‘Katie Roche’ - a play by Teresa Deevey
Waterford playwright Teresa Deevy (1894 - 1963), was training to be a teacher when she lost her hearing through Méniéres disease. She went to London in 1914 to learn lip-reading and here discovered her interest in drama.
In 1919 she returned to Waterford and joined Cumannna-mBan. She began writing plays and articles and in 1930 had her first production ‘Reapers’ at the Abbey. There followed a number of plays with the National Theatre, until the relationship soured over the rejection of her play ‘Wife to
James Whelan’ in 1937.
Here we look at what is probably her best known play, ‘Katie Roche’. First staged in the Abbey in 1936 and again more recently in 2017, the play has a cast of eight (5m/3f).
Katie Roche is the illegitmate daughter of Mary Halnan, a local beauty who was seduced by the married master of ‘the big house’. Mary Halnan dies and Katie is brought up and named by a Mrs Roche, who does not offer her an education and exploits her. Katie works for the nuns for some time before being taken on as domestic servant by Amelia
Gregg, a spinster who has a brother Stanislaus, an architect in his forties - an artist of great erudition and self importance.
Katie has been stepping out with a local boy, Michael, but Michael is cautious in committing himself to a young woman with ‘no name’. Stanislaus, who once loved Katie’s mother, has a displaced affection which leads him to propose to Katie, a proposal she accepts.
After her marriage, Katie tries to subdue her passions and conduct herself in a manner befitting the wife of a genius. However despite her efforts at conformity, she discovers herself thwarted and neglected in a loveless marriage.
Michael tells Katie (both of whom are still very much into each other), how much more restricted her life is now that she is married. When Stanislaus realises the potential of this relationship which has been forcefully outlined to him, he decides to leave with his wife at once. This eventually sees Katie leave the place she knows and loves to face a future with a frigid husband ‘old enough to be her parish priest’. Katie is too vivacious for Stanislaus, something he must quell, but in the end, they both suffer.
Should you be interested in performing ‘Katie Roche’, you should first enquire about performing rights from jacqui. deevy@hse.ie.