented in the form of monologues and ter possibility of “knowing the character” WEIR THE MCPHERSON’S CONOR uninterrupted speeches. Then The Weir beyond the plot-limiting function as an will be interpreted in the light of storytel- “agent of the action” (Castagno, 2001). In- ling, dramatic monologue and the “pub deed, each one of McPherson’s attentively play” genre. crafted monologues in The Weir and elsew- Conor McPherson, known for his here contemplate traditional structures of “amazing gift for storytelling,” employs play structure: beginning (exposition: sen- storytelling device in the form of mono- se of place and context), middle (discovery: logues to enable the audiences to enter the climax, realization), end (reversal, choice, minds of the characters. His plays such as resolution). Rum and Vodka (1994), The Good Thief, The monologues are effective in port- This Lime Tree Bower (1995), St. Nicholas, raying the transition of the character’s The Weir (1996), Dublin Carol (1999), Port mental and emotional states. McPherson Authority (2001), Come on Over, Shining mainly achieves capturing the audience’s City (2004), The Seafarer (2006), and The 63 interest through gothic stories. Indeed Birds (2009), demonstrate the playwright’s his texts composed for both the stage and mastery in using storytelling as a device in screen, such as The Seafarer and The Ec- dramatic plays. lipse respectively, are equipped with got- Storytelling and monologue have a sig- hic narratives. Galvin, too, examines “the nificant status in narratology. Narratology monologued ghost stories that shape The deals with uninterrupted speech mostly in Weir” (Galvin, 2010). Galvin interprets the form of monologues. In reality-based that McPherson views ghosts and super- drama, monologue may theatricalise what natural experiences as metaphors for “the

Tiyatro Araştırmaları Dergisi, 36:2013/2 • ISSN: 1300-1523 unknown, the existential and the unfinis- incorporated the extended monologue as a hed business of our lives.” (Galvin, 2010) core dramatic device. Contemporary drama Similarly, Ronald K. Fried has highlighted critic and scholar Clare Wallace analyses the presence of fairies, ghosts and other the monologue form in McPherson’s plays

dilek inan supernatural types in McPherson’s “other- extensively and she underlines a relations- worldly tales”. In an interview with Fried, hip between monologue and questions of McPherson has acknowledged that there ethics. Wallace highlights “the pivotal qua- are a lot of people who have nowhere to go lity of ambivalence that might serve to dis- in his plays and that in that kind of situati- tinguish the modern monologue from its on the characters can talk to each other. In predecessors” (See Chambers, 2012: 27). In the same interview he maintains that one this context, McPherson’s monologues are tries to communicate a feeling and that one unclear in which there are not clear distinc- is “supposed to walk out of the theater feel- tions between a revelatory, authentic truth ing different, not thinking different”. For and lies. Wallace argues that this achieves a McPherson theatre is “the most magical” “narratological provisionality, uncertainty storytelling art form that can draw an audi- or even failure”. (See Chambers, 2012: 27). ence into “a kind of a trance—into a kind of This sense of uncertainty revealed in the magical, communal place which no other stories reflects the characters’ ambiguous art form really does.” (Fried, 2014). psyche who live in a “new” Ireland with its In this context, many critics have economic prosperity. The characters in the explored McPherson’s “magical” fantastic play represent the rural Irish people’s adap- world of theatre, featuring storytelling and tation processes in the European culture of demons in his plays. Rawson accounts that the twenty-first century due to the fact that storytelling is the only therapy Ireland be- McPherson’s characters are not part of the lieves in as it helps to deal with the demons nation’s recent economic success. They are (Rawson, 2009). Likewise for Machray, the rather the backward native Irishmen who audiences, like the characters, are slowly have difficulties in adjusting to the inter- 64 drawn into the world of the afterlife in this nationalized and business driven society. land of storytellers (Machray, 2011). Again, We see that McPherson’s characters do not Jasper Rees expresses that The Weir owes favour the economic changes and they feel its popularity to “the old thing about ghost uncomfortable, aimless and unsettled in stories’ (Rees, 2014). this society.

McPherson structures his ghost stories In order to portray this sense of diso- in the form of monologues. Indeed he be- rientation and disturbance in the modern gan his career by writing monologues for cosmopolitan world, McPherson revitali- the stage. Many of his subsequent plays have zes Irish Celtic tradition of storytelling by

Tiyatro Araştırmaları Dergisi, 36:2013/2 • ISSN: 1300-1523 dealing with metaphysical matters such (Costa, 2006). Indeed, the pub is an impe- as demons, ghosts and spirits. He uses rative part of cultural, social and musical theatre as a magical place and benefits life in Ireland. Pubs are not only places to from the supernatural because “it opens have a drink but also one can “philosophize a door for us into a way of exploring our on the meaning of life, ruminate on global darkest fears when we feel loneliest and politics, listen to a poetry reading, tap your alienated” (See McPherson’s Interview for feet to a traditional session, feast on delici- “Theatre Talk”, http://www.youtube.com/ ous food or just enjoy the quiet settling of watch?v=93RWrTkGSE4). Indeed the lo- a pint of Guinness in front of a crackling nely characters in The Weir, find a way out fire” (http://www.discoverireland.com/us/ into their subconscious through the act about-ireland/culture/). of storytelling where they encounter their The Weir, in which the inner lives of angst and despair. McPherson has observed five characters in a country pub setting are that audiences are really tuned in and ab- WEIR THE MCPHERSON’S CONOR exposed, was put on stage at three different sorbed by the supernatural stories. world-renowned theaters in the late 1990s: The supernatural stories have a close the Royal Court in London, the Gate in affiliation with drinking, which is another Dublin, and the Walter Kerr in New York. notable characteristic of Irish culture. In al- The play won the Lawrence Olivier BBC most all his plays McPherson depicts a wi- Award as the “Best New Play” of 1997–98 despread problem with too much drinking in London, and the playwright has been in Irish culture. He believes that drinking, declared as the most promising playwright receiving the Critics’ Circle Award. The which also highlights a sense of aimless- play has been described as “beautiful and ness, is part of the Irish national character. devious” (Brantley, 1999: 1). Theatre critic In the same interview for “Theatre Talk”, Brantley has cherished the playwright as McPherson blames Catholicism, which has “a first-rate story-teller” (Brantley, 1999: a huge element of guilt and helplessness, for 1). Indeed, many critics and scholars dri- Irish drinking: “What underlies the demon ve attention to the poetry and magic of 65 of alcoholism is the feeling of inadequacy, McPherson’s work; they have been fascina- guilt and helplessness, feeling of doom, ted with his “tales of lost souls and troubled gloom, fear and paranoia” (http://www. lives” (Costa, 2006). youtube.com/watch?v=93RWrTkGSE4). Similarly, in another interview he underli- McPherson embodies accurately the nes the fact that “Drinking is everywhere, human condition, especially of men who it’s like nothing happens without it. Co- are trapped and secluded in their inner li- urtships, weddings, funerals, going to the ves. This sense of privacy and entrapment theatre, everything: it’s always alcohol” actually has been designating Irish literatu-

Tiyatro Araştırmaları Dergisi, 36:2013/2 • ISSN: 1300-1523 re for many years. The playwright has spo- of Ireland opened up through W. B. Yeats’ ken with certainty about what distinguishes Sligo and the Northern Gaeltacht through Irish drama from other English-speaking Donegal, it is a county suspended between drama. He believes that Irish playwrights, traditions. The title of the play refers to the

dilek inan hurt by poverty, pessimism and Catholic power of water which literally highlights guilt, get “stuck in an inner life”, hardly ever Ireland’s geographical configuration as an moving their dramas outside one room, island. A weir, the dramatist has explained, while Brits put the world on stage (Clapp, “refers to a dam, something that holds so- 2004). In the same way, Billington argu- mething else from overflowing” (Interview es that The Weir offers an extraordinary for “Theatre Talk”). metaphor for Ireland (Billington, 2000). The play’s “West of Ireland” setting is McPherson’s stage directions highlight the important and traditional because when fact related with country pubs in Ireland: Irish writers first began to use the English “The bar is part of a house and the house is language to recount the stories of the is- part of a farm.” (W: 3). Like in The Seafarer, land, they logically looked west, away from a play of five male characters, the charac- the British colonial pressure. This journey ters in The Weir are caught in their priva- westward led many of these writers to the te lives distanced from women because of Aran Islands at the far end of the west co- fear and respect until Finbar brings Vale- ast of Europe. The solitude and romantic rie into their circle. Indeed, McPherson is wildness of Ireland exists at its utmost level fascinated and inspired as a playwright by on Aran Islands. The honored memorials the remoteness of the topography and the of Christian piety and Celtic worship are people who inhabit this countryside in the numerously scattered over the surface of West of Ireland. The play is set in a repre- the Aran Islands, which describe the pas- sentative milieu of a small pub in a fictional sion and innocence of these islanders. It is town called Carrick in contemporary rural this same solitude and wildness of Leitrim Ireland, which is said to be in the West of that appealed to McPherson when he was Ireland, near Northwest Leitrim, or Sligo. 66 writing The Weir. On holidays and at wee- A handful of people are set in a dark, de- kends McPherson would often go down on relict and not particularly well-stocked bar the train to visit his grandfather in Leitrim, which is situated near a dam (the Weir of which outlines the isolated setting for the the title). Bordered by Sligo, Roscommon, barroom in the play. He believes that the Cavan, Longford, Fermanagh, Donegal, remoteness of this other Ireland had a pro- and the North Atlantic, Co. Leitrim itself is found effect on him as a writer. at a sort of crossways and the stories told in The Weir have specific lineage throug- Hence McPherson’s aim is to portray hout Irish folklore. Touched by the West the obsessions and purity of the islanders

Tiyatro Araştırmaları Dergisi, 36:2013/2 • ISSN: 1300-1523 in the West of Ireland who dwell in a kind Finbar is the flashy, well-to-do real estate of isolated place representative of the other man the others envy. Brendan opposes and Ireland away from globalism and cosmopo- gets furious at Finbar: “I don’t want him litanism. The Weir includes little physical using in here for that sort of carry on. A action, and its main events have already married man like him” (W: 6). They think taken place in the past. The characters re- that Finbar is “only having a thrill. Bringing member past events in their narratives. In her around” and to tell them “You are sing- its first moments, the play would seem to le and you couldn’t get a woman near this reflect the ultimate cliché of a storyteller’s place” (W: 7). They find the idea “intrusi- opener: “It was a dark and stormy night” ve, bad manners and juvenile” (W: 6). They (W: 21). The play’s characters arrive at make fun of Finbar by calling him “the staggered intervals. They consist of lonely Finbar Mack world of big business” (W: 6). old Jack, who is a Guinness lover and a ga- Right from the beginning of the play, Fin- rage owner; Brendan the pub owner; Jim, bar represents the successful cosmopolitan WEIR THE MCPHERSON’S CONOR the odd-job man in his 40’s who lives with businessman who can adapt with the global his old mother; Finbar, the successful local world economy while other characters are boy, a married man and the new comer Va- stuck in their inner lives in this secluded lerie who enters the pub unexpectedly. The part of Ireland. one woman in the play, Valerie, is being The characters’ casual bar joking and brought in for a drink by Finbar to be int- friendly local talk and gossip, in fact reve- roduced to the natives. al the characters’ isolation. Soon it is clear The men tease each other about drin- that the characters are seekers of refuge king. They define drinking as “medicinal” from the bluster of the outside world. As (W: 14). Their interchange of small talk re- they familiarize Valerie to the area, we le- veals an attachment to this rural, wild, and arn that the place is unsheltered with harsh unsheltered area. Brendan complains about winds. It is a grand spot all along for going his sisters’ forcing him “to sell the top field” for a walk all down the cliffs with amazing 67 which is for him “a grand spot” (W: 13). views. We learn about the “country ways” The friends gather in this pub for a drink and that this townland used to be quite and a chat, but that day is different as they important back a few hundred years ago. will be accompanied by Valerie, the Dublin It was like the capital of the county. Finbar lady. Jack gives Brendan the news and the tells Valerie not to mind these “country fel- new gossip, that Finbar has sold the house las”. He says: “They’re only jealous Valerie to a new resident who is a fine single girl because I went to town to seek my fortune. from Dublin, and that Finbar is nearly lea- And they all stayed out here on the bog pic- ving the wife just to have a chance with her. king their holes” (W: 13). Valerie acts as a

Tiyatro Araştırmaları Dergisi, 36:2013/2 • ISSN: 1300-1523 sort of catalyst for the men in the pub, and sat together until the other family members reminiscences about an unexplained event came home from a dance. The mother did at the local house she has rented set them not tell anyone about the incident, but later off a round of ghost stories that get creepier she asked the priest to bless the doors and

dilek inan gradually. The men are eager to entertain windows in her house. On learning that the her. Their stories start out innocently eno- house had been built on the fairy road the ugh with tales of local folklore about fairies. family members agreed that it was the fairies that knocked on the door. Maura reports The play begins almost as a comedy of another haunted story: “There was a bit of manners, as the local men try to entertain knocking then, she said. And fierce load of Valerie. Jack tells a story about the house dead birds in all the hedge and all this, but Valerie has just rented. He remembers the that was it. That’s the story” (W: 22). Jack’s tale told by Maura Nealon, who had lived spooky tale ends with laughter and more in the house as a child. fresh drinks. Finbar comments that such At first Jack has prepared the story spooky stories are “only old cod” and they for a laugh by emphasizing the spooky at- are foolish, but Valerie opposes by insisting mosphere: on a presence of a mystery in the supernatural tales and foreshadows the coming

And in those days, Valerie, as you of her heart-rending story. Right from the know, there was no electricity out here. first story, which resides in itself elements And there’s no dark like a winter night of mysterious knockings and visitations, in the country. And there was a wind like the characters introduce a structure of a fa- this one tonight, howling and whistling iry legend. As Bourke has expressed fairy in off the sea. You hear it under the door and it’s like someone singing. Singing tales have long been told “to amuse adults under the door at you. It was this type and frighten children, to entertain tourists, of night now. Am I setting the scene for and to mark the distance we have come you? (W: 21). from the supposed credulity of our ances- 68 tors.” (Bourke, 1996: 6). The events in Jack’s apparently entertaining story happened around 1910, when After Jack’s haunting story about Maura Nealon was a young girl. Maura Valerie’s house, it is Finbar’s turn to re- was alone with her mother when she sud- count another ghost story in which his denly heard an insistent knocking on the neighbour’s daughter was terrified and she door. Maura’s mother, Bridie, did not let insisted that there was a woman on the sta- her answer the door. That night they did irs looking at her. After his father’s death, not even get up to refill the turf in order Finbar was living alone in the country. One to warm the house. Frightened, they only day his neighbor asked him to help her

Tiyatro Araştırmaları Dergisi, 36:2013/2 • ISSN: 1300-1523 with a family problem. In this story, Mrs. After they had dug the grave, another man Walsh’s teenage daughter, Niamh, had be- from the church told him that he had dug come scared insisting that a spirit was af- the wrong grave. The man asked him to dig ter her. (W: 24). Niamh told Finbar that another site next to the place where a young she saw a woman on the staircases staring girl had recently been buried. Jim ignored at her. Niamh was first taken care of by a him but after a few days Jim noticed the doctor who prescribed her some sedatives man’s photo in a newspaper in relation with and then by a priest who blessed the house. a pervert’s story: “And Jesus, when I heard Later, that night, the brother phoned from that, you know? If it was him. And he wan- Longford to tell them that the old woman, ted to go down in the grave with the . . . litt- his next door neighbour, who nursed them, le girl. Even after they were gone. It didn’t had been found dead at the bottom of the bear thinking about” (W: 33). It turned out stairs. Finbar was distressed by the inci- that the stranger was actually a pervert who dent and when he went to his own house wanted to go into the grave with a little girl. WEIR THE MCPHERSON’S CONOR his shock continued. He remembers being With Jim’s narrative, the stories move from desperate for a cigarette and how he was fairytale to horror story and the language unable to move to get one. He believes that gets stronger and the tales darken. Finbar it is a coincidence but he could not go up has had to interfere with the situation and the stairs to go to bed that night; he thought has promised Valerie that there will be no there was something on the stairs. That was more spooky tales: “Ah that’s the end of the time when he decided to leave the co- them now. We’ve had enough of them old untryside and moved to town to get rid of stories, they’re only an old cod” (W: 37). loneliness. Thinking that it was dark and Despite being labeled as “old cod”, still the lonely up in that part of the county, he mo- men’s narratives in which they tell tales of ved down to Carrick “into the lights” (W: mystery and horror bear a sense of realism, 25). The mysterious stories follow one after pain, melancholy and tragedy. Clearly, the- the other. re is a witty interaction of rivalry for getting Valerie’s attention. Nevertheless, there is a 69 Finbar’s chat about Nuala Donnelly’s point to the stories. Not only do we get to getting married the next day, leads to the know the characters of the individuals bet- next story. In the next tale, Jim recites a ter, they also lead up to Valerie’s grotesque story from twenty years ago. He remem- and destabilizing story which is the focal bers that he and Nuala’s father were hired point of the play. by a priest to dig a grave in a churchyard. That day Jim was ill with the flu and he was To the men’s surprise, the night takes feeling dizzy because of whiskey. The priest a strange and unexpected twist by Valerie’s apparently had arranged a secret funeral. story. Until Valerie’s narration, the local

Tiyatro Araştırmaları Dergisi, 36:2013/2 • ISSN: 1300-1523 men appear comfortable in the realms of which gives the play its highest emotional familiar and exotic folklore of Gaeltacht ground, has disturbed the men. The three with tales featuring fairies and unhappy stories that have preceded Valerie’s drama- spirits. In contrast, the final two stories are tic monologue have organized and prepa-

dilek inan more unsettling, as first Valerie and then red the climax of the play when eventually Jack disclose personal losses that haunt she exposes her buried pain. This change them. The most emotional tale is the pe- of role as Valerie transforms from a mere nultimate story told by Valerie, which com- listener to an influential narrator, or rather bines a supernatural tale with the loss of a female invader of male domain, genera- her own child. She reveals the real-life cir- tes powerful emotions. The men are moved cumstances of her grief as she narrates her by Valerie’s trauma. Jim takes her hand and only child’s fatal accident in a swimming consoles her. Interestingly, Valerie’s mono- lesson. After their daughter’s death, her logue has echoes of the preceding stories. relationship with her husband has become Theatre critic Kerrane analyzes the play very hard. Those days Valerie did not know in structural principles suggesting that how to cope with her daughter’s loss while Valerie’s climactic narrative repeats plot her husband coped by concentrating on his elements from each of the preceding stori- work. Most notably, though, she got a fuzzy es. Indeed the sounds of knocking in Jack’s telephone call one morning. Through the tale of the fairy road is repeated in Valerie’s faint line she could hear her daughter’s vo- story as she reports her daughter’s telepho- ice, asking Valerie to come and collect her. ne call: “There were children knocking in Valerie was not sure whether this was a dre- the walls, and the man was standing across am or her leaving them had been a dream. the road, and he was looking up and he She rushed to the house that her daughter was going to cross the road” (W: 39). Simi- described where she found herself sedated larly Finbar’s story is echoed in the name by a doctor. Her husband insisted on me- of Valerie’s daughter, Niamh, which is the dical treatment which would help her cope same as that of the girl who received threa- with the situation: “But I just thought he 70 tening messages. (Kerrane, 2006: 115). should face up to what happened to me. He was insisting I get some treatment, and The male characters’ engagement in then . . . everything would be okay. But you telling old stories in order to pass the time know, what can help that if she’s out there? is challenged by Valerie’s narration as they She still . . . she still needs me” (W: 40). Re- have never expected to hear something as fusing the treatment, she preferred a change personal and real as hers. However, Fin- and decided to move to this remote part of bar tries to find some kind of logic for the the country where she expects to get some ghostly stories that the characters insist peace and quiet. Valerie’s moving account, they have lived through. For example he

Tiyatro Araştırmaları Dergisi, 36:2013/2 • ISSN: 1300-1523 argues that Jim was delirious with the flu countrymen that are reminiscent of James at the time, and that the woman in Jack’s Joyce’s characters especially in Dubliners, story was a drinker. He insists that these are who were trapped and paralyzed in Dublin. only cod and hallucinations. As a pub ow- Nevertheless, there is a note of hope and ner, he knows all about what a few drinks friendship at the end. Valerie is quick to will do to people. Similarly, Valerie’s story adapt to this society of men and she agrees in which she speaks of the recent death of to join them frequently in the pub. Clearly, her child and a bizarre experience thereaf- she has become a source of fascination to ter may have been supernatural but more this house of bachelors. likely merely a symptom of trauma. Before The pub becomes “a site of both conflict Finbar leaves the pub, he attempts to justify and bonding” (Kerrane, 2006: 107). Here and rationalize in order to demystify the McPherson uses storytelling as a device to stories. Later we learn more about Jack as expose the audience that these funny and he consoles Valerie. Brendan the proprietor WEIR THE MCPHERSON’S CONOR chilling stories are a mix of rumour and lo- invites Jack and Valerie to sit near the sto- cal legend. They may also be hallucinations ve as it gets colder into the night. As they as they are all accompanied with drinks. drink glasses of brandy, Jack tells about While reconciling the routine and the me- his life story which is presently marked by taphysical, the playwright reveals moving daily loneliness of working in his garage. themes of loss, abandonment, loneliness Motivated by Valerie’s story, Jack tells his and regret. The play takes storytelling second tale, the last one of the evening. He concept and adjusts it into a conventional recounts his loneliness in a plain story of play structure whereby the characters tell lost love, with no ghostly shadows at all. spooky stories to one another rather than His story involves his regrets at missing an directly to the audience. The playwright opportunity at love. When he was young depicts the desperation of Irish small-town his girl friend suggested they move to Dub- life masterfully through the play which of- lin. However, because of “an irrational fear” fers an extraordinary metaphor for Ireland. of leaving, he could not leave the countr- 71 yside. After she went to Dublin, she mar- McPherson illustrates the intricacy of ried another man. Jack’s story of lost love male psyche especially when challenged “wasn’t exactly a ghostly story” but he is so by the female. By using the storytelling much taken up with ghosts as he says “we’ll technique McPherson achieves a kind of all be ghosts soon enough, says you, ha?” entertainment which darkens and inten- (W: 47). As opposed to the other charac- sifies gradually. There is a defined a cli- ters who are troubled by apparitions, Jack mactic order structure in the stories. The is uneasy by regrets. Jack’s life story may be play’s five stories are arranged as to become interpreted as an evocation of typical Irish more personal and more unsettling than

Tiyatro Araştırmaları Dergisi, 36:2013/2 • ISSN: 1300-1523 the one before. Similarly Cummings notes fact that pubs are second homes for sad, that “the presence of the supernatural beco- solitary men especially in the countryside. mes progressively more real, tangible, and The playwright wants the audience to feel ominous.”(Cummings, 2000: 309). With the solitude of the Irish male deep-rooted

dilek inan the emotional impact of Valerie’s story, the in the spooky tales. The remoteness of the weir collapses. The men are affected by countryside in the West of Ireland offers her story and they experience a great deal McPherson the necessary insight and ins- of emotional breakthrough. Also, Valerie’s piration to introduce the dwellers of this story followed by Jack’s transforms the play topography. Although The Weir mostly “from parody to elegy” (Meany, 2008). The underlines the native Irishmen’s diffidence, entertaining stories finish with an elegiac it reflects its author’s aspirations in com- note. bining the past and present, tradition and McPherson’s significance lies in the modernity, rural and urban Ireland. Whi- fact that he rewrites Celtic folk tales, le doing this, McPherson also draws the ghosts and legends of the far distant past in postmodern Ireland. As a vital theatri- contemporary audiences’ attention to the cal and literary voice, he captures the art endangerment of one of Ireland’s most fa- of storytelling in his witty playscript of miliar institutions as the small country bar The Weir portraying the oppressive quiet itself is disappearing at an alarming rate of country life. While McPherson’s work for theatre is firmly grounded in the ur- because of modern Irish lifestyles. For the ban secular world in which he grew up, it contemporary audiences, The Weir evo- has a much gentler, more complex relati- kes questions in the minds, reminding the onship with the traditional Irish landsca- fact or rather the changing trend that the pe and values. As an urban dramatist he new prosperous Ireland has little room for explores the Irish imaginary and represents views of the rural west of Ireland. old-fashioned, country pubs. McPherson’s Dubliner McPherson is close to the ro- characters resist submission to the forces mantic tradition of the literary revival. of globalization. However, they end up in The Weir This is perhaps most evident in isolation and their frustration can be traced where he presents an almost idyllic ver- in the supernatural tales where we explore 72 sion of the old community, represented by a group of people telling ghost stories their fears and alienation. Through drama- in a pub. tic monologues we get the true picture of this rural other Ireland with its passionate In order to illustrate that Irish pub and innocent islanders. McPherson’s theat- culture is specified with hospitality, good re, which he defines as “the most magical” conversations and tall tales, McPherson storytelling art form, absorbs the audience has used the public bar as a source of me- and explores the characters’ fears in times lancholic assertion in The Weir. The play of loneliness and alienation. represents Irish culture by underlining the BIBLIOGRAPHY

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