Teresa Deevy

(1894–1963)

When the Abbey Theatre rejected Sean O’Casey’s The Silver Tassie in 1928, the first chapter of Ireland’s national subsidized theatre closed. In the decade that followed, however, new playwrights surfaced in a quiet spirit of artistic rebellion. The most significant dramatist of the 1930s was Teresa Deevy, a remarkable woman who holds a place second only to Lady Gregory in the gallery of Irish women dramatists.

Deevy wrote twenty-five plays, six of which were produced at the Abbey between 1930 and 1936. Often called “the Irish Chekhov” because of her subject matter and style, she was considered an experimental play-wright by her contemporary critics.¹ She was noted for her vivid characterizations and her finely individualized dialogue. The latter accomplishment is quite impressive in light of the fact that she was totally deaf.

The youngest of thirteen children, Teresa Deevy was born in Waterford on January 19, 1894. Her father, Edward Deevy, died when she was only three, and her mother, Mary Feehan Deevy, was a deeply religious woman who passed on her staunch Catholic beliefs to her children. Deevy received her early schooling at the Ursuline Convent in Waterford. Shortly after entering University College Dublin in 1913, she developed Meniere’s disease, a condition that causes loss of hearing. She transferred to University College Cork, and by the time she graduated she was completely deaf.

After moving to London to study lipreading, Deevy began to frequent the theatre. She attended as many productions as possible, always trying to read the script beforehand. She was especially impressed by Chekhov and Shaw, and the influences of the former later surfaced in her own plays. She returned to Ireland in 1919, determined to devote all her energy to playwriting and to find a theatre that would showcase her talents.

Deevy’s first one-act plays, Reserved Ground and After To-Morrow, were rejected by the Abbey Theatre, but Lennox Robinson, a member of the reading committee, encouraged her to continue. In 1930, the Abbey produced her three-act play Reapers, which presents Irish middle-class life in a provincial town. The following year, the Abbey opened Deevy’s next play, A Disciple (originally titled In Search of Valour), which introduced what the poet Sean Dunne identifies as the typical Deevy theme: “the contradiction between desire and the impossibility of fulfillment.”² Temporal Powers, which deals with poverty in an unsentimental yet moving way, opened at the Abbey in 1932 and won a joint prize with Paul Vincent Carroll’s Things That Are Caesar’s. Her next one-act play, The King of Spain’s Daughter, opened at the Abbey in 1935. Its flighty protagonist, Annie Kinsella, is the literary precursor of Deevy’s most well-known character, Katie Roche.

The 1936 season saw two of Deevy’s full-length plays staged: Katie Roche and The Wild Goose. Of all Deevy’s plays, Katie Roche has received the widest critical acclaim from both literary and production standpoints. It is a study of a vibrant, fiercely independent young woman who allows her romantic passions to rule her heart, while her social conditioning rules her head. Hailed by Dublin critics, the play was revived at the Abbey in 1938, 1949, 1953, and 1975. After the Abbey rejected Wife to James Whelan in 1942, Deevy turned to writing for radio; the Abbey’s Experimental Theatre, now known as the Peacock Theatre, did, however, produce Light Falling in 1948.

During Deevy’s last few years, her writing amounted to little. She tried to write a ballet, Possession, which was based on the Irish legend of the Táin,³ and she began—but never completed—a play about Thomas Francis Meagher. She also wrote some children’s stories and co-authored a children’s book called Lisheen.⁴ Teresa Deevy died on January 19, 1963. Her obituary notices were laudatory; one, for example, called her “a major Irish playwright” and asserted that “the Irish theatre had suffered a heavy loss by her death.”⁵

The King of Spain’s Daughter was published five times: first in New York’s Theatre Arts in June 1935; next in The Dublin Magazine 11, no. 1, in 1936; again in Three Plays by Teresa Deevy (Macmillan) in 1939; then in “The King of Spain’s Daughter” and Other One-Act Plays by Teresa Deevy (Dublin, New Frontiers Press) in 1947; and most recently in Selected Plays of Irish Playwright Teresa Deevy, 1894–1963, edited by Eibhear Walshe (Edwin Mellen Press) in 2003. This last volume republishes the three plays in the 1939 collection (Katie Roche, The King of Spain’s Daughter, and The Wild Goose) and also publishes for the first time Deevy’s compelling radio drama, Supreme Dominion.

The King of Spain’s Daughter opened at the Abbey on April 29, 1935. Although Lennox Robinson had directed every Deevy play up until this point, this production was directed by Fred Johnson, an Abbey actor who had appeared in Reapers. The production starred Ria Mooney as Annie Kinsella and featured Ann Clery, J. Winter, John Stephenson, and the up- and-coming young actor Cyril Cusack. The King of Spain’s Daughter shared the bill with a revival of Wrack, a full-length peasant drama by the Donegal naturalist Peadar O’Donnell, which Robinson had directed during the 1932 season.⁶ The Abbey revived The King of Spain’s Daughter on July 27, 1936, featuring much of the same cast. The play was also successfully televised in London by the BBC in the pioneering days of prewar television.⁷ Its American premiere was directed by Charlotte Headrick at Oregon State University in 2013 and toured to Corvallis’s Majestic Theatre in 2014.

Deevy’s unpublished plays include Light Falling, One Look and What It Led To, In the Cellar of My Friend, Dignity, Within a Marble City, Polinka, The Finding of the Ball, Holiday House, Reapers, Going Beyond Alma’s Glory, MacConglinne, A Minute’s Wait, After Tomorrow, Possession, Concerning Meagher, or How Did He Die and Reserved Ground. In 1995, The Irish University Review was the first to publish Deevy’s three-act play Wife to James Whelan; it was directed by Jonathan Bank in 2010 at the Mint Theatre in New York, and was published again in 2011 in Teresa Deevy Reclaimed, vol. 1, edited by John Harrington, Christopher Morash, and Jonathan Bank.

The King of Spain’s Daughter

CHARACTERS

PETER KINSELLA, a labourer.

JIM HARRIS, a labourer.

MRS. MARKS, a neighbour.

ANNIE KINSELLA, Peter’s daughter.

RODDY MANN,a loafer.

SCENE

An open space on a grassy road. At each side are road barriers with notices, “No Traffic” and “Road Closed.” At the back an old dilapidated wall; a small door in the centre of the wall stands open and fields can be seen beyond. County Council workers have been employed here. Two coats, a thermos flask, an old sack, and a man’s hat and stick have been left on a pile of stones near one of the barriers. Peter Kinsella, a heavily built man of fifty, comes through the doorway. He carries a pickax; his overalls and boots are covered with a fine dust. He stands in the centre, looks away to the left, shading his eyes, then to right. Jim Harris comes on, whistling. He is twenty-four, wears a cap and dusty overalls. He leaves his spade against the wall, goes to the barrier at the right side, leans on it, looking away to the right.

TIME

The action of the play takes place on a grassy road in Ireland during the dinner hour of a day in April.

ACT I

JIM. Great work at the weddin’ below. Miss What’s-her-name getting married. The women were gathered at the wharf an hour and a half before time for send-off. (Laughs. Peter nods without interest.) Right well it looked from above, with the white launch, an’ the flags flyin’ an’ the sun on the water. Brave and gay at the start, however ’twill go. (He takes his thermos flask.) Come on, man. With the noise of the sirens I didn’t hear the whistle, an’ I kept workin’ five minutes too long. Wasn’t that a terrible thing to have happen to me?

PETER. She’s late with my dinner.

JIM. (Dismayed.) What! Didn’t she come here at all?

PETER. She did not. Late—the second time in the week.

JIM. ’Tis on account of that weddin’. She’ll be up by now. They don’t feel time or weather when they’re waitin’ for a bride.

PETER. I’ll make her feel something . . . her father without his dinner.

JIM. (Looking to the right.) Is it at the wharf she is? Or the far side of the river watchin’ the start?

PETER. Do I, or anyone, ever know where Annie’d be? Only sisters you have, but they’d give you more thought than that daughter of mine. Oh, she’ll be sorry yet.

JIM. It is because of the day; the women can think of nothin’ else; they’re all the same. Molly and Dot were up at the dawn—would it be a fine day! You’d think they were guests invited. They know her by eyesight so they’ll go stand in the crowd and see how she’ll look.

PETER. If I knew where to get Annie.

JIM. Annie’ll be here now. They’re scatterin’ away off the wharf, though I can’t pick her out.

PETER. And how would you? More than likely she’s off with Roddy Mann. Philanderin’ with the like of him—that’s all she’s fit for—or with any boy she can lay hold of.

JIM. If she goes on a bit aself ⁸ ’tis because she must; she’s made that way, she can’t help it.

PETER. I’ll make her help it! You’re in no great hurry to have her.

JIM. (Flings round on him.) You know that I am!

PETER. Why don’t you marry her so? And stop her goin’ on? You’re in no hurry.

JIM. I want that, and you know it. How can I force the girl?

PETER. Ay, how indeed? (Laughs contemptuously.) Aw, you’re very young.

Peter goes to the door, stands there looking out across the fields. Jim sits down on the stones and begins his dinner. Mrs. Marks, a big woman of fifty-five or so, wearing a shawl and with a basket on her arm, comes to the barrier at the right. She pushes the barrier a little aside and comes on.

MRS. MARKS. Can I pass this way? ’Twould be a short cut.

JIM. Are you a motor car, ma’am? (Looks her up and down.) You are not, ’tis two legs are under you. You can, and welcome.

MRS. MARKS. I thought you had sense in your head, Jim Harris. (Puts down her basket, resting it against a large stone.) There’s a terrible weight in that basket, there is.

JIM. That was a great send-off they gave the bridal pair.

MRS. MARKS. It was so. I wasn’t on the wharf on account of my bad knee, but I seen from above, an’ I met some of them now. I’m glad she had it fine, the poor young thing.

JIM. What “poor” is on her? Isn’t it the day of her life?

MRS. MARKS. You could never tell that. It might. They say he wanted the money. They say it was signed and settled before ever he seen her. Well, she’ll have her red carpet and all her fine show for her poor heart to feed on. That’s the way.

PETER. (Coming from the door.) Fine day, ma’am.

MRS. MARKS. It is indeed, thanks be to God. ’Tis a day of the earth and the sky.

JIM. With the whole month of April floatin’ around.

MRS. MARKS. Annie was tellin’ me the bride looked like a queen.

PETER. Did you see Annie? She didn’t bring me my dinner.

MRS. MARKS. Oh, look at that now! A shame and a sin! She’s off across the field with that Roddy Mann.

JIM. (Jumps up.) I’ll go call her.

PETER. Stop where you are! (Peter strides off.)

JIM. (To Mrs. Marks.) You had a right to keep that to yourself.

MRS. MARKS. To leave her father without his bit! An’ she romancin’ around!

JIM. He’ll have her life.

MRS. MARKS. She earns what she gets. Why don’t she settle down? She’s a bold wild thing.

JIM. He treats her cruel; it don’t do her any good.

MRS. MARKS. And what would do her good? That Annie Kinsella will be romancin’ all her life with whoever she can.

JIM. The way he treats her—it only drives her on worse.

MRS. MARKS. You’re too soft-hearted, Jimmy Harris. But I have a great wish for you, for the sake of your mother, God rest her soul. You’d be better to give Annie up.

JIM. Give up me life, is it?

MRS. MARKS. You have two good sisters, can’t you settle with them, or get a sensible girl. I’m telling you now, that one, her head is full of folly and her heart is full of wile. She’d do you no good.

JIM. You have a lot of old talk. (Silence. Then distant cheering.) They’re not done with it yet.

MRS. MARKS. I was thinking of my marriage day when I was looking at them two. It is a thought would sadden anyone.

JIM. How is that, Mrs. Marks?

MRS. MARKS. That’s how it is; the truth is the best to be told in the end.

JIM. Haven’t you Bill and Mary, and the little place? You didn’t fare bad.

MRS. MARKS. Bad. What have bad or good to do with it? That is outside of the question. For twenty years you’re thinking of that day, an’ for thirty years you’re lookin’ back at it. After that you don’t mind—you haven’t the feelin’—exceptin’ maybe an odd day, like today. (She takes her basket. They hear someone coming. Mrs. MARKS puts down her basket again, and waits, expectant.) Annie . . . and you may be sure she’s not alone.

Annie Kinsella is seen in the doorway. She is about twenty. She wears a dark shawl, a red dress, black shoes and stockings—all very neat. Her hair is bright gold. With her is Roddy Mann, a big lounging figure, cap pulled low over his eyes.

ANNIE. Now, Roddy, don’t come any farther. (Low tone. Mrs. Marks listens; Jim moves a little farther from the doorway.) Give me the tin.

Roddy hands a tin to her.

RODDY. What did you promise?

ANNIE. (Low, eager.) Wait first ’till I tell you how she looked.

RODDY. You have told me already; you have talked of nothin’ else.

ANNIE. She was like what you’d dream. I think I never seen anything so grand. She was like a livin’ flame passin’ down by us. She was dressed in flamin’ red from top to toe, and . . . (Puts her hand to her breast.) Here she had a diamond clasp.

RODDY. And there you have your heart. Now give us a kiss. What did you promise? Leave down the tin.

Annie puts the tin on the ground, slips her hands up about his neck and gives him a long kiss.

ANNIE. That will do now.

RODDY. You have my heart scalded.

He moves off. Annie takes up the tin, wipes her mouth on her sleeve, very thoroughly, turns to wave to Roddy. Comes in.

ANNIE. Jimmy, it was like heaven. She looked that lovely. The launch was all white, and the deck covered with flowers. They had a red carpet . . .

JIM. You’re late with his dinner.

ANNIE. Late! (Alarmed.) The whistle didn’t go!

JIM. Ten minutes apast one.

ANNIE. He’ll have my life!

MRS. MARKS. An’ small balme to him so! Without a bit or a sup! A man wants his dinner. He’s gone down to find you.

JIM. Why couldn’t you come?

ANNIE. What misfortune came over me? I am at a loss for a word. What will I do now?

MRS. MARKS. Take it down to him, run.

ANNIE. He’d kill me, he’d kill me dead. I think I’ll stop here till he’ll come.

JIM. Here he is now.

All look toward the doorway.

MRS. MARKS. (Turns to Jim.) Don’t be drawn into it, you. ’Twould be a mistake. Keep your eyes on the ground; ’tis the safest place. You won’t see what’s happening, and you won’t lose your head.

PETER. (Coming in.) Is she there? (He sees Annie.) Ah-h!

ANNIE. (Nervous, almost perky.) I’m a bit late with the dinner; ’tis because of the weddin’ I didn’t hear the whistle: I didn’t know it had gone one.

Annie leaves his dinner tin on the ground, not too near him, and moves away.

PETER. Hand me that tin.

Annie hands it, keeping as far as possible from him. Peter, taking the tin, hits out at her. Annie dodges and partly escapes, but cries out; Jim springs forward; Mrs. Marks catches Jim by the arm.

MRS. MARKS. ’Tis a terrible misfortune for any man to take the least iota interest in a girl like that!

This flow stops them all.

JIM. (After a silence.) What do you want here, Mrs. Marks?

MRS. MARKS. I wouldn’t be in it at all but for the sake of your mother, ’tis well she’s in the grave.

PETER. (To Annie.) Go down there, you . . . (Gestures toward the barrier at the left.) . . . And rake up the few stones I have agen the wall.

Annie hesitates, looks at her father, at Jim, at Mrs. Marks.

PETER. Do you hear what I’m saying?

ANNIE. I don’t mind what’ll happen; I can take care of myself.

Goes off, left, with a backward look at Jim. Jim would follow her but for Peter’s forbidding look. Peter goes over to where the coats have been left on the stones. Takes his stick from under the coats.

JIM. This is the best sheltered place for takin’ your dinner. You can have the sack on top of them stones.

PETER. Mind yer business.

MRS. Marks. Steady now, keep steady. Don’t let us have anything happen!

JIM. (To Peter.) You have your dinner now, can’t you leave her alone?

PETER. Do she belong to you? (Pause.) Do she? When she do you can talk.

Peter goes.

MRS. MARKS. Supposin’ you were to get a blow instead of herself—what good would that be? It might do you a grievous harm! Great cheer to see her standin’ upright if yourself was lyin’ low! I wouldn’t stir up the embers in a man like that. (Jim walks away from her.) Now I’ll tell you this—though I know you won’t listen—if you were a man at all you’d make her marry you.

JIM. An’ how can I do that?

MRS. MARKS. Ah, you’re too soft-hearted for any woman. ’Tis the hard man wins, and right he should. (Confidential now.) Annie Kinsella—when I met her down there—was tellin’ me how grand the bride looked. “She was dressed,” said she, “in shimmerin’ green from head to foot.”

JIM. What’s wrong with that?

MRS. MARKS. Didn’t you hear her now to Roddy Mann, “She was dressed in flamin’ red from top to toe.”

JIM. So she did.

MRS. MARKS. That’s the count she puts on the truth! I’m only tellin’ you now so’s you’ll harden your heart! Whatever’ll come easy is what she’ll say. Now—for the sake of your mother—if you marry that girl, don’t believe one word she’ll tell you. That’s the only way you’ll have peace of mind! (A cry. Jim starts forward; Mrs. Marks catches his arm.) Be a man now! Be a man, and don’t get yourself hurt!

JIM. Keep out of my way!

Jim tries to push her aside. Annie, a little dishevelled, frightened, and with her shawl trailing, runs on. She runs to the barrier at the right side, leans against it, and moans, nursing her shoulder.

MRS. MARKS. (To Jim.) Now strengthen your heart, quiet your mind. Don’t do yourself harm on anyone’s account. We get what we merit, and God is good. (Pause.) I’ll leave ye now. (Takes her basket, does not notice that she has left a small parcel on the stone, moves off. Near the barrier she stops again, looks back at Jim.) Don’t be moved to any foolish compassion. The hard man wins.

Mrs. Marks goes. Jim comes a little forward, sits down on an old plank, his back to Annie; takes a small notebook from his pocket, turns the pages; glances over his shoulder in Annie’s direction, slips the notebook into his pocket again; waits for Annie to come to him. After a moment she brushes aside her tears, comes over and sits down close beside him.

ANNIE. It was a grand sight, Jim, it was like heaven.

JIM. (Catches her wrist.) He hurt you then, did he do you any harm?

ANNIE. Ah, leave that now! Let us leave that behind us . . . the band was playing, and the flags were grand . . .

JIM. ’Tis a shame you’d madden him. He’ll harm you some day, and all your own fault. You won’t have any life left. An’ what can I do?

ANNIE. Didn’t you see the launch at all?

JIM. I saw well from above.

ANNIE. You should have been on the wharf. The cheering an’ the music, an’ all the sun on the river, an’ everyone happy . . .

JIM. We’d all be happy if you’d have sense.

ANNIE. She looked lovely passin’ along, her hand restin’ in his, and her body swayin’ beside him down the path. The arms of the two families were painted on the launch, the sun was shinin’ on it; everything was white or burnin’ red, but she was dressed in pale, pale gold and (Hands to her breast.) two red flowers were crushed agen her here.

JIM. (Springs up.) What lies are you tellin’? I saw her myself: she was dressed in grey; she had no flowers.

ANNIE. (Gentle, bewildered.) Jimmy, what’s wrong with you?

JIM. She was dressed in grey. Tell the truth!

ANNIE. It was in pale gold I saw her.

JIM. (Furious.) And in shimmerin’ green, an’ in flamin’ red, an’ in milk white when it will suit you!

Silence.

ANNIE. (Gets up slowly.) You are a pack of blind owls—all the lot of you! I saw what I saw!

She turns from him.

JIM. But why won’t you tell the truth, an’ it just as easy?

ANNIE. Stop your fool talk! The truth! Burstin’ in where you don’t know. Oh, if I could have love!

JIM. Will you leave talkin’ of love when I’m tired of askin’ you’d come to the priest with me! Are we to be married ever? Are we?

ANNIE. (Quietly.) Whisht,⁹ Jimmy, whisht.

Annie looks off away to the right, in the direction of the river.

JIM. Are we? I must know.

ANNIE. (To herself.)

       Then the wet windin’ roads,

       Brown bogs and black water,

       And my thoughts on white ships

       And the King of Spain’s daughter.

JIM. I’m sick of that thing! Who’s the King of Spain’s daughter?

ANNIE. Myself.

JIM. Yourself . . . (A laugh.) And the bride beyond!

ANNIE. It is myself I seen in her—sailin’ out into the sun, and to adventure.

JIM. Are you going to marry me? Make up your mind.

They hear a sound as of someone coming.

ANNIE. What’s that? (Frightened.) Is he coming? Jim, he says he’ll make me sign on for the factory.

JIM. The factory? In the town beyond? (She nods.) That you couldn’t stand before?

ANNIE. I was there six months; it would be five years this time.

JIM. Five years! You couldn’t do that!

ANNIE. They’re only takin’ them will be bound for five years. I couldn’t face it. (Falters.) Every mornin’ walkin’ the road, every evenin’ draggin’ back so tired. He has the card, he says he’ll come make me sign it now.

JIM. It was a pity you didn’t bring his dinner in time!

ANNIE. It was a great misfortune for me. I am at a loss to explain it.

JIM. And I think he knew that Roddy was with you.

ANNIE. It is that decided him.

JIM. Why do you go with Roddy, and Jack?

ANNIE. It is very unfortunate that I do . . . I would face any life—no matter what—before I’d go back to that place.

JIM. Did you kiss Roddy Mann again today?

ANNIE. (Injured.) And who else was there for me to kiss?

JIM. When I left you last night, did you go back to Jack Bolger?

ANNIE. Last night . . . no, I don’t think I did, last night.

JIM. (Furious.) We’re all the wan! You have no heart.

ANNIE. So must I go to the factory? Won’t you marry me now?

JIM. Annie! Won’t I, is it? You know well . . . (Overjoyed, but checks himself.) Will you come with me tonight and we’ll tell the priest?

ANNIE. Is it stand beside you an’ you sayin’ that? (Insulted.) The ground would open under me! Go tell him yourself, let you.

JIM. Would you go back on me then?

ANNIE. I would not.

JIM. You would not? You’ve changed your mind often.

ANNIE. I’ll be in the chapel the day he’ll name.

JIM. You will? And come with me then?

ANNIE. What else is there for me?

JIM. Annie! (Checks himself.) I’ll tell them to look out for a place so they can get a room in the town.

ANNIE. Tell who?

JIM. Molly and Dot. ’Tis I have the house: they knew they’d have to go.

ANNIE. Well, then, they needn’t. Let them stop where they are. What would I do without a woman to talk to?

JIM. I want you to myself.

ANNIE. I never heard the like! A good “man” he’d make to begin by turnin’ his two sisters on the road! And they after mindin’ the place since his mother died.

JIM. Will you go back on me so?

ANNIE. Leave Molly and Dot stay where they are.

JIM. I will not.

ANNIE. What great harm would they do?

JIM. They’d be in it—spoilin’ the world.

ANNIE. Spoilin’ the world! I think you’re crazy.

JIM. When we shut the house door I’ll have no one in it but you and me.

ANNIE. (After a moment.) I think I’ll stop with my father.

JIM. And go to the factory?

ANNIE. Maybe I wouldn’t do either, but run away.

JIM. He’d go after you: he’d have you crippled.

ANNIE. I haven’t signed yet. I might get on the soft side of him yet if I’d promise . . .

JIM. What promise would you keep? (Silence.) I have twenty pounds saved.

ANNIE. Where did you get that?

Not greatly interested. Jim takes out his notebook, opens it.

JIM. Four years ago you said I had no money. I have the house now, and besides what I earn I put by two shillin’s every week.

ANNIE. Two shillin’s . . . you did! Every week . . . since that time long ago?

JIM. (Turning the pages of his notebook.) A hundred shillings . . . that was five pounds the first year . . . and another five then . . . and another . . . and this is the fourth . . .

ANNIE. (Awed.) You kept it up all along?

JIM. Did you think I’d fall tired?

ANNIE. Let me see. I didn’t know you were doin’ that. (Takes the notebook, turns the pages. Silence. Then) Oh, ’tis smudged and dirty. Why couldn’t you keep it clean?

Angered. Throws the book from her. Silence.

JIM. Two hundred weeks, and that’s all you’d care. (Walks away.)

ANNIE. What would you do with it?

JIM. (Coming a little way back to her.) It would set us up . . . to buy a few things. I’d have to give the priest some. Then whatever you’d like for the house, and yourself, so’s we could settle down right.

ANNIE. Settle down. (A knell¹⁰ to her.) I dunno could I ever get into service in a place in London?

JIM. (In fury.) If your father heard you were at the crossroad last night—or if the priest heard tell of it—dancin’ on the board, an’ restin’ in the ditch with your cheek agen mine and your body pressed to me.

ANNIE. It is only in the dark I could do it—for when I’d see the kind you are . . .

JIM. (Catches her.) What’s wrong with me now?

ANNIE. (Holding back.) Is it me to go near you—me?

JIM. (Crushing her to him.) What’s wrong with me?

ANNIE. Jimmy! He’s coming! Let go, let me go!

PETER. (Coming on.) So that’s what you’re at! (Annie tries to escape. Jim holds her.) Stop there, stop there the two of you! (To Jim.) You can let her go now. (Jim releases Annie. She stands motionless.) Was she teasin’ you?

JIM. She was.

PETER. Tauntin’ you like?

JIM. She was.

PETER. I know . . . leadin’ you on?

JIM. That’s it.

PETER. Well, me fine lady, we’ll put a stop to your fun. You can do some work now. Stay where you are! Stay there the two of you. (Goes to where the coats have been left, takes a card and a pencil from his coat pocket. Comes over to Annie.) Write your name there. (Annie looks at Jim, he avoids her look.) Do you hear what I say? Write your name. We’ll have no more cajolin’.

Annie writes her name on the card. Peter, taking back the card, hits at her. Jim knocks aside Peter’s blow, they face each other angrily.)

JIM. Can’t you leave her alone!

PETER. Standin’ up for her now, but you have no right! No more than to be kissin’ her like you were. She don’t want you. You can go your road. (Wheels round to Annie.) Will you marry him now, or go to the factory? Five years there, or your life with him?

JIM. I’m not askin’ you, Annie, I wouldn’t, . . . that way.

PETER. He’s backin’ out now.

ANNIE. (To Jim.) I might as well have you. (Low.) Who would I ever meet would be fit for me? Where would I ever find a way out of here?

PETER. Have ye settled it so?

JIM. We have.

PETER. You’ll take her like that?

JIM. I will.

PETER. Well, I’ll keep the card, fearin’ she’d change. (Puts the card in his pocket. Goes off.)

ANNIE. (Softly.) You have me ruined. It is all over now. You can go settle with the priest.

JIM. You won’t ever regret it. You won’t.

But she turns away.

ANNIE. Go on after him now.

Jim hesitates, goes. Annie moves over to the barrier, looks off away to the right. Mrs. Marks comes to the barrier at the left side, shades her eyes, looking on the ground for her parcel.

MRS. MARKS. Well, look where I left it. (Comes on, takes the parcel she had forgotten.) Well and indeed! My head will never spare my heels! Searchin’ high and low. (Sees Jim’s notebook on the ground.) What is that there?

ANNIE. That belongs to Jim Harris. (Takes the book.) Jim Harris and myself are getting married very soon.

MRS. MARKS. What! Is he going to marry you in face of all! Well, well, you might talk your head off, or you might spare your breath—it don’t make any difference!

ANNIE. Maybe I won’t mind it as much as I think.

MRS. MARKS. Be a good wife to him now. Don’t give him the bad time you gave your poor father. Often I felt for that poor man when he wouldn’t know where you’d be. (More kindly.) You have no wish for it? (Annie shakes her head.) And there’s many a girl would be boundin’ with joy. Is there any other you’d liefer¹¹ have? (Annie shakes her head.) Well now, well, you’ll be all right. A good sensible boy. And you’ll have a nice little place. Mind you keep it well, that’ll give you somethin’ to do. You won’t feel the days slippin’. (Annie moves restlessly away from her.) Well, well, if you could get to care for him that would be a blessin’ from God. It might come to you later. Sometimes it do, and more times it don’t. It might come with the child.

ANNIE. I dread that.

MRS. MARKS. What’s that you said? Fie on you then! Did you think you needn’t suffer like the rest of the world? Did you think you were put here to walk plain and easy through the gates of heaven?

ANNIE. I dread it . . . dread it.

MRS. MARKS. Would you ask to get in on what others would suffer?

ANNIE. (To herself.) I couldn’t bear I’d be no more than any other wife. (Distant cheering is heard; Annie listens, looks away toward the river; flashes.) It won’t be all they’ll say of me: “She married Jimmy Harris.”

MRS. MARKS. And what better could they say? You have a right to be grateful. Oh, you’re a wild creature!

But Annie is not listening; she has opened Jim’s notebook, studies it.

ANNIE. (Turning the pages.) June . . . July . . . October . . . November . . . December . . .

MRS. MARKS. Poor Jimmy Harris . . . I hope he’s doin’ a wise thing.

ANNIE. February, March, April . . . June, July, August . . . October—and I was black out with him then—November, December, April, June, August . . .

MRS. MARKS. A good, sensible boy.

ANNIE. Boy! (She laughs exultantly.) I think he is a man might cut your throat!

MRS. MARKS. God save us all!

ANNIE. He put by two shillin’s every week for two hundred weeks. I think he is a man that—supposin’ he was jealous—might cut your throat.

Quiet, exultant, she goes.

MRS. MARKS. The Lord preserve us! That she’d find joy in such a thought!

THE END

Notes

  1. Tomas MacAnna, Abbey Theatre director, in a personal interview with Eileen Kearney, August 24, 1984.

  2. Sean Dunne, “Rediscovering Teresa Deevy,” Cork Examiner, March 20, 1984, 10.

  3. A copy of this ballet remains in Deevy’s estate papers in “Landscape,” her Waterford home.

  4. Dunne, “Rediscovering Teresa Deevy,” 10.

  5. Ibid.

  6. Lennox Robinson, Ireland’s Abbey Theatre: A History, 1899–1951 (London: Sidgwick, 1951), 148.

  7. Denis Johnston, Abbey Theatre program notes for the revival of Katie Roche, June 2, 1975.

  8. aself: Herself.

  9. whisht: Be quiet!

10. knell: The mournful sound of a bell rung slowly for a death or funeral, signifying the end of something (i.e., her free spirit).

11. liefer: Rather.