HANDSHAKES ALL ROUND!

Martin McGuinness, Sinn Féin Deputy First Minister of Northern Ireland, and Queen Elizabeth of England shake hands in the Lyric Theatre in Belfast (54 degrees North, 5 degrees West). It is billed as a gesture of reconciliation. It is also a grand gesture of macro-politics.

Why does it take place in a theatre? Why not in a hospital? A factory? A farm?

At one level, staging macro-political gestures in locations that are perceived as welcoming to people of all political allegiances (republican/royalist) and national affiliations (Irish/British) is challenging. One of the many achievements of the Lyric Theatre over the years is its assertion of openness and, as far as is possible for any publicly-funded body, independence.

And, of course, gesture is part of the great repertoire of effects that makes theatre exhilarating and enthralling. Situate two characters in a conflict; face them across centuries of colonialism, rapine, pillage, rebellion, collusion, violence and peace-making then, by an orchestrated dramatic process, – a peace process? - have them meet and be reconciled, symbolically represented by a handshake.

Where else, but in a theatre? It is one of the great powers of theatre that it can bring focus to such events and characters.

 All  the world's a stage;
And all the men and women merely players.

The focus tends to be less fine and the gesturing more complex on the lesser political stages. In coming months, look out for Sinn Féin councillors shaking hands with Queen Elizabeth's relatives at local theatres. 

Perhaps.

Queen Elizabeth is paid handsomely by British taxpayers – castles, flights, staff, gear, horses, cash, etc – to perform such symbolic gestures. Martin McGuinness is on a political project. And, at a human level, both individuals, no doubt, gesture in good faith.

Will the gesture materially benefit the citizens?

Will it lessen the likelihood of state and paramilitary violence?

Film actor James Cagney, who starred in a film about Ireland entitled Shake hands with the Devil, once said 

... a career was the simple matter of putting groceries on the table.

And for Hamlet, actors/players 

are the abstract and brief chronicles of the time. 

Let the Deputy First Minister and the Queen gesture. 

And let citizens see what lands on the table.

Peace? Groceries?

As you like it: stage play; William Shakespeare; 1599

Hamlet: stage play; William Shakespeare; 1601(?)

Shake hands with the Devil: film; Michael Anderson; Pannebaker Productions; 1959

SITUATING BRISHMACHREE

BLOGPOST SPECIAL:  A NEW SHORT DRAMA
Situating Brishmachree 

a short site-specific theatre piece

                                                  by

Dave Duggan        

9.6.2012 ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. 

© DAVE DUGGAN June 2012

Commissioned and produced by 

Paul Devlin and Adrian O'Connell  Thran Productions      UU/Magee  

for  DATA ROAMING at The Irish Theatrical Diaspora Conference UU/Magee     8th and 9th June 2012

'The North; Exile, Diaspora, Troubled Performance.'

We find a 1920s surveyor, a Dubliner, with equipment and papers, at a gate on a country lane.

Ah good men..... ah good, yes good, ...ah...... yes.

Youse'll have to stand there now. Come right up to the gate there. There's always something getting in peoples' road. That's it. Put these on now. (Luggage labels, marked with the word Observer.) In case any of the locals get quizzical. That's it.

I don't know who put the gate here. But here we are. We're standing at Brishmachree.

You've had the briefing in Dublin, so we can..... Ye haven't? They expect us field men to do everything, while they fatten their arses on smooth leather chairs in Dublin Castle.

We're at this site – Brishmachree -  as part of the finalisation of the considerations of the Boundary Commission, nineteen and twenty-five, chaired by Mister Justice Richard Feetham himself. A right Honourable he is. A right honourable... Ah, loose talk, eh?

No less an esteemed personage than Mr Justice Richard Feetham, chair of the three person Boundary Commission has appointed me, and me alone, to adjudicate on this particular matter. 

Local sensitivities, you see. Brishmachree.

'Away you go my good man, away up to Donegal and sort this out', Mr Feetham says to me. 'I understand you're something of Donegal man yourself', says he.

Who told him my mother is a Doherty from Inch Island? Loose talk eh? There. (Pointing.) Observe this, if you may. Inch Island. (Beat.) You can't actually see it from here. You have to go round that bend there. It's  on the edge of the lough below.  Lough Swilly – Loch na Súile, the lake of shadows and glances, the lake of eyes and averted gazes, eh? Hah! Don't breathe a word. Loose talk, eh...

It's never been done before, you see. In the history of the Empire or this island. A border. There's no history for a man to rest a line upon. To lean his weight upon. Lean away on this gate – go on there – but it won't tell you where to put the border. Or Brishmachree. 

'Find Brishmachree for me, my good man', says Feetham, as if I was his 'good man', his lackey, his amanuensis and his gilley all rolled into one.

A fine word that, gilley. What you'd call the anglicisation of a Gaelic word. The original Irish is giolla, which translates as servant. That's it. I'm the Right Honourable Feetham's, indeed the Boundary Commision itself's, most civil, civil servant. I'm as civil a civil servant as you'll find in the four provinces of Ireland. And in all of his majesty's realm.

So away I journey to the aunt's house on Inch Island, below there. Full of Dohertys round here. I have more cousins than a rabbit; first, second, third and more removed. People are close. They like to be known and neighbourly.

'Situate Brishmachree, my good man', Feetham instructed me. 

So here we are. At Brishmachree. The very spot. We're confident enough of the location. You've seen it on the maps yourselves. My job is to determine the situation. In relation to the new border.

Come up to the gate there now. Straight in front of you, the lane there, this is Brishmachree. But it can't be taken in isolation.

Close your eyes now and we'll do a little time travelling. Close your eyes now. Keep your eyes closed and turn round to your left. Turn through ninety degrees. Keep your eyes closed. That's it. Round to your left there. That's it. Open your eyes now. Potatoes in that field. No matter what side of a border you're on, the blight'll chance you.

There, see the ruined tower. That's one of our crowds – a Doherty fort, over four hundred years old. The past. And contiguous to it, in the future, a new house,  - no thatch there; all bright paint and glass. There's a whole city back there, walls and streets and a tumult of northerly people, criss-crossing political and religious pavements in their island city. Give 'em an inch and they'll take a mile eh?

Turn back this way. Don't mind the past and the future. We're all living and dying in the present.

The earliest maps are only approximations as you know...... They never showed you the maps. Jaysus. (Passes out maps.) Here look at this – Brishmachree, marked tentatively. And a little more assuredly here.

I need them back. They don't like leaving them maps out of the vaults at Dublin Castle.

'There's always a division of the spoils after a war, Colm', says Mr Feetham. Easy enough for him to say.

Oh I know we've had our own surfeit of carnage, what with the bother in Dublin, the madness in the trenches, the drunken Tans, the heart-scorched Irregulars and the self-righteous Free Staters.

But division?

It's a matter of anglicisation.  Brishmachree.

My heart broke. Heartbreak. It's Irish too, you see. Do bhris mo chroí.

Ach, observe away.

(Sits. Works. Sings.)

Céad slán ag sléibhte maorga / chondae Dhún na nGall

Agus dhá chéad slán ag an Earagal árd, / ina stua(í) os cionn caor 's call

Nuair a ghluais mise thart / le loch Dhún Lúich, / go ciún sa ghleann ina luí

I mo dhiaidh bhí Gleanntáin Ghlas' Ghaoth Dobhair,

is beag nár / bhris mo chroí.

'Situate Brishmachree, my good man', says Feetham. 'Recommend which side of the border to put it on. And visit the ancestors while you're at it.'

A darling man. A darling man.

Here's Feetham's current draft then. (Passes out another map.) Highly confidential, I don't need to tell you. See An Grianán over there. Move west and south of that hill and there's the draft boundary line. That's it. The hill fort is on the side of the new country. The Free State. We're on the side of the old country. Ireland. Northern Ireland.

Now, this current draft puts the aunt in Inch Island in the new country. Another aunt, another Doherty, is below us there, beside the Skeoge River. Her man, Alfie Buchanan – left a leg at the Somme, the errant boy – and limps about the Londonderry and Lough Swilly halt on the railway line below there.  The badge on his cap delineates him a vassal.

If Feetham confirms this draft, the two sisters'll be separated by an international border. Whole countries apart, they'll be. Foreigners and sisters, not three miles between them. Brishmachree, eh?

First time it's ever been done in Ireland. 

Well, yeez have observed this much. 

Ye can report back that all is in order. At the border.

'He's wrestling with it Mr. Feetham,' ye can tell him. 'He's measuring twice so you can cut once. And the blood can flow on all sides.' 

I'll have me recommendations in time for the final report in October. There might be scope for a bit of leeway here yet. For the aunts. Blood, you see.

Give me back them labels there now. Thank you.

Did ye give me back the maps? Can't have them falling into the wrong hands now? Loose talk, eh? 

Right then. Observe yourselves back the way ye came.

There's no crossing here.

We walk away from the gate, back down the lane we came.    

(Calls.) And tell Mr. Feetham I was asking for him. Tell him I'm sorting it out.

©Dave Duggan June 2012

READING HEMINGWAY'S BOAT BY PAUL HENDRICKSON

That Ernest Hemingway was a brute, there can be no doubt. That he is an acclaimed 20th Century writer, there is also no doubt. That he wrote stories, novels, journalism and letters; that he fished for trout in mountain streams and for giant blue marlin in the Gulf Stream; that he cruised and sailed the seas off Key West (24 degrees North, 81 degrees West) and Cuba (21 degrees North, 77 degrees West); that he shot beautiful animals, whored, drank and philandered, also is beyond doubt.

That such a behemoth – a Biblical term, probably a hippopotamus, ironically -  strode the 20th Century, leaving great writing, human pain and ecological damage behind him in the Caribbean, America, Europe and East Africa, leaves the reader wondering where to place the appropriate regard: which is more important; the life or the works of the artist?

Hendrickson's book does not directly answer the question, as it takes the reader through a Hemingway century that is bloody, adventurous, off-putting and enthralling.

Why would anyone spend time with such a man? Or read his works?

Hendrickson uses the writer's boat, Pilar, as the focus for a new telling of Hemingway's life that, for at least three quarters of the book, is stirring, engaging and illuminating. The photographs are terrific. On page 201, Hemingway is pictured on a dock on the islet of Bimini (25 degrees North, 79 degrees West) with his three sons and a catch of awesome marlin, wondrous creatures that render the humans petty and mean, hauled from the sea to become ephemeral trophies and food waste.

The boat lore, the angling lore and the detailed Americana, experienced at home and abroad, are excellent. The building of Pilar at The Wheeler yard in Cropsey, Brooklyn (20 degrees North, 73 degrees West) is lovingly described in fine sentences. From page 63:

Whether you're in the framing or planking stage of boat construction, you're essentially trying to follow the natural inclination of an organic material, something that has its own grain, its unique anatomy.

This sentence could describe Hendrickson's take on Hemingway's life, as the writer bamboozles his way through the 20th Century with pen, gun and rod flailing, often at the same time. What 'natural inclination' is the writer wrestling with?

The book is less successful, though always immensely readable, in the final quarter when the focus is on Greg/Gigi/Sylvia, one of Hemingway's sons, who underwent a sex-change. S/he was a fine doctor, a transvestite, a writer, and a bother to her/his family and friends, the police and the public. 

Hendrickson edges towards a conclusion that the son's life echoes the father's in its harrowing self-combat with sexual identity, in particular with masculinity, in a century flooded in torrents of blood-letting.

Hemingway's advice to the other Paris-based (48 degrees North, 2 degrees East) American writer, F. Scott Fitzgerald, who favoured booze over guns in his 'acting out' phases, is moot.

Write the best sentence you can and write it as straight as you can.

Writing and living the story of your life, straight and otherwise, is not pain free, in particular for the people around so brazen a character as Ernest Hemingway, who fictionalised his life for his art and mythologised his life for celebrity.

Girls will be boys and boys will be girls 

It's a mixed up muddled up shook up world except for Lola 

Lo-lo-lo-lo Lola 

The life or the works then? Not either/or. Rather and/both. As presented tellingly in Hendrickson's welcome book.

Hemingway's Boat: book; Paul Hendrickson; The Bodley Head; 2012

A Moveable Feast: book; Ernest Hemingway; Arrow; 1994

Lola: song; Ray Davies; The Kinks; 1970

SYRIA: SLAD AGUS SLÉACHT

The Syrian Armed Forces bring down a Turkish Airforce jet over waters that are disputed as international or Syrian. The internal violence in the Syrian state spills into the skies and waters of the Mediterranean in the classic internationalisation move of threatened regimes.

They keep power by postulating an external threat, a deadly enemy from without.

The Great Powers of the 20th Century, the USSR and the USA, are the role models for all other regimes in this regard. The Cold War is the bench-mark instance of this 'outside threat' ruse.

The tragedy for the citizens of Syria and Turkey is that this air-battle may be the prelude to a proxy-war between states acting on behalf of the remnants of the Great Powers of the 20th Century.

Who is supplying the jets and the armaments to Turkey and Syria? What businesses and economies are benefiting?

Meanwhile, within the borders of the state of Syria, massacres and killings continue. Citizens are killed. Citizens take up small arms in the face of grand military assaults. Ethnic and territorial undercurrents surface. Mechanisms citizens use to ride out these currents are, quite literally, blown to pieces. Violence separates people and gives energy to calls for revenge.

Slad agus sléacht a bheas in Uladh de bharr an linbh seo… éad gan chuimse de bharr a háilleachta… oidhe ar chlann uasal de bharr a huaibhreachta… agus creach ar Eamhain Mhacha féin… mí-ádh thú ar gach a fhéachann ort anois!

Slaughter and destruction will come to Ulster because of this child… unbridled jealousy because of her beauty… decimation of a noble family because of her haughtiness… and desolation on Eamhain Mhacha itself. Indeed, you are misfortune to all who gaze upon you.

Slad and sléacht are words in Irish that translate to English words destruction, havoc, chaos, massacre. Agus translates to English as and. 

The word slad has the firmly resonant sound of high-explosive shells landing on buildings and bodies in Houla (34 degrees North, 36 degrees East).

The word sléacht emits the steely gut-wrenching sound of metal tearing through flesh in the nearby villages of Taldou and Kuflaha.

Both words – slad agus sléacht  - speak of Syria, the beautiful child.

The ability of state forces and their paramilitary associates to deliver death and destruction is deeply engrained in the lived experience of populations all over the world. The notion that some people are lesser than others gives permission to the orgies of violence we see all too frequently.

Are we counting the dead bodies dumped on Mexican roadsides as the collateral damage of gang-warfare?

And as the regime represses, so it evokes the external threat.

See also an earlier blogpost: 

So Syria has no oil then?; 7th August 2011

Deirdre agus Mic Uisnigh: book; Colmán Ó Raghallaigh; Cló Mhaigh Eo; 2008

TORCH AND JUBILEE

Overheard in a pub in Cushendall, County Antrim (55 degrees North, 6 degrees West):

In America, you tell your problem to a psychiatrist. In Ireland, you tell your problem to a friend. He tells all your friends and everyone laughs. No problem.

A pub is not necessarily the best place to get at the facts, but it can be a good place to unearth truths.

The structure of psychotherapy is such that no matter how kindly a person is, when that person becomes a therapist, he or she is engaged in acts that are bound to diminish the dignity, autonomy and freedom of the person who comes for help.

On a weekend of great spectacle – What Torch? What Jubilee? - moments of conviviality illuminate the lived experience on a human scale. Not televised. Not distant. Domestic. Situated in the old back parlour of a terraced house, now a welcoming pub, among friends, including ones just met and perhaps not met again.

The inherent inequalities of spectacle production, evident in events in London (51 degrees North, 0 degrees West) are not present. 

On Sunday morning, 30 jobseekers and 50 apprentices were told to sleep under London Bridge where they had to change into their security uniform in public, before working a 14-hour shift in the pouring rain. That night they were taken to a sodden camp-site.

In the pub in Cushendall, two guitar players, who honed their skills in adolescent bedrooms on the works of Rory Gallagher, John Lee Hooker and The Eagles Songbook, draw an harmonica player from another room, where traditional and folk music reigns, to add a further blue tinge to the company of a dozen singers, in front of an ancient green range, solemnly hibernating in the early summer heat.

Close. Participative. Human.

Any advice I might have had to offer would be no better than that of a well-informed friend (and considerably more expensive).

As the evening draws to a close, a young man is persuaded to take a guitar. He holds it tenderly and sings in an aching voice, which, though self-aware, is nonetheless genuine and invokes in the company yearnings, longings and awakenings, eased into readiness by alcohol. 

Is this art?

And for my nineteenth birthday I got a union card and a wedding coat

But lately there ain't been much work on account of the economy

Is a dream a lie if it doesn't come true?

Is there more for this young man than the distant spectacle?

Against Therapy; book; Jeffrey Mason; Fontana; 1990

http://www.independent.co.uk/sport/olympics/firm-in-row-over-unpaid-stewards-for-jubilee-to-have-olympic-fire-safety-role-7821230.html

The River: song; Bruce Springsteen and the E-Street band; 1979