CHRISTY -- [raising his hands.] -- In the name of the Al
mighty God. . . .
MAHON. Leave troubling the Lord God. Would you have him sending down
droughts, and fevers, and the old hen and the
cholera morbus?
CHRISTY -- [to Widow Quin.] -- Will you come between us and protect me now?
WIDOW QUIN. I've tried a lot, God help me, and my share is done.
CHRISTY -- [looking round in desperation.] -- And I must go back into my
torment is it, or run off like a
vagabond straying through the Unions with the
dusts of August making mudstains in the gullet of my
throat, or the winds of
March blowing on me till I'd take an oath I felt them making whistles of my
ribs within?
SARA. Ask Pegeen to aid you. Her like does often change.
CHRISTY. I will not then, for there's
torment in the splendour of her like,
and she a girl any moon of
midnight would take pride to meet, facing
southwards on the heaths of Keel. But what did I want crawling forward to
scorch my under
standing at her
flaming brow?
PEGEEN -- [to Mahon, vehemently, fearing she will break into tears.] -- Take
him on from this or I'll set the young lads to destroy him here.
MAHON -- [going to him, shaking his stick.] -- Come on now if you wouldn't
have the company to see you skelped.
PEGEEN -- [half laughing, through her tears.] -- That's it, now the world will
see him pandied, and he an ugly liar was playing off the hero, and the fright
of men.
CHRISTY -- [to Mahon, very sharply.] -- Leave me go!
CROWD. That's it. Now Christy. If them two set fighting, it will lick the
world.
MAHON -- [making a grab at Christy.] -- Come here to me.
CHRISTY -- [more threateningly.] -- Leave me go, I'm
saying.
MAHON. I will maybe, when your legs is limping, and your back is blue.
CROWD. Keep it up, the two of you. I'll back the old one. Now the playboy.
CHRISTY -- [in low and
intense voice.] -- Shut your yelling, for if you're
after making a
mighty man of me this day by the power of a lie, you're setting
me now to think if it's a poor thing to be
lonesome, it's worse maybe to go
mixing with the fools of earth. [Mahon makes a
movement towards him.]
CHRISTY -- [almost shouting.] -- Keep off . . . lest I do show a blow unto the
lot of you would set the
guardian angels winking in the clouds above. [He
swings round with a sudden rapid
movement and picks up a loy.]
CROWD -- [half frightened, half amused.] -- He's going mad! Mind yourselves!
Run from the idiot!
CHRISTY. If I am an idiot, I'm after
hearing my voice this day
saying words
would raise the topknot on a poet in a merchant's town. I've won your racing,
and your lepping, and . . .
MAHON. Shut your gullet and come on with me.
CHRISTY. I'm going, but I'll stretch you first. [He runs at old Mahon with
the loy, chases him out of the door, followed by crowd and Widow Quin. There
is a great noise outside, then a yell, and dead silence for a moment. Christy
comes in, half dazed, and goes to fire.]
WIDOW QUIN -- [coming in,
hurriedly, and going to him.] -- They're turning
again you. Come on, or you'll be hanged, indeed.
CHRISTY. I'm thinking, from this out, Pegeen'll be giving me praises the same
as in the hours gone by.
WIDOW QUIN -- [impatiently.] Come by the back-door. I'd think bad to have
you stifled on the
gallows tree.
CHRISTY -- [indignantly.] I will not, then. What good'd be my life-time, if
I left Pegeen?
WIDOW QUIN. Come on, and you'll be no worse than you were last night; and you
with a double murder this time to be telling to the girls.
CHRISTY. I'll not leave Pegeen Mike.
WIDOW QUIN -- [impatiently.] Isn't there the match of her in every parish
public, from Binghamstown unto the plain of Meath? Come on, I tell you, and
I'll find you finer sweethearts at each waning moon.
CHRISTY. It's Pegeen I'm seeking only, and what'd I care if you brought me a
drift of chosen females,
standing in their shifts itself, maybe, from this
place to the Eastern World?
SARA -- [runs in, pulling off one of her
petticoats.] -- They're going to hang
him. (Holding out
petticoat and shawl.) Fit these upon him, and let him run
off to the east.
WIDOW QUIN. He's raving now; but we'll fit them on him, and I'll take him, in
the ferry, to the Achill boat.
CHRISTY -- [struggling feebly.] -- Leave me go, will you? when I'm thinking of
my luck to-day, for she will wed me surely, and I a proven hero in the end of
all. [They try to
fastenpetticoat round him.]
WIDOW QUIN. Take his left hand, and we'll pull him now. Come on, young
fellow.
CHRISTY -- [suddenly starting up.] -- You'll be
taking me from her? You're
jealous, is it, of her
wedding me? Go on from this. [He snatches up a stool,
and threatens them with it.]
WIDOW QUIN -- [going.] -- It's in the mad-house they should put him, not in
jail, at all. We'll go by the back-door, to call the doctor, and we'll save
him so. [She goes out, with Sara, through inner room. Men crowd in the
doorway. Christy sits down again by the fire.]
MICHAEL -- [in a terrified whisper.] -- Is the old lad killed surely?
PHILLY. I'm after feeling the last gasps quitting his heart. [They peer in
at Christy.]
MICHAEL -- [with a rope.] -- Look at the way he is. Twist a hangman's knot on
it, and slip it over his head, while he's not minding at all.
PHILLY. Let you take it, Shaneen. You're the soberest of all that's here.
SHAWN. Is it me to go near him, and he the wickedest and worst with me? Let
you take it, Pegeen Mike.
PEGEEN. Come on, so. [She goes forward with the others, and they drop the
double hitch over his head.]
CHRISTY. What ails you?
SHAWN -- [triumphantly, as they pull the rope tight on his arms.] -- Come on
to the peelers, till they stretch you now.
CHRISTY. Me!
MICHAEL. If we took pity on you, the Lord God would, maybe, bring us ruin
from the law to-day, so you'd best come easy, for
hanging is an easy and a
speedy end.
CHRISTY. I'll not stir. (To Pegeen.) And what is it you'll say to me, and I
after doing it this time in the face of all?
PEGEEN. I'll say, a strange man is a
marvel, with his
mighty talk; but what's
a squabble in your back-yard, and the blow of a loy, have taught me that
there's a great gap between a gallous story and a dirty deed. (To Men.) Take
him on from this, or the lot of us will be likely put on trial for his deed
to-day.
CHRISTY -- [with
horror in his voice.] -- And it's yourself will send me off,
to have a horny-fingered hangman hitching his
bloody slip-knots at the butt of
my ear.
MEN -- [pulling rope.] -- Come on, will you? [He is pulled down on the floor.]
CHRISTY -- [twisting his legs round the table.] -- Cut the rope, Pegeen, and
I'll quit the lot of you, and live from this out, like the madmen of Keel,
eating muck and green weeds, on the faces of the cliffs.
PEGEEN. And leave us to hang, is it, for a saucy liar, the like of you? (To
men.) Take him on, out from this.
SHAWN. Pull a twist on his neck, and
squeeze him so.
PHILLY. Twist yourself. Sure he cannot hurt you, if you keep your distance
from his teeth alone.
SHAWN. I'm afeard of him. (To Pegeen.) Lift a lighted sod, will you, and
scorch his leg.
PEGEEN -- [blowing the fire, with a bellows.] Leave go now, young fellow, or
I'll
scorch your shins.
CHRISTY. You're blowing for to
torture me (His voice rising and growing
stronger.) That's your kind, is it? Then let the lot of you be wary, for, if
I've to face the
gallows, I'll have a gay march down, I tell you, and shed the
blood of some of you before I die.
SHAWN -- [in terror.] -- Keep a good hold, Philly. Be wary, for the love of
God. For I'm thinking he would liefest wreak his pains on me.
CHRISTY -- [almost gaily.] -- If I do lay my hands on you, it's the way you'll
be at the fall of night,
hanging as a scarecrow for the fowls of hell. Ah,
you'll have a gallous jaunt I'm
saying, coaching out through Limbo with my
father's ghost.
SHAWN -- [to Pegeen.] -- Make haste, will you? Oh, isn't he a holy terror,
and isn't it true for Father Reilly, that all drink's a curse that has the lot
of you so shaky and
uncertain now?
CHRISTY. If I can wring a neck among you, I'll have a royal judgment looking
on the trembling jury in the courts of law. And won't there be crying out in
Mayo the day I'm stretched upon the rope with ladies in their silks and satins
snivelling in their lacy kerchiefs, and they rhyming songs and ballads on the
terror of my fate? [He squirms round on the floor and bitesShawn's leg.]
SHAWN -- [shrieking.] My leg's bit on me. He's the like of a mad dog, I'm
thinking, the way that I will surely die.
CHRISTY -- [delighted with himself.] -- You will then, the way you can shake
out hell's flags of
welcome for my coming in two weeks or three, for I'm
thinking Satan hasn't many have killed their da in Kerry, and in Mayo too.
[Old Mahon comes in behind on all fours and looks on unnoticed.]
MEN -- [to Pegeen.] -- Bring the sod, will you?
PEGEEN [coming over.] -- God help him so. (Burns his leg.)
CHRISTY -- [kicking and screaming.] -- O, glory be to God! [He kicks loose
from the table, and they all drag him towards the door.]
JIMMY -- [seeing old Mahon.] -- Will you look what's come in? [They all drop
Christy and run left.]
CHRISTY -- [scrambling on his knees face to face with old Mahon.] -- Are you
coming to be killed a third time, or what ails you now?
MAHON. For what is it they have you tied?
CHRISTY. They're
taking me to the peelers to have me hanged for slaying you.
MICHAEL -- [apologetically.] It is the will of God that all should guard
their little cabins from the
treachery of law, and what would my daughter be
doing if I was ruined or was hanged itself?
MAHON -- [grimly, loosening Christy.] -- It's little I care if you put a bag
on her back, and went picking cockles till the hour of death; but my son and
myself will be going our own way, and we'll have great times from this out
telling stories of the villainy of Mayo, and the fools is here. (To Christy,
who is freed.) Come on now.
CHRISTY. Go with you, is it? I will then, like a
gallant captain with his
heathen slave. Go on now and I'll see you from this day stewing my oatmeal
and washing my spuds, for I'm master of all fights from now. (Pushing Mahon.)
Go on, I'm
saying.
MAHON. Is it me?
CHRISTY. Not a word out of you. Go on from this.
MAHON [walking out and looking back at Christy over his shoulder.] -- Glory
be to God! (With a broad smile.) I am crazy again! [Goes.]
CHRISTY. Ten thousand blessings upon all that's here, for you've turned me a
likely gaffer in the end of all, the way I'll go romancing through a romping
lifetime from this hour to the dawning of the judgment day. [He goes out.]
MICHAEL. By the will of God, we'll have peace now for our drinks. Will you
draw the
porter, Pegeen?
SHAWN -- [going up to her.] -- It's a
miracle Father Reilly can wed us in the
end of all, and we'll have none to trouble us when his
vicious bite is healed.
PEGEEN -- [hitting him a box on the ear.] -- Quit my sight. (Putting her
shawl over her head and breaking out into wild lamentations.) Oh my grief,
I've lost him surely. I've lost the only Playboy of the Western World.
CURTAIN
THE PLAYBOY OF THE WESTERN WORLD was first produced by the National Theatre
Society, Ltd., at the Abbey Theatre, on Saturday, 26th January, 1907, under
the direction of W. G. Fay.
Christopher Mahon, W. G. FAY
Old Mahon, his father, a squatter, A. POWER.
Michael James Flaherty (called "Michael James"), a publican, ARTHUR SINCLAIR.
Margaret Flaherty (called "Pegeen Mike"), his daughter, MARIE O'NEILL.
Shawn Keogh, her second cousin, a young farmer, F. J. FAY.
small farmers,
Philly O'Cullen, J. A. O'ROURKE.
Jimmy Farrell, J. M. KERRIGAN.
Widow Quin, SARA ALLGOOD
village girls,
Sara Tansey, BRIGIT O'DEMPSEY
Susan Brady, ALICE O'SULLIVAN
Honor Blake, MARY CRAIG.
Peasants, HARRY YOUNG.
U. WRIGHT.
End