My Plays

ONE ACT PLAYS

When I get the time, I write!
My one-act play “RHYME FOR REASON” went out on the All-Ireland Amateur Drama Circuit in the Autumn of 2008, and also to the Bray Festival in January 2009, and was highly commended by all the adjudicators for the quality of its writing. In Bray I was awarded a Merit Certificate for the writing.
We received several ‘Best Actor’ or ‘Best Actress’ nominations, and Mabel Gargan won a Best Actress and a Best Supporting Actress for her portrayal of Maud.
Fiona Masterson won a Merit Certificate for her ‘Lisa’.
The play came second in the Open category in the Skerries festival.

The play is 30 minutes long, and full of action. It follows a family in real time on a Saturday morning. Carrie is just up, and longing for a coffee. But her son Michael wants his kit washed, and a lift to his match, her daughter Lisa is going out to meet ‘the girls’, her husband Tom is putting up shelves, and Maud her mother is living in her own reality, and communicates mostly in nursery rhymes. The play is by turns poignant and funny as they all work towards their own ends. It is Lisa who changes the most, when her father’s minor injury makes her realise how difficult Maud is, and at the end of the play she has started to support her mother. But the end is sad, as Carrie realises there is no cure for Maud, and that the situation will continue to slide.


It is a play with five strong characters, all enjoyable to play, giving, as you can see from our results, prize potential! This is a play that can be easily played in other English-speaking countries, with minimal change of a few words. It is not specifically Irish.

The characters are

-Carrie, early 50s. Long-suffering, but with a couple of angry moments
-Michael, 17. Her son. Entirely in his own space.
-Maud, 75.  Her mother. Early senile dementia, cheerful. Convinced she is off to her poetry recital
-Lisa, 15. Carrie’s daughter. Starts as a typical dismissive teen, but ‘grows up’ during the play
-Tom, early 50s. Carrie’s husband. Nice, caring in his own way, but does not understand Maud at all. When he injures himself his own problems come very much first.
-This play is available for performance. I can provide an A4 bound copy at €6.00 plus post and packing. If you wish to perform the play you are requested to buy at least six more copies, at €5.50 each. Performance rights will be in accordance with the Drama League of Ireland’s usual rates.
Please enquire via email, if you are in Ireland giving your phone number and a good time to contact you.  Outside Ireland enquiries just by email please.
It would be a suitable fund-raising play for Alzheimer’s societies.

 


I was intrigued by this small Irish Times article, and wondered: “what did they say to each other when they got home?”

My other play, “Two Wrongs” is the possible answer. It is also a one-act play, ready for performance, but as yet unperformed.
I have moved the action to Ireland (though like Rhyme for Reason, it is not particularly Irish.)
Jim and Jean are the two wrongdoers, and work their way through accusation and defence, anger, shame, seduction, and some humour as they discuss and argue about their dilemma.
Their two friends Mary and Paul, another couple, make smaller appearances, Mary is also working as a prostitute, and Paul does not know. All actors can be in their 30s or early 40s.
The standard of the writing is similar to that in ‘Rhyme for Reason’. It is a powerful play, containing almost every emotion, and some real action when Jean and Jim fight.
This play is about 45 minutes long. Again, A4 bound copies are available at €6.50 for the first one, plus post and packing. If you definitely wish to perform the play, you are requested to buy at least five more copies, at €6 each.
Both plays are copyright. You are humbly requested not to make photocopies.

 
John Joyce, cartoonist and author
My friend and fellow author, John Joyce, drew the cartoons on the medical pages.