by Tom Murphy
There came a change – the clouds rolled off,
A light fell on my brain,
And, like the passing of a dream,
That cometh not again,
The darkness of my spirit fled,
I saw the gulf before,
I shuddered at the waste behind,
And am a man once more.
And – tableau.
The Last Days of a Reluctant Tyrant
inspired by
The Golovlyov Family
by Mikhail Saltykov-Shchedrin
For Marie Mullen
The Last Days of a Reluctant Tyrant was first produced at the Abbey Theatre, Dublin, on 3 June 2009. The cast was as follows:
Arina
Marie Mullen
Peter
Declan Conlon
Paul
Frank McCusker
Steven
Darragh Kelly
Victor
Tom Hickey
Anna
Janice Byrne
Lena
Caoilfhionn Dunne
Vera
Eva Bartley
Ulita
Ruth McGill
Ivan
Barry Barnes
Anthony
Rory Nolan
Priest
Brendan Conroy
Kiry
Mick Lally
Doctor
Seán O’Neill
Man
Donagh Deeney
Maid 1
Aoife O’Donnell
Maid 2
Bríd Ní Chumhaill
Director Conall Morrison
Set Design Tom Piper
Lighting Design Ben Ormerod
Costume Design Joan O’Clery
Composer Conor Linehan
Sound Design Ben Delaney
Fight Director Paul Burke
My thanks to: Justin Harmon and Carmen Casey; Elizabeth Keogh; Patrick Miles, translator and consultant; Aideen Howard, Literary Director of the Abbey Theatre, and Jessica Traynor, in the same department,
Tom Murphy
Characters
Arina
Steven, her son
Peter, her son
Paul, her son
Victor, her husband
Anna, her granddaughter
Lena, her granddaughter
Vera, a servant
Ulita, a servant
Ivan, a steward
Anthony, a farm labourer
Kiry, a servant
Priest
Doctor
Setting
Once upon a time in a provincial rural area.
Act One
Scene One
A cavernous place, a big room. Evidence of industry. The top end of a line of people, waiting. (Or they can be off in the next room.) Arina comes in. She is an able, no-nonsense figure of authority, and she knows it. She is very much the matriarch. She nods her head and a Man, cap in hand, is ushered to her by a servant, Maid. The Man starts whispering to Arina.
Two men, her sons, Paul and Peter, are also present. They stand by and back, like observers come to attend a masterclass. The enthusiastic-looking one is Peter.
Arina (to Man, who has finished whispering) No business – cabbage patch to ten thousand acres – can be run on incompetence. It can’t be done.
A gesture from the Man, a plea.
Arina There are no second chances. You knew that.
Another plea – he’s abject – and he looks at Maid.
Arina Your wife’s work is satisfactory, you’re sacked.
Man leaves, Maid seeing him off.
Arina stays next in line of those waiting to see her, and calls others to come forward: two schoolgirls, Anna and Lena, her granddaughters, in their going-back-to-convent clothes, come to say goodbye. She takes them aside. (The contrast in their personalities: Anna’s is open, Lena’s closed.)
Arina Be good, be obedient, be wise, do what you’re told so that you’ll be of use later. There’s money being spent on you: don’t waste it. (She allows them to kiss her.) Off!
They are leaving. Anna runs back to press the back of Arina’s hand to her cheek, then she rejoins Lena and they leave together.
Next in line come forward: Ulita and Vera. Ulita, in some kind of servant maid’s costume, is, say, in her twenties. Vera is very young, perhaps of an age with Anna and Lena. She is round-shouldered and has a broad back. A coat and headgear of some kind and, perhaps, her possessions in a roll. She is shy to the point of being speechless.
Arina How are things up the mountain then, that village of ours? (Vera nods.) Your father is well, your mother? (Vera nods.)
Ulita (cueing Vera to the proper address) ‘Ma’am’.
Arina (to Ulita) That’s all right. Do your work well and your parents will do well and we’ll all get on. Ulita will show you what you have to do and where you sleep. Turn around. (Vera obeys.) What a back! You’re welcome.
They leave. Ivan is next. He’s Arina’s steward. He gives her a ledger and some receipts of sales.
Arina Ivan!
Ivan Ma’am! Rent receipts. Corn market, hay market, cattle market.
Arina Anything out of the ordinary?
Ivan No.
Arina (as she looks at the receipts) Young Townsend that’s come to live on his late father’s estate: how’s that working out for him?
Ivan (eager to please her) Parties every night, not just the weekends, ladies out from the town. He won’t last the year if you want my opinion. If you want my opinion, he –
Arina That’ll do. Anything else?
Ivan No. (But he’s shifting on his feet.)
Arina Tenants complaining?
Ivan No – the usual – nothing.
Arina What have you to tell me? . . . Don’t I see it on your face?!
Ivan Steven.
Arina He’s back.
Ivan (Yes) Ma’am. He’s in town.
Arina And he’s staying where?
Ivan Here and there.
Arina So he’s roofless again. (To Paul and Peter.) Your brother!
Peter Tsssssss!
Arina I don’t want him near that door. He ought to be shot. I’d do it myself: God or the law wouldn’t have me answer for it. (She dismisses Ivan.)
Ivan Awfully sorry. (He moves to leave, but is shifting on his feet again.)
Arina You have more for me?
Ivan He isn’t well.
Arina He isn’t well.
Ivan He doesn’t look well.
Arina He doesn’t look well.
Ivan He coughs a lot. Holding his sides.
Arina Don’t be too concerned about him!
Ivan Ma’am. (And he leaves.)
Peter and Paul come forward, to say goodbye. Peter to kiss her;
Paul, by comparison, seems indifferent; and though Arina is no indulgent mother or grandmother, it is possible to wonder if she doesn’t like a show of admiration and affection for her from others.
Peter Mama.
Arina A lot of men cough for thirty years and grow fat on it.
Peter Mama.
Arina Holding their sides. I’ll send for you if he shows up.
Paul (more or less to himself, with a shrug) Why? Why should she need us?
Arina (to herself) Why am I only happy on my own? In town, see that the orphans get safely from the railway station to the convent.
Victor, her husband, has come in. He’s a bit of a dandy; he holds aloft a cheroot behind his head. He is followed by a manservant (later, Kiry).
Arina (as she walks out) And I’m neither wife nor widow!
Victor You’re a bachelor! (Calling it after her – though he’s a bit afraid of her.)
Peter Papa.
Victor has a big voice though he is frail, unhealthy. He starts to declaim a Barkov-type poem of his own composition; his delivery is both ridiculous and heroic.
Peter and Paul leave him to it. And, outside, Arina pauses for a moment or two to eavesdrop.
Victor
Now the wedding ritual’s done,
Cherrymaid, it’s time for fun!
O glorious member mine,
Patient in abstinence,
Come, now arisen, unto your reward!
Timidity discard as boldly you undo
The box and claim its treasure;
Do justice t’it, and to yourself
No shaming bring but rigidly plunge in.
Ram to the balls and in the depths,
Within those moistened walls,
Run deliriously distracted!
Then t’it, t’it and t’it again!
O glorious member of mine,
By goddesses be praised
And by cherrymaids remembered!
Scene Two
The open road.
Two men. One, with a pack, in battered army tunic or coat. He’s about forty; unkempt; gaunt, maybe; ravaged; a garrulous man; garrulity, though, on this occasion has something to do with fear of what lies ahead (his mother and home). This is Steven. He’s accompanied by Anthony, a farm labourer, who also has a pack or bag.
Steven Yes, brother, it’s the devil of a world and I’ve had the devil of a life of it, so it’s time I had a rest. Unlike you, comrade, I served my country: now it’s other people’s turn to help me. What’s in your bag, brother?
Anthony Are you hungry?
Steven A T-bone steak would be the very thing right now.
Anthony I’m sorry, sir, there’s only this.
Steven Sausage? Sausage will do nicely.
They’ve stopped to eat.
Anthony And you’ll have a sup of this to drink.
Steven Cold tea? No. (He produces a bottle of his own.) But you will have a sup of this, my friend.
Anthony I never once touched it in my life, sir.
Steven That’s wrong, brother. Filling yourself up with tea: that’s why you have the belly. And it tightens the cough. Whereas, whereas vodka – (He drinks and it is followed by a bout of coughing, and:) Y’see?! Y’see?!
Anthony I don’t know. I suppose.
Steven (of the sausage) It’s a bit salty. But I can tell you we ate worse than this on the march. D’you know what my father once told me? (He goes off on a tangent, declaiming a few lines of a Barkov poem.)
A traveller overta’en by night,
Spent it at an old crone’s quarter,
Inside he found it warm all right,
The crone she had a lovely daughter!
(And he laughs.) I always got on with my old man. But d’you know what he once told me? He told me he knew of an Englishman that betted he would eat a dead cat.
Anthony Eat a?!
Steven Dead cat. And he did.
Anthony He didn’t?!
Steven On my oath! He was sick as a dog afterwards.
Anthony Tck-tck!
Steven But rum cured him. He drank two bottles of it at a gulp and was fit as a fiddle.
Anthony Well, well!
Steven Oh yes, it’s other people’s turn now to help me.
Anthony Your mother will have pity on you when she sees you.
Steven Of course she will, of course she will, she’s sure to. And another Englishman betted he would eat nothing but sugar for a whole year.
Anthony And did he win?
Steven (laughs) No, he popped it two days before the year was up! Of course she will. But no joke, I can tell you, on the march, through this village and that, on to the next town and the next, stopping here, now there, for official types to come out and make speeches: how the country was having the devil of a time of it, how her brave sons had to stand up and be counted – bringing tears to their own eyes! Chains of office round their fat necks: politicians, government contractors, receivers, mayors, profiteers – all scoundrels. I don’t know how a country survives them, do you?
Anthony Your mother did all right by the war.
Steven Oh God yes, no denying that! My mother is a clever woman. I respect my mother, that’s the chief thing. Why, she came down from that mountain (over there) – barefoot, some say, shoes slung round her neck by the laces – and married my old man and, why, we weren’t a lot better off than yourself, Anthony, at the time. What an amount she’s added! ‘Arina’. (The last with a wide gesture.)
Anthony You’ll all be well off when she pops it.
Steven We won’t: she has no plans for that. The only way she’ll go will be if my brother Peter makes an end to her, somehow. ‘Mama, Mama, dear friend Mama.’ Jesus Christ, why they didn’t throw away the key when they had that man in the seminary, I don’t know.
Anthony Your other brother?
Steven Paul? You wouldn’t know what goes on in Paul’s head – if anything! But d’you know what I think? I’ve made a lifelong study of drinking men and there’s a certain type that never staggers, never gets sick, never starts singing, dancing, shouting, roaring, fighting or cursing, and I often wonder is our Paul a member of that select and chosen brotherhood. (He looks out into the gathering dusk:) Of course she will, of course she will, she’s sure to.
Anthony Should we start knocking another few of miles off the road, sir?
As they finish eating and collect their bits and pieces in their packs:
Steven Anthony, my kind friend and host, if I was rich, first thing I’d do is see you all right.
Anthony I’m content – no small thanks to your mother.
Steven I’d make you commander-in-chief of her empire.
Anthony What was it like at the front?
Steven All over before we got there. But I saw action. Came to this place: there was a service going on in the church and I went in to have a look. And I see this girl there. She’s shifting her feet, she’s looking around, couldn’t stand still, and I gave her the wink.
Anthony She didn’t go with you!
Steven What’s money for?! I offered her three.
They go off into the night.
Anthony (off) Three – yes?
Steven (off) She wanted five.
Anthony (off) Did you have it?
Steven (off) The little vixen!
Anthony (off) Did you have the five? . . .
Scene Three
Victor, in his nightshirt, and Steven, both drinking, revelling in the Barkov poem – as in Victor’s bedroom. As said in Scene One, Victor is frail of frame. He isn’t at all well. (Emphysemic?) They seem to revel in themselves and in each other; though, behind the revelry, each is concerned for the other, father and son, as in premonition.
Victor
A traveller overta’en by night
Spent it an at old crone’s quarter,
Inside he found the warmth all right –
Steven
The crone she had a lovely daughter!
Victor No! No! Inside he found the warmth all right, full stop! (Meaning ‘full stop’ after ‘all right’. Then:)
The crone she had a lovely daughter,
A girl much younger than he oughter,
A girl quite handsome –
Steven and Victor (together)
A girl quite winsome!
Victor’s breathlessness and coughing; Steven coughs in sympathy – as to help (ease) Victor’s coughing. They laugh and cough. Arina has appeared, as in another part of the house, nightdress, candle.
Arina Is the house to be kept awake all night?! Quiet, wretches! Go to sleep!
Steven and Victor (whispering)
The knobstick in his breeches stirred,
As soon as he beheld the girl,
Praise be, what luck! A one-night whirl . . .
They hold on each other, smiling at each other, containing the coughs and laughter as best they can. Then Steven steals away. We stay on Victor, smiling at his own attempts to breathe.
Scene Four
Arina is seated, proppping her chin with her fist. Manservant, Kiry, passes through, carrying what looks like medicine on a tray. Peter and Paul arrive. Ulita and Vera take their coats. Ulita always tends to
Peter.
Arina . . . Your father won’t get out of bed any more. He believes he is unwell . . . No comment?
Peter Tsssssss!
Arina And your brother’s been here for two weeks. (‘No comment’.) He arrived quite pleased with himself, as though he’d just done a good thing. (Makes a soldier’s salute.) ‘Reporting for duty, Field Marshal’ (he said to her). The dead of night, the dog barking, the watchman sounding the clapper, the whole house woken up. ‘I can play the goat for as much and for as long as I like, my old fool of a mother will always be here for me.’ I don’t understand it. I had him educated, tried to make something out of him, I got him a position, when he lost that I got him another, and another, until: ‘What can I do with him?’ Maybe if he has a house, some money, he’ll sober down. He runs up debts – drink! – the bank possesses the house I bought him and sells it for twenty-two thousand. That was a nice thing to happen? I paid twenty-nine for it. That house, managed, could have brought in fifteen per cent a year and appreciated.
Peter Tsssssss!
Arina (testily to Peter) What does that mean?
Peter That is no way to deal with a mother’s blessing.
Arina He runs off and joins the army, a private soldier. Well, thank Christ, maybe that’s the last we’ll see of him. (To Paul.) Are you interested at all in any of this?
Paul gestures, shrugs, that he doesn’t see that the matter has anything whatsoever to do with him.
Peter You did everything for him, Mama.
Arina How much longer can I stand it? Now he’s back to sponge on me again.
Peter If an undeserving child cannot appreciate a mother’s love, then look to the one who can.
Arina It wasn’t by going ‘on the razzle’ that I made out. Where was I born? Nearly on the top of the mountain! What was there when I married that windmill upstairs? And he won’t even get out of bed any more! What was there when I married him? Now everyone refers to the whole district as ‘Arina’! My name. Is that failure?
Peter (cueing her) The first big purchase of land. (And he claps his hands, once, silently, as in anticipation.)
Arina Yes. (We were) Living on the farm, the side of the mountain, rocks, an inhospitable place. Then Rill’s came on the market, good fertile land, mostly a plain, nearly all of it adjoining what we had, only Townsend’s in between – still in between. What age was I, how much money had I? With what I had put by, I got rid of the land on the far side of the mountain, fast, to the sheepman for eleven thousand. I had thirty thousand. No joke this! (Though she is growing in inner excitement.) I had a mass said. When the priest asked ‘What for?’, ‘For a purpose,’ I said: I wouldn’t even publish my business with God! Sleepless nights: the waiting! I visited Our Lady’s shrine. I wept there. Then (in) the horse and cart, I went to town to try my hand at the auction. The men there were shouting this sum and that, wrangling like children playing a game, until the auctioneer said, ‘Let us be serious, gentlemen.’ ‘Thirty thousand,’ I said. It was marvellous. You could hear a pin drop. It was as if Our Lady had seen my tears. The auction was over. Then the auctioneer came down and shook my hand and I didn’t understand a word he was saying. I stood there like a post.