Brendan and Martin

This is a short, short one-act I wrote during my failed tenure in graduate school. However, it is being turned into a full length piece, and will receive a stage reading sometime in June (around Bloomsday) probably, presented by Alive Theatre in Long Beach. It will be called On a Fine Spring Evening.




William Butler Yeats, pint in hand, stands up precariously on a barstool, raising his glass.

YEATS
We hope to find, in Ireland, an uncorrupted and imaginative audience, trained to listen by its passion for oratory- we will show that Ireland is not the home of buffoonery and of sentiment, as it has been represented, but the home of an ancient idealism-

Suddenly, someone in the darkness hurls a bottle at his head. The bottle misses, but Yeats loses his balance, and goes arse over tit.

BRENDAN
Shut it old man!

YEATS
A terrible beauty is born...!

As he topples over, the lights quickly go out on him and simultaneously come up on two stout looking fellows the opposite side. One is young, well groomed, silver hair, very well put together. The other one not so much. He is portly from years of drink, and while he is younger, much so, than he appears, the drink has added decades to his visage. He could give a shit about any of that.

As the lights come up, these two gentleman are about carousing.

These two, are MARTIN MCDONAGH and BRENDAN BEHAN, respectively .

MARTIN
Brendan, don’t look now, but it’s the English!

Brendan jumps up with a yell, ready to fight. He sees there is no one there.

BRENDAN
Oh, you bastard. Carrying on when you know me health is in a delicate condition.

MARTIN
It’s in no delicate condition. Yer’ dead.

BRENDAN
And happier by it. I died the way I lived, in a terrible stupor, surrounded by typewriters and ignorant fucking people. Please don’t start counting yerself among them.

Martin concedes and they drink again.

BRENDAN
Martin, don’t look now, but here comes a herd of literary critics misinterpreting your work.

Martin whirls round behind himself.

MARTIN
Come on yeh bastards!

He leaps up, standing in fight mode, breathing heavily and deeply. He doesn’t come out of it.
Brendan, a bit worried, puts a hand on Martin’s shoulder.

BRENDAN
Calm it ta’ Hell down, boy. There’s nobody there. There are no critics in Heaven.

Martin comes out of it a bit.

MARTIN
Oh. Yes. I’d completely forgot.

Martin sits back down.

Brendan smiles devilishly then grabs another pint and downs the whole thing.

MARTIN
You know you have a problem...

BRENDAN
(finishing final swallow)
Oh, now don’t be starting that, you ol’ washerwoman. Moaning and keening on the state of meself and the things I do be putting into it. I had enough of that down there! “Stop it Brendan, yeh’ve had too much.” “Brendan, deary, you’ll wreck your liver.” “Mr. Behan, your weeing on the sergeant's boots.” What good did a healthy liver and a clean pair of boots ever get a man but boredom and heartache? None whatever. And don’t be lecturing me about getting too pissed and acting the fool, by and by, or have we forgotten what happened when you met that Scotsman...what was his name, Sean something...

MARTIN
(quietly)
Connery.

BRENDAN
Connery. Right. And what was it you told him to go himself, again?

MARTIN
I can’t remember.

BRENDAN
Have another sup and maybe your memory will be jogged. What’d you tell him?

MARTIN
I told him to go fuck himself.

BRENDAN
Yes you did. And didn’t that make you feel better?

MARTIN
Yes. Yes it did. Yes it very much fucking did. To be fair, he was being rather Scottish.

BRENDAN
They tend that way. Unwind yourself there, now. There’s no need to be so tense. This is a writer’s paradise. We have our own section here, y’know.

MARTIN
Really? How’d you all manage that?

BRENDAN
Mr. Joyce threatened to read Ulysses to God every hour of the day if he didn’t leave us to Hell alone. It’s amazing what a drunken Irishman with a pen can accomplish. Good one, Jimmy is. It’s because of him we have our section in Hell, too.

MARTIN
We do, now?

BRENDAN
Aye. Lucifer’s the only one could get all the way through Finnegan’s Wake. Thought it a scream. Said we were welcome any time.

MARTIN
Well, who’d a’ thought it? The devil himself, brimmin’ with as much charity as the baby Jesus.

BRENDAN
Well, y’know he’s a socialist.

MARTIN
Is he?

BRENDAN
Aye. Gives pennies to the poor and everything.

MARTIN
Is he?

Martin stares off into space, having become a bit maudlin.

BRENDAN
What’s wrong Martin? You seem to be staring into space, having become a bit maudlin.

MARTIN
Ah, was only thinkin’ about me old cat, I was.

BRENDAN
Is there something wrong with him?

MARTIN
Aye. He’s a bit off his food.

BRENDAN
Well, what steps have you taken?

MARTIN
Well, I’ve shot him in the head.

BRENDAN
Fair enough.

MARTIN
But don’t let that ruin the mood. Why don’t you finish that story you was telling earlier, before Mr. Yeats got on his high stool.

BRENDAN
All right.
(Brendan stands up, takes center stage)
My lord bishop, reverend fathers, reverend mothers ,your excellencies, my lord mayor, ladies and gentlemen, and fellow peasants...
(clears his throat loudly)
...And on the twenty-seventh day, or whenever it was he got ‘round to it, God created Ireland, a tiny uninhabitable shite stain of an island, according to him and those with stiff upper lips. But, in point of fact, it was actually a glowing green beauty called Erin, and Erin bore four children, Ulster, Leinster, Munster, and Connacht, and together, those four produced thirty two children, the Counties. And they did fight, and fuck, and drink, and drink, and drink, and occasionally they did get around to writing and singing, and doing it better than the rest of the world, so much so that they were generally ignored by the rest of the world and their “literary movements”, literary being another word for bowel. But all these children and their grand ol’ one didn’t care, for they knew they were better than the rest, and were content with that knowledge. And the Lord saw this and said this will not do, so he invented the English, who in turn invented literary criticism, literary still being a term for things to do with excretion. And the English did perpetually bother the Irish, with things like cannon fire, land seizure, and generally being English, English being a term for rancid wet-headed eejits. And these “critics” did read the work of the Irish, and they did get it wrong, as they generally do, not realizing some folks just want to tell a good story to folks who just want to hear a good story, that being the end of things. And these critics did frustrate the people who just wanted to hear a good story, as well as many a graduate student, until eventually the good people realized they did not have to listen to these critics, and the people rose as one and did slaughter the critics all in a grand and bloody show. And the world was much better for it.

MARTIN
That was a grand story, Mr. Behan.

BRENDAN
Why, thank you Mr. McDonagh.

MARTIN
You should write that one down.

BRENDAN
Ah now, wouldn’t it just go getting told wrong, even being written down. Besides, I’ve drinking to do.

The men resume drinking and laughing as the lights begin to dim.

A spotlight hits Yeats as he regains consciousness and stands.

YEATS
(rubbing his head)
A terrible beauty is born.

THE END