PDF file: Drama - Higher - Lovers - Education Scotland

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28 OVERALL DIRECTORIAL INTERPRETATION AND DRAMATIC COMMENTARY Further illustrates central themes and issues • Frustrated love: Hannah and Andy get little opportunity to be alone or to have the same kind of romantic courtship as any other couple. Their time together is constantly interrupted by Cissy’s nightly visits and Mrs Wilson’s bell whenever she wants attention or if she is suspicious of what Andy and Hannah are up to downstairs. Hannah doesn’t want to take up Andy’s offer of having Mrs Wilson to live in his cottage because she knows that her mother will not settle for anything less than being the head of the house in her own home. But this in turn gives Mrs Wilson continued influence and power over Andy and Hannah. Andy doesn’t want to be caught in this particular trap. A future in Mrs Wilson’s household would be one of servitude and strict adherence to Mrs Wilson’s social and religious doctrines. • Frustrated Christianity: Mrs Wilson uses the ritual of the Rosary to extend her control and dominance over Andy and Hannah. We see her manipulate Andy and Hannah. We don’t see any real comforting communion or fellowship between caring Christians. We do see Andy being forced to take part in the Rosary. We witness a lack of truthful spirituality. The proceedings are a sham. • Uncertainty about the future: If Hannah won’t live at ‘Riverview’ and Andy won’t live at Mrs Wilson’s, this raises the question, ‘What kind of future do they have?’ Until Andy arrived on the scene Hannah’s future was one of drudgery. Now she has a golden opportunity to escape this sort of life, but she is not able to see a way forward out of her predicament. • The inevitability of repression: Andy and Hannah are forced to go through the ritual of the Rosary. Although Andy isn’t happy at participating in this particular charade each night, he does so for a quiet life. His rhetoric downstairs does not match his actions once he is in Mrs Wilson’s lair. We see the influence that Mrs Wilson exerts. Mrs Wilson is depicted as dogmatic and authoritarian. We begin to appreciate the kind of hold that Mrs Wilson has over her daughter when we see how she treats her in this particular scene. • Moral responsibility: Although Hannah ‘. . . clumps around the room, doing her chores with an ungracious vigour and with obvious ill-will’, she does do them. Hannah has been aware of her moral responsibilities ever since she was born. She hasn’t abandoned her mother although she does have good reason to. She is trapped. • Over-bearing rigidity and domination of a restrictive environment: Mrs Wilson’s bedroom is representative of this kind of environment. Andy is very uncomfortable at being in this room. He is forced to accept Mrs Wilson’s dictates and must go through the Rosary ritual. He feels hemmed in by the two old women. Hannah likewise is affected by this environment. She waits on her mother and is forced DRAMA
OVERALL DIRECTORIAL INTERPRETATION AND DRAMATIC COMMENTARY to set the room up as a place of worship and ‘fellowship’. Mrs Wilson insists that there is an order for everything that happens in her house and in her bedroom in particular. • The influence of the Catholic religion: Mrs Wilson insists on the nightly ritual of the Rosary. She has created a place of worship with visual reminders of her faith. Mrs Wilson blindly follows her faith and continually expresses her devotion to St Philomena. She has latched on to the teachings of Father Peyton and recites his maxims ad nauseam. Her mantra – ‘The family that prays together stays together’ – is a constant reminder to Hannah of her duty in the eyes of the Church. • Imposed divisions: Mrs Wilson as matriarch continually works at driving a wedge between Andy and Hannah. She has imposed her own exile to the inner sanctum of her bedroom. Her bedroom is above the kitchen and its position in the house has symbolic religious overtones – up above is the kingdom of heaven. Throughout their exchanges Andy and Hannah physically have to look up above. This reinforces Mrs Wilson’s status as well as her apparent ‘goodness’. Mrs Wilson has the moral high ground in the eyes of the community and the Church. Develops characters and relationships Cissy • Friel’s notes on Cissy are clearly stated just before her entrance: ‘Cissy is a small, frail wisp of a woman in her late sixties. She lives next door, is a daily visitor, and because of the close friendship between herself and Mrs Wilson she has a proprietary air in the house. A lifetime spent lisping pious platitudes has robbed them of all meaning. The sickly piousity she exudes is patently false.’ • Cissy is obviously an unlikable, cold, waspish character. We are not meant to like her or empathise with her position. • She is most certainly a symbolic representation of the restrictive, repressive, rural Irish society in which Andy and Hannah both live. • She is supposedly a devout Christian yet she shows no warmth or kindness towards Andy or Hannah. On the contrary, she compounds the guilt that Hannah feels as she reminds Hannah of the needs of her poor, sickly mother who is all alone in the world. Cissy doesn’t offer any moral support to Hannah and her role emphasises the irony that Hannah lives in a devout Catholic community which has condemned her to a lonely, empty life. • Friel points out that Cissy is a shallow character. Here is a woman who constantly gives her thanks to God yet has forgotten the basic lessons of the Bible. She shows no Christianity in her relationship DRAMA 29
Page 1 and 2: INTRODUCTION In 1993 Scottish CCC p
Page 3 and 4: OVERALL DIRECTORIAL INTERPRETATION
Page 27: OVERALL DIRECTORIAL INTERPRETATION
Page 45 and 46: DIRECTORY OF ACTING PIECES Mag. The
Page 47 and 48: DIRECTORY OF ACTING PIECES Hannah.
Page 49 and 50: Winners, Episode One Page reference
Page 51 and 52: Losers, Extracts Two and Three Page

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