How to Write an Irish Play

(Lights up on the interior of a pub called The Horse's Glass, located a half mile from the tall, sea coast rocks known as The Cliffs of Saint Seymour in south-western Ireland. The interior of this pub is ugly, rundown, dim and dirty. There is a main entrance door somewhere, a door to the back room behind the bar, and a door to a single toilet anywhere the designer wants to put it. CLYDE, an interesting looking ageless male actor, enters from that door. A loud flush sound is heard all over the theatre. CLYDE seems lost in thought. HE looks at his hands, carefully inspecting them.) CLYDE (To audience) I forgot to wash me hands. (HE starts back, stops, looks at his hands again, and comes to a decision. HE speaks to the audience.) Oh, well. As everyone knows and agrees, the finest plays being written today come from Ireland. Irish playwrights are acknowledged the world over as masters of the dramatic art. So therefore it is my intention tonight to take you for a walk through of a typical Irish play, to give you a close-up experience of the qualities which make Irish plays the bosses of the theatrical world. Like a surgeon, we're gonna take our scalpel to an Irish play, cut it open and see what makes it bleed. Now first off, consider the playing area. You'll never find an Irish play set in a fancy French restaurant in Paris, that's for sure. And there are a lot of other places as well that are not going to be the setting for an Irish play. So never mind them. There are only two settings for your Irish play. The shadowy, run-down parlor in somebody's flat in Dublin. Or the grim, grimy, grungy-dirty, depressing, broken-down old country pub on the rocky southwest coast of Ireland, stuck out along a muddy back road where the constant sea wind whistles over the magical, misty green hills. Listen! (Erie wind sound) CLYDE (Cont.) This here dismal setting is designed to contrast with the charming and compelling characters that are going to captivate and entrance you. For as you know, top dog characterization is the hallmark of an Irish play. I'm the best of the lot in this particular example. My name is Clyde, filling the role as your central narrator kind of fella. Extremely likable, I am, with a mysterious hint of brawny masculine energy about me that pulls women my way, but at the same time warns them off a wee bit. It's pretty clear there's much more to me than meets the eye, and that I've got some kind of dark secret lurkin' deep within me. (MICK, who looks like MICK, enters from a door behind the bar. HE places bottles of whiskey on the shelves.) MICK That is such bullshit!