PDF file: Drama - Higher - Lovers - Education Scotland

OVERALL DIRECTORIAL INTERPRETATION AND DRAMATIC COMMENTARY
Losers
Extract Two
(pages 61-67)
Why would this Extract be important in any production of
the play?
Develops plot
• Cissy makes an entrance. She has a ‘proprietary air’ in Mrs Wilson’s
house.
• Cissy has arrived to go through the nightly ritual of the Rosary.
• Hannah is despondent about being trapped and having to look after
her mother.
• Andy offers to let Mrs Wilson live with him and Hannah in his cottage
when they get married.
• Hannah rejects his offer. She indicates that she wants to be free from
the burden of caring for her mother.
• Andy’s suggestions of ‘hospitalisation’ for Mrs Wilson and ‘residency
in a home run by the Nazareth nuns’ are both rejected by Hannah.
Hannah reveals that her mother is ‘. . . not sick enough for hospital’
and that Mrs Wilson would be unhappy at being looked after by this
particular order of nuns.
• Hannah hints to Andy that he should live under Mrs Wilson’s roof.
• Andy completely rejects this suggestion. Their situation seems futile.
• Andy consoles Hannah as she dissolves into tears. This leads to a
passionate courting session which is interrupted once more by Mrs
Wilson’s bell. Both of them air their anger and frustration at this
untimely intrusion.
• We are introduced to Mrs Wilson. She is not quite what we expected.
She is ‘a tiny woman’; ‘She looks angelic’.
• We soak in the atmosphere of Mrs Wilson’s bedroom. The bedroom
has been turned into a place of worship. There is a make-shift altar,
there is a statue of St Philomena and the candles get lit.
• We see Mrs Wilson take charge of the ritual of the Rosary.
• We see Andy’s discomfiture at having to go through with the pretence
that this is a meaningful and spiritual ritual.
DRAMA 27