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MANNA
Waitress, something of a shape shifter, probably thirties Josie, an old lady who occasionally changes into Mother Ollie, a man in his early fifties Tristan, a Trinity college student, early twenties Iseult, the same The action takes place in a Dublin café in the present day
Cheap café. Flock wallpaper, plastic flowers. Grease, formica-topped tables with two chairs at each, chipped ashtrays. Imaginary mirror on the fourth wall, facing out to the audience. This can be indicated by actors checking their appearance occasionally. Counter at rear leading to kitchen, off. Menu over counter printed on discoloured board. Special of the day being written up on the blackboard by the WAITRESS as the play begins: "Soup of the day, Bacon cabbige and potatos, stuwed apple and custerd, tea bread and buter. £4.95" Old woman [JOSIE] sitting alone at table side front, staring into space. Music from a radio on the counter. Woman [BREDA] enters, doorbell ringing. She studies menu, is indecisive about which table to select. Finally sits near Josie, near centre front. She gets a thick paperback novel out of her bag and starts to read from half-way through. WAITRESS: [comes over] Yes? BREDA: Oh... I'll have the special, please... What's the soup? WAITRESS: Oxtail. BREDA: Oxtail... [looks dubious] That'll be grand... Thanks. WAITRESS: Bread and butter? BREDA: Is it extra? WAITRESS: No. BREDA: No... thank you. WAITRESS: [turns to old woman] All right, Josie? JOSIE: Yes thanks, Carmel. WAITRESS: Another tea? JOSIE: All right, so... While I'm waiting... I'm waiting for my friend. WAITRESS: I know you are, dear. JOSIE: [to Breda] I'm waiting for my friend. BREDA: Oh... WAITRESS: [to Breda] Would you like your tea now? WAITRESS: Water. Right. [Goes off to kitchen] Pause JOSIE: Nice tea they have here. BREDA: Really... [puts down her book] JOSIE: Best cuppa tea in Dublin... That's my opinion. BREDA: Ah... JOSIE: They don't use bags, you see. BREDA: Is that right? Breda gets up after a moment, crosses over to Josie's table and peers in the pot JOSIE: See what I mean. BREDA: Tea leaves all right. JOSIE: I told you. BREDA: Makes all the difference, I suppose. JOSIE: It does, it does... You're right there. [Pause in which Breda uncertainly resumes her seat and reopens her book]... Them bags don't taste of nothing... But they all use them these days... They don't care, you see... They don't care. Josie stares into space. Breda reads. JOSIE: [muttering] Nobody cares... Not any more... Nobody cares what happens to you... [Breda looks up] No one wants to know you when you're old... You just get in the way. I've given up going to see them. I can tell they're just waiting for me to leave... I can always tell, you know. It's a kind of sixth sense with me... BREDA: Really? JOSIE: Yeah... It's a ... gift. BREDA: Mm... [reads book] JOSIE: "All right, Josie?" they say. [Breda looks up] "I'm grand," I say. "That's the spirit," they say. That's what they want to hear, you see. They don't really want to know. They're afraid they might get lumbered. I can see it in their eyes... Well, I thank God I've still got all my facilities. BREDA: That's a blessing. JOSIE: You know what I pray every night? I pray I'll just pop off... Sudden, like. That's the best way. Die in yer sleep and wake up dead... I've told missus next door, if I don't take in me milk, come in and check I'm still alive. She's got a key and all. BREDA: Ah... JOSIE: I've provided for meself all right. Got a few bob in the Credit Union see to me funeral. A decent funeral. Coffin with knobs on. Mahogany, not one of them plywood jobs. It's picked out. BREDA: Oh... JOSIE: Apricot silk lining. Well, I say silk, but more like polyester, I reckon. Still, I don't suppose it matters. BREDA: No... JOSIE: See, I don't aim to be a burden to no one. BREDA: Well... JOSIE: I do worry, though... I worry what'll happen if the day comes when I can't see to myself... I worry that they'll put me in a home... BREDA: [absently] I'd never do that, mam. JOSIE: What? BREDA: Sorry... You reminded me. JOSIE: Yeah well. That's the way it is... It comes to us all. BREDA: Yes. They both stare into space. When Josie speaks as MOTHER her voice changes, the accent changes, she sits gazing straight ahead. Perhaps the stage lights change subtly. JOSIE: [as Mother] Go on, read your book... [Breda reads} You rear them and for what? So they can leave you... [Breda looks up] You're just as bad, Breda... Waiting for me to die. BREDA: What? BREDA: [in disbelief] Mam? JOSIE: Mrs Shaughnessy died. BREDA: What? JOSIE: Pardon, not what... How many times! BREDA: Sorry... JOSIE: So you should be. Sorry's hardly enough seeing as what I have to go through... Ha, thirty-nine years old and still can't remember to say pardon. After all the money spent on your education, sending you to the nun's... And sit up straight, Breda, for God's sake, you'll get humpy-backed... [Breda sits up] And brush your hair away from your face... My God, you look a mess. No wonder no man has ever looked twice at you. BREDA: Mam... JOSIE: What's the use!... If only Angela were here... BREDA: Angela! JOSIE: She's a got a bit of life in her...She's got what it takes... She'd sit down and have a bit of a laugh... Not leave me here all alone all day. She'd sit down. BREDA: I have to do the house, mam... I have to go to the shops... You can always call if you need anything. JOSIE: You never hear me... Not with that radio blaring. BREDA: You said you liked it. I got it for you. JOSIE: Yes, that's what you said... But whose programmes are on?
Who listens all day? JOSIE: Nothing worth listening to any more. BREDA: You like Pat Kenny. You like Ronan Collins. JOSIE: Who does? JOSIE: I can't sit here in dead silence all day, can I. I have to have something on. You with your nose in a book half the time. BREDA: Anyway, what do you want? JOSIE: What do I want? BREDA: [reads] "The ball was in full swing when Catherine arrived. Her entrance passed totally unremarked by the dancers in their peacock array, who continued to swirl across the polished floor like so many birds of paradise, to the tune of a gay gavotte played by a small orchestra..." [Music changes to gavotte. Breda starts to dance round, still reading. She stops in front of the mirror and views herself] JOSIE: Breda! Breda! BREDA: "Catherine's eyes were dazzled by the display..." JOSIE: I need to go to the toilet, Breda. BREDA: "The brilliant colours of the ladies' gowns reflected a thousandfold in the winking crystals of the large pendulous chandeliers that illuminated the white and gold ballroom." JOSIE: I've been waiting half and hour for that cuppa tea. BREDA: "The feathers in the ladies' headdresses nodded and bobbed as their wearers moved, led by the neat footwork of the gentlemen, so elegant in their dark costumes and snow-white cravats." JOSIE: No one cares about you when you're old. Put you on the rubbish heap... Breda, aren't there any biscuits to go with the tea. You know I like biscuits with my tea. And not those crumbly ones, either. BREDA: "Catherine felt dowdy by comparison, though an objective onlooker might have considered her as lovely as any of those exotic creatures in her simple grey dress of watered silk, her corn-coloured hair tied back as usual in a neat chignon." JOSIE: Why d you never get them jaffa cakes any more, Breda? I love them jaffa cakes. BREDA: "But she was nothing but the governess. No one paid any attention to her. She was invisible in the motley crowd. Yet Catherine felt no envy. Her position she even considered an advantage. She could stare and stare at the bright scene to her heart's content, secure in the knowledge of her invisibility." Waitress enters and switches to country music, then brings Breda a glass of water. Breda sits down. Waitress crosses to Josie and gives her tea. WAITRESS: There y'are. Josie. JOSIE: [back to normal] Thanks, Carmel love. WAITRESS: [to Breda] Soup won't be long now, pet. [Exits to kitchen] JOSIE: Very nice woman, that. BREDA: Er.. yes.. she seems nice. JOSIE: [whispers] You wouldn't think to look at her she's only got one breast. BREDA: What? JOSIE: Dreadful life she has, dreadful. BREDA: I can't hear you. JOSIE: Her old man's a wrong'un, you know... Drinks.... BREDA: What? Josie points at Breda's glass BREDA: [misunderstands] Oh... It's water... [drinks] JOSIE: Not water, love. Vodka mostly. It's cheaper, see. Or turps, even... BREDA: Ugh... [splutters and pushes the glass away] JOSIE: But one thing I will say for her. She's always cheerful. Keeps on smiling through, like... I'll say that for her... She's a regular trouper, is Carmel. Doorbell rings as man [OLLIE] enters. Rubs his hands together OLLIE: Hey Josie. How are yer. [Looks at Breda sideways] Any service in this joint. [Bangs on counter] Carmel, Carmel... It's yer best customer. WAITRESS: [calls] Oh yeah... I can guess. Ollie looks round at Breda and laughs OLLIE: What's on today, then? What culinary delights do you have
for us today, eh? What delicacies to tempt the jaded palate? OLLIE: Let me guess... [sniffs] Ahhh... Bisto!... Cabbage.... Oxtail coup... Bacon... Waitress enters OLLIE: Just like me ould mam used to make. WAITRESS: You'll be having the dinner then, Ollie? OLLIE: Wheel it out, Carmel. WAITRESS: [to Breda] I'm just bringing the soup, pet. OLLIE: The soup. Tail of ox. Tell me, Carmel, love, how long d you reckon since that soup was hanging off the back end of an ox... Eh?... Eh? CARMEL: Shut up, Ollie. [To Breda] don't mind him, pet. OLLIE: [sits in a chair beside Breda's so she has to move hers slightly] Excuse me, love. Breda smiles wanly and buries her nose in her book. Whenever she talks to Ollie she has to turn sideways awkwardly. OLLIE: [shouts across Breda] How yer doin then Josie me ould flower? JOSIE: I'm waiting for me friend. OLLIE: Still waiting, eh? JOSIE: She'll be along any minute. OLLIE: She!.. Well, now, I thought it were yer boyfriend. I thought you had a date, Josie. Thought you'd been advertising for a gentleman friend in one of them magazines. JOSIE: Tut. OLLIE: "Mature woman of varied interests seeks gentleman, preferably well-heeled, for friendship and maybe more..." Eh? Eh? JOSIE: You wouldn't catch me doing that... Advertising. You wouldn't know what you was letting yerself in for. You'd get all sorts of funny replies to something like that. OLLIE: But it can work. Strange as it may seem to you, Josie, it can work. I know a man met his future wife like that, through an ad. And they lived happily ever after, Josie... Honest to God.. I've even thought of advertising meself a few times: "Good looking widower, young at heart, seeks lady looking for a bit of craic. Only the well-endowed need apply..." Eh? Eh?... No offence.... JOSIE: Tut. Ollie opens tabloid newspaper and starts to read Waitress enters with soup. To make life easier for all concerned, the food should perhaps be imaginary. NB, whenever waitress changes her persona, she comes wearing appropriate headgear. In this case she comes as a nun WAITRESS: [putting soup down in front of Breda. Speaks in nun's tones] There you are now, miss. [Breda looks up at her, astonished] And be sure to eat up every drop. It's good for you. BREDA: Yes, sister. WAITRESS: The starving babies in Africa would be glad of it, anyhow. BREDA: Yes, sister. WAITRESS: What's this, Breda Murphy? Are you reading at the table? WAITRESS: How many time have you to be told, no reading at the table, no elbows on the table, eat with your mouth shut, don't cross your legs, don't pick at yourself, and thank God for his manifold blessings on you this day. BREDA: Yes, sister. WAITRESS: What class of a book is it, anyway?... I might have know it wouldn't be a pious work. I might have known it wouldn't be the life of the blessed Maria Goretti, an example to all girls. Oh no. A novel! A cheap novel!... You'll break your poor mother's heart yet, Breda Murphy, with all the sacrifices she's after making for you, after her working her poor fingers to the bone to give ye and your sister and brothers a good education... I don't know, I don't know at all.. |
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