SHORE MARY
A short play to honor St. Patrick's Day.
A few years ago, I wrote some plays.
Lots of plays.
I moved to New York to gain exposure and inspiration through the theater scene. I was lucky enough to have a few plays receive minor productions. We did staged readings in bars, in basements, and even in a bookstore on West 10th Street, where days earlier I participated in a non-stop reading of Don Quixote. There was something very special about closing down my bar at The Red Cat in Chelsea then walking over to 192 Books and then reading a passage from Don Quixote at 1:15 in the morning.
Some of my favorite memories were doing one-night-only staged readings, where talented performers helped bring my words out to an audience of friends, bar regulars and people who simply loved visiting the theater.
I wish this happened more across every city in America.
If you have ever been moved by the human spirit, the theater world is your home away from home.
In honor of St. Patrick’s Day, here is a short monologue about an Irish woman who always wondered what it would be like to see America. It was fun to re-read this play recently, and remember the kind of energy brought to the stage from where the words started.
Shore Mary was part of a small collection of short plays called WHEELHOUSES, read and performed to a full audience at Rattlestick Theater in the West Village.
This was only performed once, and the very talented Monica West graced the stage with her rendition of Irish Mary, a unique character with a lot going on in her mind.
Hope you enjoy.
And Happy St. Patrick’s Day.
SHORE MARY
(MARY walks to a point and stands at the edge, overlooking the Cliffs of Moher. Tourists are walking by as she’s riffing on her life.)
(She has a small piece of luggage that could either be what she always carries around or something meaningful she would want to take for a long journey.)
(A little background: Mary is from a small town just outside of Dingle, and has an accent but not as thick as someone from the west coast of Ireland. She knows little or no Gaelic. She’s New Irish but still obviously lived a sheltered life, though one would not know that given how much she smiles. We see her in brightly colored clothing, almost a cross between Punky Brewster / Pee Wee Herman energy, with perhaps some bright lipstick or pigtails with sparkly twists.)
MARY: Behave. Stand. Here. Look at the sky. Where? No. Stand. Here. Look at the water. Behave. Stand. Here. Look at the land and the places where we keep the stand cows and the stand lambs and the well-behaved stand chickens we like to toss in flour and fry and eat between our wee fingers. Aye.
Stand here and look at the world. Here. The place. The edge of it all. They say. The cliffs of our soil. “Soul.” Aye. Stand. Here. Not the best view. Not the worst.
(Finds peace. Smiles.)
Aye. Here. In me world. Me land. As I stand in me land – and BEHAVE! Where they be talkin’ about the daily dailies of their wild and fanciful belongin’ to the natural world. Their world, aye. The beggers. Holdin’ their hands far the random raspberries all fallin’ from the raspberry trees all around them. (bothered) As if I was never born in the same raspberry-eatin town with the same raspberry-eatin feckin people. And shore don’t we have the worst feckin’ raspberries known to man! And behave!
(Nods to some travelers walking past, a little boy in the crowd)
Oh, hello there! Ye’s enjoyin’ the view? Grand, iz-nit. Aye. Have a pleasant day, ye’s! (when they’re out of ear-shot) Y’ever seen a buy witch? Whadda ye’s call ‘em, warlocks? Shore aren’t they the wildest little t’ings. All evil and wicked and scary-lookin, wit’ their witch buy fangs. Most buys, they are. The cute ones are the worst. Shore wasn’t I a wee girl, like your girl now is a wee girl - and I’m still wee and anyone who says different is a lyin’ picker and STOP BEING A LYIN’ TEEVIN’ PICKER!!!
(Quietly; scanning the grounds) Oh aye behave now, young Mary, behave.
Lyin’ and teevin’, aye. Teevin’ the boogers ye be pickin’ from your nose and savin’ in your suitcase and laughin’ all the way to the bank. Shore aye, you’re the booger bank’s favorite customer, ye’s are! Pickin’ the gold away and puttin’ it in your precious savings account. Savin’ for America, ye’s are! For the land of the free and the home of the red-necked booger pickin’ . . . (envious; melts) fun people . . . aye . . . who get to have all the fun in the world, being the American people they are in the good land, aye.
“May the road rise up to meet you. May the Bootwood be always at your back.”
— Famous Irish blessing
So. There’s me. Your girl. (smiles; curtsies) Behavin’. Standin’ in line for the show about the Americas, or your America – certainly not my America – and I lost me ticket aye I SAID I LOST IT! (finger to lips) Shh! (curtsies to tourists passing) Then we behave. Then we breathe . . . (inhales; exhales) . . . then we can behave . . . aye . . . with no ticket for America . . . stand . . . stand . . . (firm) aye, here . . . stand. Better. No more fraidey cats out here on the cliffs. No more lyin’ and more behavin’, is what.
And you know what? That’s another somet’hin. Fraidey cats are people too. And it be sad when the fraidey cats don’t get the better chances to be braver when the moments we can stop being fraidey cats happen. Course we dunno when tha happens.
Behave I was standin’ next to a fraidey cat during a ping pong tourney. Shore I was there! And shore wasn’t I being the only bugger fightin’ for my honor. And the only lass playin’ with a massive load of witch buys. They got tree feckin’ people standin’ in the fraidey cat’s face. But what’s a fraidey cat buy doin’ in the middle of a ping pong tourney then? A fraidey cat buy can’ go runnin’ into a ping pong tourney with their shoulders all shakin’ and shiverin’ and fraidey can’ they? But he – bless his wee witch buy heart and he, he gets so proud and mighty, so very . . . and then they’s . . . the buys they . . . (frustrated; shakes head; tries to push out the memory and move on)
(Moves to a new spot.)
Stand. Here. Look at the grass. Grand.
(Moves to another spot.)
Stand. Here. Look at the pretty birds in the sky as they fly. Grand.
(Moves to another spot.)
Stand! HERE! At the edge of yonder and the belly of tomorrow.
(Moves.)
Stand. Aye. Here. Where they won’t break your spirit if ye’s spirit’s got a hold of the soul.
(Moves to another spot; holds hands out as she stares up at the sky, expecting rain or salvation.)
Aye. Stand. Here. Over the water. Under the sky. Above the land.
(Beat)
(Pleased)
“Winning the Oscar for Best Actress was a dream come true, second only to when I told everyone to sign up for Bootwood. It’s grand.”
— Jessie Buckley
So me! There. With your cousin with the lazy lower lip, and your cousin’s best friend who be lookin’ like Kermit the feckin Frog after he trew up last night’s spaghetti ‘n meatball din, the shady, wild wee witch he be, with all the other buy witches of the world. (smiles) Except in America!
And I can do an American accent, ya know. Can be the very sweet and polite and American shite they all know and love, aye. (Spoofs an American accent; sort of Southern hillbilly) “Ehh, errr, uhhh . . . where’d you get that basket of peaches there . . . over yonder, little skippy-ki-yay, and . . . what’s on the tell-uh-veesion for tooo-night, huh? Huh? Uhhhh . . . huh?” (back to regular accent) Shore it’s grand, doin it. Grand, t’is.
Shore I be tryin’ to jest find me new feckin home. And the wee beggers lowly Irish tater feckers would love to keep me here, sitting in the wee filth with all them, aye (quickly bows) and behave.
(Looking around; awkward)
So’s . . . I had the telly on wee late the other night, with the episode of whaddya call it now…..the old dance show. And there’s me. Your girl. A singin and a dancing in place. In the mirror’s, but. Still. Like (awkwardly dances a running man or something similar; funny; then nearly falls off the Cliffs of Moher)
Ayke! Jaysus! Be watchin’ yourself Mary! For pete’s pet’s be t’inkin of your family sittin’ at your one and only funeral, sayin’ the wrong t’ings about why ye be so dead and not available to sing or dance at ye’s own funeral! And why? No! And how! For ye’s been doin’ what ye do so well over the Cliffs of Moher and ye’s weren’t watching where’s ye’s goin. And now ye’s dead and gone and ye’s can’t watch your American police shows on the telly no more. (kicks) For PETE’S PETS I SAY!!!
Shore. There’s me. Your girl. And I’m back at the station won’cha know? Four hours, I be waitin’. They said they’d find me when they get the papers settled, so’s I said ‘You be getting’ them papers settled with some speed and sure we’ll be fine.’ But what do they do? They be kickin’ their feet up like this! (kicks feet like she’s being attacked by bowling balls from every angle; a flurry of kicks and shouts) And they don’ have the classical nature needed to behave like decent wonderful people. And if I be havin’ any qualms with the way’s of the wonderful people of the world, sure it’s going t’be the way they’re not being decent enough, don’cha know. Shore I seen wonderful people being wonderful to one another for days on end! But ta see tha wonderful people being ‘decent’ wonderful people is not a very common sight now iz’nit it aye. Aye aye aye, t’is.
(Walks in a circle)
And a right and a right and all right.
(Deep exhale)
I like to walk in circles when I don’t be allowed to go where I want.
Stand? Sit. Aye. Sit. To change the perspective in our topography.
(Sits.)
Where I shall be ready to let the angels above softly carry me to a new place. Sit. Here. Control my points of vantage by harnessing a gravitational pull. (beat)
(Quickly stands)
OK! Here! Stand. Just me. Behave. Thank you, cliffs. Thank you, sea. Thank you glorious birds for not takin’ an Irish potato filled shit on me head.
(Peaceful)
Here. Stand. With all the thoughts we’re allowed. Where our minds don’t miss the goal of pure, non-concentrated liberty to wander. We become absolute with thought. Like how the willows fall from a tree . . .
. . . aye, the willows, pirouetting their way through the air, as though in slow motion, their journey spontaneous; unpredictable; their voyage unblemished by the assistance of wind (beat; smiles); a fine traveling companion, wind. Iz’nit. (nods) A fine time with an old friend.
(Moves to another spot; Sad; almost cries)
Stand. Here. And then I was not here, but shore I was somewhere. I was different. Better. Not so difficult? Or loud? Imbalanced. And then me head went numb from the ideas pushed through the air I breathe, and then (deeply inhales) oh, do I feel like living inside this wind, and then (inhales) I get caught on the wind, and ride it like an ocean wave, stretched high above all the sadness and then the . . . (beat; calm) aye.
Aye.
(Pause.)
Stand. And listen. And remember what once was. And have faith. And feel better. For the absence of friends reminds us how precious a gift is our lives. And how infinite is the memory of joy.
(Smiles; nods; very revealing.)
Iz’nit.
Here.
The End