Brian Friel Plays 1 Read Online Free Page A

is it?
    MADGE : Agh, Gar –
    PUBLIC : What time is it?
    MADGE : ( Looking at clock ) Ten past seven.
    PUBLIC : And what time do I knock off at?
    MADGE : At seven.
    PUBLIC : Which means that on my last day with him he got ten minutes overtime out of my hide. ( He releases Madge. ) Instead of saying to me: ( Grandly ) ‘Gar, my son, since you are leaving me forever, you may have the entire day free,’ what does he do? Lines up five packs of flour and says: ( In flat dreary tones ) ‘Make them up into two-pound pokes.’
    MADGE : He’s losing a treasure, indeed!
    PUBLIC : So d’you know what I said to him? I just drew myself up and looked him straight in the eye and said to him: ‘Two-pound pokes it will be’ – just like that.
    MADGE : That flattened him.
    ( She goes off to the scullery. He stands at the door and talks in to her. )
    PUBLIC : And that wasn’t it all. At six o’clock he remembered about the bloody pollock, and him in the middle of the Angelus. ( Stands in imitation of the Father: head bowed, hands on chest. In flat tones –) ‘Behold-the- handmaid-of-the -Lord-Gut-and-salt-them-fish.’ So by God I lashed so much salt on those bloody fish that any poor bugger that eats them will die of thirst. But when the corpses are strewn all over Ballybeg, where will I be? In the little old USA! Yip-eeeeee! ( He swings away from the scullery door and does a few exuberant steps as he sings –) ‘Philadelphia, here I come, rightah backah where Ah started from –’ ( He goes into his bedroom, flings himself down on his bed, rests his head on his hands, and looks at the ceiling. Sings alternate lines of ‘Philadelphia’ – first half – with PRIVATE ( off )).
    PUBLIC : It’s all over.
    PRIVATE : ( Off, in echo-chamber voice ) And it’s all about to begin. It’s all over.
    PUBLIC : And it’s all about to begin.
    PRIVATE : ( Now on. ) Just think, Gar.
    PUBLIC : Think …
    PRIVATE : Think … Up in that big bugger of a jet, with its snout pointing straight for the States, and its tail belching smoke over Ireland; and you sitting up at the front ( PUBLIC acts this ) with your competent fingers poised over the controls; and then away down below in the Atlantic you see a bloody bugger of an Irish boat out fishing for bloody pollock and –
    ( PUBLIC nose-dives, engines screaming, machine guns stuttering. )
    PUBLIC : Rat-tat-tat-tat-tat-tat-tat-tat-tat-tat.
    PRIVATE : Abandon ship! Make for the life-boats! Send for Canon Mick O’Byrne!
    ( PUBLIC gains altitude and nose-dives again. )
    PUBLIC : Rat-tat-tat-tat-tat-tat-tat-tat-tat.
    PRIVATE : To hell with women and children! Say an Act of Contrition!
    PUBLIC : Yip-eeeee!
    ( He finishes taking off the shop coat, rolls it into a bundle, and places it carefully on the floor. )
    PRIVATE : It looks as if – I can’t see very well from the distance – but it looks as if – yes! – yes! – the free is being taken by dashing Gar O’Donnell ( PUBLIC gets back from the coat, poises himself to kick it ),pride of the Ballybeg team. ( In commentator’s hushed voice )O’Donnell is now moving back, taking a slow, calculating look at the goal, I’ve never seen this boy in the brilliant form he’s in today – absolute magic in his feet. He’s now in position, running up, and –
    ( PUBLIC kicks the shop coat into the air. )
    PUBLIC : Ya-hoooo! ( Sings and gyrates at same time. )
    ‘Philah-delph-yah, heah Ah come, rightah backah weah Ahstahted from, boom-boom-boom-boom –’
    ( He breaks off suddenly when PRIVATE addresses him in sombre tones of a judge. )
    PRIVATE : Gareth Mary O’Donnell.
    ( PUBLIC springs to attention, salutes, and holds this absurd military stance. He is immediately inside his bedroom door, facing it. )
    PUBLIC : Sir.
    PRIVATE : You are fully conscious of all the consequences of your decision?
    PUBLIC : Yessir.
    PRIVATE : Of leaving the country of your birth, the land of the curlew and the snipe, the Aran sweater and the Irish