10 Questions About…

On Friday night Patrick and I went to see the Playboy of the Western World at the Abbey. It’s part of the Dublin Theatre Festival.

Originally by JM Synge, Playboy debuted at the Abbey Theatre in 1907. The story is set in a pub in Mayo. The excitement sets in when Christy Mahon enters; he’s a young man running away from his farm, claiming he killed his father. The people in the town are more interested in vicariously enjoying his story than in condemning the morality of his murderous deed. He captures the romantic attention of the bar-maid Pegeen Mike, the daughter of Flaherty.

When it first ran, the play caused a riot because Irish nationalists thought it was an insulting commentary on Irish culture. The riot really began when on stage 2 characters try to disguise Christy in a women’s slip (shift) to sneak him out of the town. (You can get more history from Wikipedia – for the interested minority.)

I relay the whole play because the version we saw on Friday was a rewrite by Roddy Doyle – who wrote the commitments and a Nigerian playwright.

The new version is set in a pub in West Dublin. The Playboy comes from Nigeria. The language was like that of the Commitments – not like early 1900’s Western Ireland. It was great.

It was interesting to see what remained from the original and what was changed. Some said they went too far with the language and that the poetry was lost. But I didn’t think so. Or if it was lost, it was lost to the wit of pub talk today. Also I don’t mind poetry that’s a little rough – I love Brendan Kennelly and he uses lots of words I don’t want to hear Aine repeat. In fact, you even hear those words on TV and radio here. So for better or for worse that is the poetry of today.

I loved when Pegeen told Christy that she has “done the Google” on his name and town to see if there are any stories about his murdered father.

The play is an interesting commentary on life in Dublin today. Pegeen’s father is connected and they talk of various gangs and gang members. (Coincidently many of those gang members are not looking to sell their memoirs!) I think the only way to make the playboy seem exotic was to make him Nigerian. There are so many non-nationals living here that American isn’t exotic, nor is Romanian, Polish, or French. English is rarely the primary language on the bus!

I suspect that this show will play in Dublin for a while and perhaps tour. It was a great show.

On Wednesday, we went to see A Long Day’s Journey into Night – by Eugene O’Neill. It’s actually an auto-biographical work.

The mother is a “dope fiend”; apparently she became addicted to morphine after Eugene was born. In the play we know that she has issues and that she’s out of some kind of rehab but we don’t know about the addiction for a while.

The father is a stingy drinker. Apparently he was a big famous actor, but now he just owns a lot of land but won’t spend any of his money on himself or his family.

The brother is also an actor – but especially in the chunk of life we see – he’s a ne’er do well who also drinks too much.

Eugene (called Edmond in the play) is brooding and is about to hear that he has consumption and will be sent to a sanatorium. His grandfather and others died of consumption. (Eugene doesn’t actually die of it – but we don’t know that during the play. Well people who are smarter than I am abotu Eugene O’Neill probably know it, but I didn’t.)

Pretty much the story takes off from there. The play was done by DRUID company, out of Galway. (We saw their marathon production of Synge shows right after the new Guthrie Theater opened.) The Father was played by James Cromwell – most notable to me as the boyfriend of the mom on Six Feet Under.

When the play was good it was very good. The brother does a great scene where he tries to explain to his brother that he loves and hates him. The mother is very good especially at the beginning.

Most notably the play was 4.5 hours. And in the words of the immortal Bob Uecker – that’s 9 Gillian’s Islands to you and me!

On Tuesday Patrick and I went to see Radio Macbeth – it’s part of the Dublin Theatre Festival. I liked it. It’s a quirky show. The dialogue is all Macbeth – but the actors are rehearsing for a radio play – so the actions do not necessarily follow the play.

The actions told another story, which I found interesting. I liked the way they were able to accomplish the interspersed mini dramas into Macbeth. Patrick didn’t like it as much. He didn’t think they went far enough – but I enjoyed the times that it really worked and enjoyed the times when you were back listening to Shakespeare.

That being said – I think this would be a difficult show if you didn’t know Macbeth. I think it would be difficult to follow that main theme if you really had to concentrate on the speech to follow the nuances of the plot. Or I guess you could do that but you might miss the unrelated action.

The other thing that I always like – the play was 90 minutes long. That’s a perfect length.

Last night Patrick and I met group called New & Not So New in Dublin at the Foggy Dew Pub. It’s a Meet Up group – for those who don’t know about Meet Up, it’s an international web site that helps groups of people connect.

So I searched for social groups in Dublin. Actually I really just searched for Dublin groups that were meeting this week – and this sounded best to me. (Although the Gothic Dublin came in a very close second.)

There were about 13 people at the pub. Half were Irish the rest were from around the world – South Africa, Holland, Switzerland, Colorado, France… Everyone was very friendly. Everyone had very different but interesting reasons for being in Dublin .

This group meets a couple of times a week. I’m sure we’ll meet up with them again.

The pub was also great and has a free ska/reggae band on Sunday nights so I know I’ll be back there!

Sunday was our busy day this week. We went to eat at a fun pub in Booterstown – maybe halfway between Cabinteely and the city center. We had lunch with Patrick’s mom and brother Fearghal.

Then we went to the circus – Fossett’s Ireland’s National Circus. There are no animals in the circus here. It’s all people acts. (We came home in time to watch Class Act, which is like a local American Idol and one of the performers from the circus was on the TV show– that’s always fun.)

The best act was the “globe of death” – a big metal sphere about 15 feet in diameter with up to 3 motorcycles riding around. It actually was very cool.

The nice thing about the Dublin circus is that it’s actually held in a tent and it’s fairly small. It’s not 3-ring – it’s just 1 ring. So it was easy for us to see all of the acts.

After the circus we walked through a park in Blackrock, which is on the sea. The weather was great and it was a nice little break.

Our major reward when we got home – Aine fell asleep.

I forgot about 2 of the pictures – the one with me is a nod to Fair Hills Pelican dance – and the first picture is actually taken in the park across from the house. You can see our house in the background. They are in the midst of building a soccer field – which is the reason for all of the dirt. The work that goes into building a soccer field (aka football pitch) is amazing!

Patrick took the kids to see Surf’s Up and then we met in Dublin city center, which meant I had the morning to myself. (I should have taken a picture of my cool new boots!) We had lunch at Eddy Rockets, which the girls think is like Snuffy’s back home. They each got a milkshake, which adds to the allure.

Then we walked around downtown. Lily is invited to a slumber party so we got her present for the party. Aine had a melt down and we came home.

I took some pictures in town and pasted them below. I forgot about the picture of Patrick collecting the clothes off the line in the rain – I just thought that was too typically Irish not to include – although in fairness our weather is still amazing!!

Friday night we left the kids at home and Patrick took me to Café Balzac for dinner. It’s a very nice place – very fancy and French.

Then we stopped at the Stag’s Head, a popular bar and then we headed to Bruxelles, a heavy metal pub, which was fun. They play all heavy metal songs and there was a Welsh motorcycle gang there – which was funny to see.

At home the girls go to Nativity Catholic School in St Paul, MN. At Nativity kids attend from kindergarten (age 5) to 8th grade. In Dublin, the girls go to Our Lady of Goof (Ooops) Good Counsel National Girls School in Johnstown, Dublin.

Here are the differences dictated to me by Lily & Kate.

In Ireland:
Go to school with only girls.
Study Irish (language).
About 25 kids per classroom – and 2 classrooms per class/grade.
No cafeteria (eat if your room)
Teacher assistants for students with special needs (Lily has a deaf girl in her class who get personal help)
Wear a kilt for uniform.
Everyone wears a uniform.
Teachers come into the classroom for different classes – you don’t go to their room.
No computer class
No music class – unless your teacher does it.
Gym is called PE or GAA.
No hot lunches.
Tables, not desks.
Homework everyday – except Fridays. Keep track in your homework journal.
Have to buy books individually.
Math is easier – learn a different way to add to 100.
Each classroom has 2 bathrooms (aka toilets)
Can’t bring treats on your birthday.
Don’t get to go out of uniform on your birthday.
Library is much smaller. (As small as the bathroom)
Only one water fountain in the whole school.
Bring your water bottle (or buy milk for the year)
Can’t have treats in your lunch – except Fridays.
No playground equipment.

In Minnesota:
Go to school with girls and boys.
About 22 kids per classroom and 4 classes per grade.
Many schools don’t wear uniforms (although Nativity does).
No speech and drama.
Can get hot lunches if you want.
Books are provided.

Well it was another beautiful Saturday in Dublin so we went to the zoo. We started by taking a bus into Dublin. We had lunch at Leo Burdock’s, the best fish and chips in Dublin. Then we walked to Phoenix Park – which I have to say is quite a walk from the city center.

On the way we walked by Grafton Street, Dublin Castle, the Guinness factory, National Museum, and other cool things. The girls were tired – but were troopers. We knew we were getting close when we walked in to the park and saw the Wellington Testimonial (see picture below).

Finally we got to the Dublin Zoo.

There was actually a long line – but we finally got in and spent about 3 hours there. Our favorite animals were the baby elephant and the bats. The bats were very creepy – especially when they kind of crawled up things. The baby elephant was apparently the first baby elephant born in the Dublin; it’s name is Asha, which is Hindi for Hope.

The zoo is really nice. There are plenty of play areas. We thought it was like a mix of the Como Zoo and the “New Zoo” in Apple Valley, Minnesota. Unfortunately the price was like the New Zoo – but we did get to see a wide range of animals. I will paste some pictures below.

Saturday Night

On Saturday night Patrick and I had dinner at Bewley’s. It has been upgraded a lot since the last time I was there; it was very nice. (One time we saw Sinead O’Connor at the same Bewley’s. I think she asked us for a light.)

Then we went to the Tripod to see Reggae/Ska legend Lee Scratch Perry and had a great time.

My mom and I had the whole day together. first we went to penneys and then we went to a toy store we didn’t find anything there. So we went to the 2 euro store and we did find something. Then we had something to eat. It started to rain so we went home on a double decker bus. I was tired. We watched TV. And then I went to bed.

Kate O’Donnell