Shaw cas tigates his c ountryoen as feckless dreaners through the mouth of Larry Doyle , the angli ci zed Iri shnan, and on the other he gives convic tion to the nys tic insight of the :lefrocked pri es t , Father
Keegan. The action prog�esses fron wit ti ly exposing the illusions
of the English about the Irish to a powerful expressi on of Shaw ' s
ACT 1 ACT 2
Scene Reception room of Doyle & The hills of Rosscullen.
Broadbent. A summer afternoon. Evemng.
SCAL E : 1 cm = 5 columns text (Complete Plays)
KEY: On
ACT 3 ACT 4
Doyle's Parlour Ros!l:ullen_
95
Rosscullen , which dooina tes the setting in Act 2 and . . �n the final scene , is a SJ'Tibol both of spurious ror:lD.nticisn and a 11 fc refinger • • • pointing • • • to God" .
(
p. 933 )Struc turally the play i s deceptively simpl e : a loos e succession
of conversations and encounters held together by the occasion of the visit of the English businessoan , Broadbent , and his partner, Larry
Doyle, to the village in whi ch the latter s pent his youth . As Max Beerbohn connented in his review of the preniere perfon1ance at the
Royal Court , " The greater part of the t=:.C tion is talk : Rnd the talk is of ten not relevant to the action, but nerely to the characters and to things in general.
")S
'lhe conversations and encounters take place in a s eries of s c enes which succeed each other aloos thaphazardl� and yet Shaw sooehow nanages to continually surpri s e and
to progressively deepen ni s revelation of the real nature of Ireland
and its relationship "1-Ti th England. As every idea is illustrated by
the actions or demeanour of the characters there is s eldoo the effect
of formal debate . The one �ajor exception to this inforoali ty is
the pivotal episode at the beginning of 1\.ct 3 when e. cross section
of the inhabi tants of Rosscull en c o�e together to find thenselves an
alternative parlianentary cendidnto. Elsewhere s tage-business is general ly used
for
incidental pointing, but here(
pp .955-971 )
i tplays an inportant s tructural role .
The scene i s s et in the garden of tarry ' s father ' s co ttage where
there is a r ather notley and inadequate s election of things for the
group t o s i t on. Father Deopsey , the vi llage pries t , takes the
central chai r and Barney Doran. the ni llez; and La.rry ' s father seat thenselves on chairs on either side of then, while Broadbent sits on an uns teady rus tic bench on the left and Matthew Haffigan, an old
do wi th an upturned basket on the rigrlt . This leaves Larry Doyle
with no thing to s i t on so he s tands behind Broadbent ' s bench . The grouping thus enphasis es Father Demps�y ' s role as chairnan of the infernal selec tion conoi ttee , and bal ances the businessnan against the peasant vlhi l e giving Larry, the prospec tive candidate, a posi tion froD which he can doninnte the di scussion.
f� ter the nenbers of the group have taken up thes e posi tions the nee ting proceeds through
(
unusually for Shaw)
three clear stages .In the firs t , Larry is asked if he has thought of going into politics but is unable to reply for a while as the neeting nearly breaks up in disorder when Haffiga.n ri ses in anger e.t a suggesti on
that land nay be given to labourers , and is only brought under con trol when Fa ther Denpsey also rises , and threatens to leave . �his flurry of argunent
(
acconpanied by novenent)
illus trates the thin skinned pet tiness of the new landlords and thus builds up to and jus tifies the diatribe which follows fron Larry in which he •.i.cwlares he has no intention of repres enting Haffigan and his like , androundly condenc.::.s every prejudi ce Haffigan stands for. At the end of this outburst there is a pause vThile the o thers " s tare at hin
Father Denpsey s tates that Larry wil l no t be the nenber for Rosscullen but that there is mo re in his hec 1 " than the conb will take out" , and Lnrry replies that he ha.d better re tire and leave the c onoit tee to find another c�1di date .
• • • anid dead all to watch hin until he
out of rmmd the of the house."
After this hia tus the nee ting b )gins its sec ond stage in which, following ano ther little squabble among the conoi ttee , 8�oadbent , seeing hi s chance , puts hinself forward ns a candidate. Though he begins crating to the others whi le still seated on his be�ch , he
s oon rises " so as to then uore and thus
s tands doninating the group froo alnost the s ane posi tion as Larry had previously. This repeti tion of grouping, of course , under-
lines the parallel structure but contras ted content of the two
s equences . Though in the key of plah tudinous rhetori c as
opposed to Larry ' s ��ssionate invec tive , Broadbent too ends
with
a clinactic 1)eroration and then departs to allow the conni t tee todeliberate . Haffigan gives hin an "
(
-wes truck)
' Good no rning, sir "' , the res t echo this , and thon the c on::1i ttee "watch hir.. vac anuntil he i s ou t of e arshot. '1 \vi th hi s departure the nee ting enters its final phase, a short one , in whi ch t he nenb ers of the conni ttee ,
wi th varying degrees of enthusiasn, cone to the conclusion that
Broadbent night do . �ey then go their different ways , F�ther
;
Denpsey leaving firs t , and for a nooent the s tage s tands vnpty, thereby narking the techni cally s elf-contained nature of the episode
within the nore loose-kni t fabric of the res t of the play . Stage-business here provides an appropriate frane for the epis ode ; if is no t , however , n signifi cant nethod for illus trating the detail ed progress of the acti on which is essen tially verbal . Once Larry, for ex�ple , i s in full cry there is no dis trac ting
busines s until he has finished having hi s say. 'l!his , as we have
seen , is typical of Shaw ' s us e of s tngecr'"'.ft .in his earli er plays
tine and again he uses busines s to hel p build up to an inportant discussion or s tatenent, but then business is dis pensed wi th until
the talking
(
or a conplete s tage o f i t)
i s over. There is jus t enough foroali ty in the s election-c onni ttee episode to enableFather Deops ey to hold the nee ting together and allow an open inter-
change of contrasting atti tudes to the central policy natters discussed --- the rights and obligations of the new landlords , and