Bailegangaire, Tom Murphy

• Act One
• MOMMO. Shkoh cake! Shkoth!
• She is senile.
• MOMMO. An' no one will stop me! Tellin' my nice story... (Reverts to herself.) Yis, how the place called Bochtán -- and its graund (grand) inhabitants -- came to its new appellation, Bailegangaire, the place without laughter. Now! What time is it?
• MARY. Look! (She holds up an iced cake.) We never knew your birthday but today is mine and I thought we might share the same birthday together in the future. (She has lit a candle.)
• MOMMO. But he was unlucky. He was. He was. An' times maybe, she was unkind to him. (Childlike.) Was she?
• MOMMO. And how many children had she bore herself?
• MOMMO. Them (that) weren't drowned or died they said she drove away.
• DOLLY. Then the root in the arse --
• DOLLY. Night after night the same old story -- (Proffering cigarettes again.) Ary you might as well.
• DOLLY. ... And that old story is only upsetting her, Mary, isn't it?
• DOLLY. Harping on misery, and only wearing herself out. And you. Amn't I right, Mary? And she never finishes it. Why doesn't she finish it and have done with it? For God's sake!
• DOLLY. And you're too serious.
• MARY. Do you remember Daddy?
• MARY (overlapping). Talk to her!
• DOLLY (overlapping). That's what I try to do!
• DOLLY. About what? It's like an oven in here -- and I don't understand a word she's sayin'.
• MOMMO (buried in her own thoughts until now). When did you arrive?
• DOLLY. Look, I have to be -- (going). I'm Dolly, your granddaughter, and that's Mary, your other granddaughter, and your grandson Tom, Tom is dead.
• MOMMO. I do. I'm waiting for someone.
• MOMMO (laughing). A big stick.
• MOMMO. Oh, but they were always after me.
• MOMMO. The ones I wanted to.
• MARY. She's your responsibility, too.
• DOLLY (shrugs). There's always the County Home.
• MARY. I need to talk to -- someone!
• MARY (going to one of the other rooms). I've come to a decision. (Off.) County Home! You won't blackmail me!
• MARY. It's not fair. (To herself.)
• MARY (angrily: still to the door). Your husband wined, dined, and bedded me! Stephen? Your Stephen? It was me he wanted! But I told him: 'Keep off! Stop following me!' That's why he took you!
• MARY. They were acquainted with grief... Alright, I won't just help you, I'll do it for you. (Progressively she begins to dramatise the story.)
• 'Well,' says he, 'I'm a better laugher than your Costello.'
• A mortal laughing competition there would be.
• I knew someone would call. Dolly. Again! I wonder why. (Cynically.) Bringing tidings of great joy.
• DOLLY comes in. She stretches herself. (She has had sex in a ditch, doorway, old shed or wherever.)
• DOLLY. I have it all figured out.
• DOLLY. And it often crossed my mind the years Stephen and I were here with herself. Kill her. And it wouldn't be none of your fancy nurses' potions either. Get them out of bed, the auld reliable, start them walkin'. Walk the heart out of them. No clues left for the coroner or Dr Paddy. And that's how manys the one met their Waterloo. What's the matter?
• DOLLY. ... What? ... Joking! ... I have it all figured out.
• Act Two
• MOMMO. A laughing competition there would be.
• MOMMO (instead of continuing she starts singing). 'Once I loved with fond affection,
  All my thoughts they were in thee,
  Till a dark-haired girl deceived me,
  And no more he thought of me.'
• MARY. She's going to finish it.
• MARY. Tonight!
• DOLLY. I want to have a talk!
• DOLLY. A plan, a proposition.
• DOLLY. I've a little problem of my own.
• MARY. ... 'That you're a better laugher than me, is it?' ... 'Well, would you care to put a small bet on it?'
• MOMMO (suspiciously, childlike). How do you know that?
• DOLLY. All of them had to get married except myself and my darling mother-in-law, Old Sharp Eyes. But she bore a bastard all the same. Her Stephen. (She switches off the radio.)
• MARY. No. What are you trying to say?
• MARY (becoming alert). What?... You want me to go? With one of the children?... Which one of the children?
• MARY. Yes, I've wondered for some time, but I thought you couldn't -- you couldn't! -- be that stupid.
• DOLLY. Stephen'll kill me.
• MARY. ...How long are you gone?
• MARY. Who's the father?
• DOLLY. After a year it'll be easy to make up a story.
• MARY (to herself). I go away with a brand new baby. Mommo! (To DOLLY.) Where! Where do I go?
• DOLLY. You're its aunt.
• DOLLY. ... 'Cause if I don't get Stephen, Stephen'll get me. ... I've discussed the fee with someone.
• MARY. I failed, it all failed. I'm as big a failure as you, and that's some failure.
• DOLLY. ... Because, next thing he has me by the hair of the head, fistin' me down in the mouth. Old Sharp Eyes there, noddin' her head every time he struck an' struck an' kicked an' kicked an' pulled me round the house by the hair of the head.
• MARY. But Costello's laugh wasn't right at all.
• MARY (to MOMMO). ...No, you don't know me. But I was here once, and I ran away to try and blot out here. I didn't have it easy. Then I tried bad things, for a time, with someone. So then I came back, thinking I'd find something -- here, or, if I didn't, I'd put everything right. And tonight I thought I'd make a last try. Mommo? Live out the -- story -- finish it, move on to a place where perhaps, we could make some kind of new start. Mommo?
• MARY (turns away tearfully). I'm not the saint you think I am.
• DOLLY (to the fire, almost dreamily). Why the fuck did he marry me?
• DOLLY (to herself, looking at the door). I hate going home.
• MARY. But what was the topic?
• MARY. Would keep them laughing for near for ever.
• MOMMA (whispers). Misfortunes... She supplied them with the topic.
• MARY. It was a bad year for crops, a good one for mushrooms, and the three small children were waiting for their gran and their granddad to come home. ... But in the excitation -- of their waiting they forgot to pay attention to the fire. ... And then May Glenn's mother came and they took Tom away to Galway, where he died...
• MOMMO. And sure a tear isn't such a bad thing, Mary, and haven't we everything we need here, the two of us. (And she settles down to sleep.)
• MARY. ...To conclude. It's a strange old place alright, in whatever wisdom He has to have made it this way. But in whatever wisdom there is, in the year 1984, it was decided to give that -- fambly... of strangers another chance, and a brand new baby to gladden their home.