PDF file: Drama - Higher - Lovers - Education Scotland

OVERALL DIRECTORIAL INTERPRETATION AND DRAMATIC COMMENTARY
SECTION A
Winners
EPISODE ONE
(pages 11-31)
Why would Episode One be important in any production of
the play?
Provides context of the play and gives background to the action/
storyline
• We note the period – 1967, ‘The present in Ireland’, a place of social
divisions and changing identity. The play is firmly set in the Republic
of Ireland. The dominant and almost exclusive faith was and still is
Catholicism. The Catholic Church exerted powerful control over
every aspect of Irish life. The Church’s control in rural communities
would have been even more pronounced. Ireland prohibited divorce,
abortion and contraception. Sex before marriage was a sin.
• Lovers is firmly set in the Catholic community.
• The Commentators are in their late fifties and are used as a symbolic
juxtaposition when seen against the young protagonists. The fact that
they give details in the past tense in a formal, unemotional and
detached manner gives the impression that we are listening to an
inquest. The Commentators represent the repressive, straight-laced
community that Mag and Joe both live in. The fact that Friel
establishes these two characters first suggests that this repression is
the norm.
• We learn that Mag lives in an affluent part of Ballymore.
• We learn that Joe lives in a run-down, working-class area of Ballymore.
• We learn that Mag is a pupil at a strict Catholic grammar school for
girls which is run by nuns.
• We learn that Joe is a pupil at a strict Catholic grammar school for
boys which is run by priests.
• We learn that Mag and Joe have to get married as Mag is two months
pregnant. Mag and Joe are young, their predicament is a metaphor
and shows how helpless the new generation felt towards the old
hierarchical order.
DRAMA 3