Play Plot Summaries
Night,
Mother, written in 1981, was Marsha Norman's fifth play. The
work received generally favorable reviews when it was first produced on stage in
1983. Among the numerous honors bestowed upon the play, it was awarded the 1983
Pulitzer Prize for drama. In brief, Night, Mother is
a one-act play with two characters on stage: Jessie Cates, late
thirties to early forties, who lives with her mother, Thelma. The play opens
with Jessie asking her mother where a particular gun is kept. She finds it with
Thelma’s help. As she cleans the gun, she quietly announces she’s going to
kill herself at the end of the evening. Jessie’s announcement sets off a
fierce struggle between mother and daughter, with Thelma using every strategy
she can conceive of to talk Jessie out of her plan. Thelma becomes so desperate,
she even resorts to telling Jessie the truth about a number of issues that have
affected her life. This play illustrates one possible central facet about the
nature of what creates drama in a story: the anticipation of the outcome of a
dramatic situation. In this case, that means that Thelma, and the audience,
learn early on of Jessie’s plans. And because they do, both Thelma and the
audience are thrust deep into the heart of the story’s central
question: Will Jessie really kill herself, or can Thelma find a way to stop her?
The Lonesome West by Martin McDonagh
The Lonesome
West features the constantly arguing brothers Coleman and
Valene, whose father has just died in a shotgun 'accident.' Valene is only
interested in his religious ornaments, and drinking poteen. Coleman is only
interested in eating, and attends funerals to collect free sausage rolls etc.
Valene goes out to help drag the body of Garda Thomas Hanlon out of the lake
with Father Welsh. Hanlon had just killed himself. Coleman pretends to follow,
delaying to tie his shoelace, despite the fact that he was wearing loafers.
While alone in the house, he destroys all of Valene's plastic figurines, by
placing them in Valene's new stove. Only Father Welsh, the alcoholic parish
priest, attempts to fix their relationship, but his advice mostly goes unheard.
It is revealed later in the play that Coleman had shot his father because he
insulted his (Coleman's) new haircut. Neither of the brothers show any grief or
remorse at their father's death. The two brothers fight over everything and
anything. Father Welsh, depressed because of the hatred between the brothers,
and with a low self esteem, writes a letter begging the brothers to get along,
saying that he will stake his soul on it. Father Welsh then goes on to drown
himself in the lake. This act is significant, as there has already been a
lengthy discussion about suicide in the play. The characters believe that
damnation follows suicide for the victims. When Coleman and Valene read his
letter, they attempt to reconcile themselvesEventually it becomes clear that the
two brothers can never have a good relationship. They agree that fighting is
actually good for them, and that Fr. Welsh's soul will be fine.
Using
the historical subject of the Salem Witch trialsArthur Millers play The
Crucible (1953) presents an allegory for events in contemporary
America. The Salem Witch Trials took place in Salem, Massachusetts in 1692, and
were based on the accusations of a twelve-year-old girl named Anne Putnam.
Putnam claimed that she had witnessed a number of Salem's residents holding
black sabbaths and consorting with Satan. Based on these accusations, an
English-American clergyman named Samuel Parris spearheaded the prosecution of
dozens of alleged witches in the Massachusetts colony. Nineteen people were
hanged and one pressed to death over the following two years.
Miller's
play employs these historical events to criticize the moments in humankind's
history when reason and fact became clouded by irrational fears and the desire
to place the blame for society's problems on others. Dealing with elements such
as false accusations, manifestations of mass hysteria, and rumor-mongering, The
Crucible is seen by many as more of a commentary on
"McCarthyism'' than the actual Salem trials. "McCarthyism" was
the name given to a movement led by Senator Joe McCarthy and his House Committee
on Un-American Activities. This movement involved the hunting down and exposing
of people suspected of having communist sympathies or connections. While those
found guilty in McCarthy's witch hunt were not executed, many suffered
irreparable damage to their reputations. Miller himself came under suspicion
during this time
The
play opens in a rural Irish pub with Brendan, the publican and Jack, a car
mechanic and garage owner. These two begin to discuss their respective days and
are soon joined by Jim. The three then discuss Valerie, a pretty young woman
from Dublin who has just rented an old house in the area.
Finbar,
a businessman, arrives with Valerie, and the play revolves around reminiscence
and the kind of banter which only comes about amongst men who have a shared
upbringing. After a few drinks, the group begin telling stories with a
supernatural slant, related to their own experience or those of others in the
area, and which arise out of the popular preoccupations of Irish folklore:
ghosts, fairies and mysterious happenings.
Though
the imputation from each is that their tale is 'true', there is enough latitude
in the storytelling, and sufficient reference to the conventions of a
supernatural tales, for the audience to draw their own conclusions as to whether
drinkers' yarns are being spun.
After
each man (with the exception of Brendan) has told a story, Valerie tells her
own: the reason why she has left Dublin. Valerie's story is melancholy and
undoubtedly true, with a ghostly twist which outdoes the earlier tales, and the
men become softer, kinder, and more real.
Finbar
and Jim leave, and in the last part of the play, Jack's final monologue is a
story of personal loss .
The
play is is as much about lack of close relationships and missed connections as
it is about anything else.
Dancing
at Lughnasa by Brian Friel
The
story is set in a small village called Ballybeg in Donegal
As events
unfold in the novel Kate loses her job because of the situation of Jack. Rose
another sister and Agnes both spends their time knitting in order to make some
money. With the advent of a new knitting factory to the village their work
becomes redundant and they are left without any money. They both leave and
disappear. Michael who is the narrator of the play announces how they were not
found until 25 years later. At this stage Agnes is dead and Rose is dying in a
hospice for the destitute in Southwark. Jack dies of a heart attack within
a year of his homecoming. Gerry disappears to
Same
Old Moon by Geraldine Aron
.Same
Old Moon shows us scenes in the life of Brenda Barnes, the aspiring writer. We
follow her from age nine to fortyish, and see through her eyes her eccentric and
sometimes fiery Irish family - her wilful and self-destructive Dad, her
put-upon, sometimes hot-tempered Mum and many others. A charming, but not
uncritical, look at family life,
The
Seafarer by Conor McPherson
The Seafarer was nwrtten in 2006.
It is set on Christmas Evein Baldoyle coastal suburb north of Dublin
City. The play centers on James "Sharkey" Harkin, an alcoholic who has
recently returned to live with his blind, aging brother, Richard Harkin. As
Sharkey attempts to stay off the bottle during the holidays, he contends with
the hard-drinking, irascible Richard and his own haunted conscience.
Having
recently been let go from his job chauffeuring a wealthy developer and his wife
in Lahinch, Co. Clare, Sharky returns to Dublin to look after Richard. Tension
between the brothers is evident from the start and exists mostly in Richard's
constant sniping and excessive demands from his younger brother. A source of
early conflict stems from Richard’s inviting Nicky Giblin—Sharky’s love
rival—to join the men, along with Ivan, for a game of poker.
Nicky
Giblin unexpectedly arrives with the mysterious Mr. Lockhart, a man of refined
appearance. During a tête-à-tête, Lockhart reminds Sharky of their prior
meeting which occurred twenty-five years to the day previously, when the pair
were remanded together in the Bridewell Garda Barracks when Sharky had been
arrested over the killing of a vagrant, Lawrence Joyce. During the period of
their captivity Sharky had agreed to a game of cards in which he wagered his
soul in a game of poker against Lockhart in a bid to gain his freedom. Sharky
won the game and with it his freedom, but with the proviso that Lockhart would
at some future date, have an opportunity to play him once again.
The
play culminates with the poker game played between the five men.It is in fact a
game for Sharky’s soul as Lockhart reveals himself, in a series of private
disclosures to Sharky.
Poor
Beast in the Rain by Billy Roche
The
Setting is
Portia
Coughlan by Marina Carr
Three
sisters; Teresa, Mary and Catherine, come together before their mother's
celebration that she is dead, each haunted by their own demons; in which the
play focuses more on how each sister deals with the death and how it directly
affects them. The three each have different memories of the same events, causing
constant bickering about whose memories are true. As the three women get
together after years of separation, all their hidden lies and self-betrayals are
about to reach the surface.
The
sisters' memories interact with each other, and show that despite synchronicites
of time and place they cannot agree upon one unifying experience. This is echoed
in Vi's final speech, which portrays Alzheimer's disease as being adrift among a
series of islands of your own identity. The sisters drift around their own
islands of memory, unable to agree on one particular point, and yet are unified
by their familial bond.