PDF file: Drama - Higher - Lovers - Education Scotland

OVERALL DIRECTORIAL INTERPRETATION AND DRAMATIC COMMENTARY
Losers
EXTRACT ONE
(pages 51-60)
Why would this Extract be important in any production of
the play?
Provides context of the second half of Lovers and gives background
to the action/storyline
• We note the period is still 1967. Irish society expected the younger
generation to look after the elderly. It was quite common for older
relatives to be living with younger members of their family.
• The Catholic Church’s views on the sanctity of the family would have
been ingrained into the conscience of all Catholics.
• Sex before marriage was regarded as a sin.
• Andy and Hannah live in the same insular, repressive, rural, Irish
Catholic community as Joe and Mag.
• In 1960s Ireland the younger generation wanted to break free from
the restrictive traditions and the rigid moral codes of past
generations. They found it difficult to break free, however. What
could they replace the old order with? The Catholic Church exerted
such a powerful influence, an influence which permeated every area
of their lives from the cradle to the grave. There were rituals and
protocols in abundance. Traditions from the past were strictly
respected by the older generation.
• The title of this half of the play, Losers, immediately engages our
attention and we begin to make direct comparisons with Mag and
Joe’s predicament in Winners. We question the irony of both titles.
What is Friel saying about love and marriage? What is he saying about
these two sets of lovers in particular? What is he saying about the
kind of community that demands and enforces such high moral
expectations? In Winners we clearly see the effect this repressive
community has on Mag and Joe. Right at the start of Losers we learn
that Andy and Hannah have also suffered from living in a repressive
environment.
• Andy’s narration is used to take us backwards in time. Most of the
story happens in the past.
DRAMA 17