Memories OF ‘SIVE’ ON STAGE
As the decade known as the Black 50s came to an end, there was hope and expectation that the next decade would be an exciting one.
In early February 1959, I was a student in St Michael’s College, Listowel. We had a half day every Wednesday – there was no class in the afternoon. On the first Wednesday night, I accompanied my mother to see a play called ‘Sive’ in Walsh’s Ballroom, not far from the railway station. It had opened the previous night and the townspeople were all talking about it and the author, John B Keane. It generated excitement in the theatrical town.
On stage in Walsh’s Ballroom, John Flaherty, tailor, in the role of Pats Bocock and his son Carthalawn, played by Sean Cahill electrified the attendance. John made a distinctive knocking sound with his blackthorn stick when he exhorted his son, Carthalawn “your best; your almighty best!” as he directed his curse accompanied by bodhran playing at Seanín Rua, the matchmaker.
May the snails devour his corpse,
And may the rain do harm worse,
May the devil sweep the hairy creature soon;
He’s as greedy as a sow, And the crow behind the plough;
That Black man from the mountain – Seanín Rua
John Flaherty measured me for my first Communion and Confirmation suits. He was a tall gaunt, mild mannered man. He sat cross legged inside the window in his tailor’s room as he nonchalantly stitched garments of every description for his customers.
On stage in Sive, John was a commanding theatrical figure with a delivery of lines that lightened the dark scenes and strained dialogue between Mike Glavin (played by Kevin Donovan, newsagent) and scorned Mena (his wife played by Nora Relihan) in their spartan kitchen. Sive was played by Margaret Dillon, a student in Intermediate Certificate in Listowel Presentation Convent. Hilary Nielsen, metalwork teacher played the part of Sean Dota, the aged and decrepit small farmer. Bill Kearney played the part of Seanín Rua, the matchmaker. Brian Brennan, clerk of works, sensitively played the part of Sive’s innocent boyfriend, Liam Scuab. They were ordinary citizens as they went about their daily lives in Listowel .
With the 1959 season of amateur drama festivals starting, John B was looking forward to performances of ‘Sive’ by members of Listowel Drama Group. It was his hope that the play would be nominated for a place in the All Ireland Drama Festival in Athlone the following April. Bill Kearney and Brendan Carroll, co-producers, were confident of ‘Sive’s’ prospects and this encouraged John B.
To get the All-Ireland drama final in Dean Crowe Hall, Athlone, ‘Sive’ would have to win a number of rural drama festivals. It was declared the winner in Scariff Drama Festival in its first outing on the circuit. In his adjudication, Micheal O hAodha, delivered: “Sive is of course a new play. I doubt if I have ever seen plays of this nature handled with such surging irony and blistering style. The author has supreme gift for dialogue”.
He described the production as one of the finest on the amateur circuit since M. J. Molloy’s ‘The Paddy Pedlar’. More importantly, the members of Listowel Drama Group had won the nomination to be part of the All-Ireland Drama Festival in Athlone.
Next stop was tiny Limerick Playhouse Theatre. The doors were closed at 7.30pm – more than one hundred patrons were locked out. The gardai were called to avert a confrontation in the laneway as hotheads tried to force their way into the theatre. The growing reputation of the theatrical performance of ‘Sive’ was creating problems not normally associated with festival occasions. HL (Harry) Morrow adjudicator was fulsome in his praise of the play. He concluded his evaluation with the words, “I have no hesitation in nominating it.” Brendan Carroll was adjudged best producer, Bill Kearney best actor and Nora Relihan best actress.
‘JEERS’ IN CHARLEVILLE
Caught up in the heady atmosphere, John B and his friends were ill prepared for the controversy that awaited them in Charleville. ‘Sive’ failed to win the premier award – they were brought back to earth with a jolt. Tomas MacAnna, Abbey Theatre designer, adjudged Tuam’s production of ‘Thunder Rock’ by Robert Audrey as the best play. John B and the members of Listowel Drama Group were dumbfounded. There were jeers from the Listowel supporters. Dublin newspapers took up the row and for the first time. John B’s name was making the headlines outside his native Kerry.
Kerry Drama Festival provided another opportunity for ‘Sive’. As the final curtain came down in Killarney Town Hall, it was the cue for the now customary applause, cheers and stamping of feet. It was some time before adjudicator Jim Fitzgerald could quieten the audience in order to deliver his verdict. Listowel Drama Group took the premier award, but only just. It had a single mark to spare over Cork’s ‘Queen of the Rebels’.
A large contingent of supporters from Listowel travelled to Athlone to see ‘Sive’ on stage in the All-Ireland final in the Dean Crowe Hall. The cast opened nervously. With the entry of Pats Bocock and Carthalawn, the tempo quickened and by the final scene, few in the audience were untouched by emotion. John Fernald and Barry Cassin, co-adjudicators, declared “sheer theatrical magic”. Fernald praised the simplicity and sincerity of Margaret Dillon as Sive. He said John Flaherty and John Cahill had played the parts of the tinkers beautifully. Every member of the cast had acted with realism and Bill Kearney as the matchmaker had performed with ‘great vitality’.
In the final adjudication, to the intense satisfaction of John B, his wife Mary and large group of supporters, Listowel Drama Group won the Premier Esso Award. John B returned to Listowel a proud man. Although he had yet to be accepted and acknowledged by the professional theatre, he was flattered by the Abbey Theatre’s decision to stage ‘Sive’ by Listowel Drama Group. In his town of Listowel, the Urban District Council presented scrolls to commemorate the play’s triumph.
I attended and enjoyed performances of ‘Sive’, recently in Town Hall, Dundalk, in Wicklow Gaol (after dinner), in Clogheen, in the Abbey Theatre (with Tommy Tiernan as the matchmaker) and in many other venues. It has never lost its excitement and each performance is presented by amateur actors in their own distinctive manner.
ADDENDUM
‘Sive’ was concerned with the traditional theme of the “made marriage”. It was followed in 1960 by ‘Sharon’s Grave’, one of the author’s favourite plays.
His next plays turned away somewhat from the folk past of North Kerry and depicted some of the elements of change in rural Ireland at that time. ‘Many Young Men of Twenty’ (1961), is a musical about emigration and portrays the lack of jobs and opportunities which forced the people of Keane’s small town to depart for the modern world of England.
Other plays penned by Keane include ‘The Man from Clare’ (1962), ‘Hut 42’ (1962), ‘The Year of the Hiker’ (1963), but a stronger plot and characterisation make ‘The Field’ (1965) one of Keane’s best plays. This play was subsequently adapted for screen by Noel Pearson and Jim Sheridan in 1996.
‘Big Maggie’ (1969) dealt with a familiar Irish phenomenon, that of the domineering mother, and provided material for an actress to play a strong formidable central character on stage. ‘Moll’ (1971) is another woman’s play, the main character being a canny and domineering housekeeper of the local parish priest.
Next came ‘The Crazy Wall’ (1974), ‘The Buds of Ballybunion’ (1976), and ‘The Chastitute’ (1979).
Keane’s imagination and humour were unique and surreal – as anyone who has had the privilege of hearing him speak well testify. His wit and talent are also evidenced in his many journalistic compositions, some of which have been collected in volumes of short, chatty essays.
In 1967, the ‘Letters of a Successful T.D.’, Keane began a series of epistolary novellas. The other titles include ‘Letters of an Irish Parish Priest’, ‘Letters of a Love-Hungry Farmer’, ‘Letters of a Country Postman’, ‘Letters of a Matchmaker’ and ‘Letters of an Irish Minister of State’. In his mid-fifties, Keane wrote a series of best-selling works, including ‘The Contractors’ (1993), ‘The Bodhrán Makers’ (1986), and ‘Durango’ (1987), which was filmed by Hallmark Hall of Fame in 1999.
JB Keane was president of Irish PEN, a member of Aosdána, and the recipient of numerous awards and honours, including honorary doctorates from Dublin University, University of Limerick and Marymount, Manhattan College, New York.
John B. Keane died in May 2002, during his beloved Listowel Writers’ Week, of which he was a co-founder. When asked how he would like to be remembered in the 1994 RTE ‘River of Words’ documentary he replied – “as a player who scored the winning point in the North Kerry Intermediate Football final against Duagh in 1959”.