by MURRAY SCHISGAl - Cork Past and Present

Michael Me Auliffe
Gerry Me Loughlin
Ber Power
N
PLAYHOUSE
Fr. Mathew Street Cork. Telephone 26287
froiD 18 October
•
1n
by MURRAY SCHISGAl
BROADWAY'S HIT COMEDY of the DECADE I Director: Harry Wallace
E V ERY MA N PLAY COMPET I TION (1976)
EVERYMAN
THEATRE
IN T RO D UCT I ON by W AL TER K ERR
(Repri n ted with permission from the New York
Magazine of the New York Sunday Herald Tribune.)
1.
The Author /Authors shall be of I ri s h Nat ionali ty , or at l east
of I r i sh parentage.
2.
The subject matter sha l l be the choice of th e aut ho r an d may·
b e in e ither E ngl i sh o r I r i sh.
3.
The s ubmitted en try shall be a n ew 1 previously u nperfo r med,
fu ll l ength play or ful l len gth theatrical en t ertainment.
p r esen ts
B Y MJR RAY S C HI SGAL
Harry Berlin • • MICHAEL McAULIFFE
Milton Manville ••• • • • • BER POWER
GERRY McLOUGHLIN
Ellen Manville
D i r ector: HARRY WALLACE
S TAG I NG :
Stage Manager
Set t ings by
r
Nl AMH H E NDERSON
F RANK F I TZGERALD
assisted by DONAL R OCH E
Light in g an d sou nd
AODH O G 0 THUAMA
A sst. Stage Man age r
MARY 0 1 L EARY
War drobe .
A NN 0 1 KANE
ACTION:
A Bridge
Ac t 1: Evening three months ago
Act 2: Right now
ACKNOWLEDGE IIIENTS:
Regency B l inds, M a r lborough S t r eet,
Lyn Johnston, Rushbrooke, Cork.
"Cork Examiner" P hotographic Dept·.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
M.JRRAY SCHISGAL is the son of a clot hes
presser from East New York in Brooklyn
and until writing 'Luv' was k nown only for
a pair of one-act plays, presented off
Broadway - The Typists and The T i ger .
He has been writing ever s ince he was 21,
but until he turned to drama he had been
s'i ngular l y unsuccessful. His output had up
to then included some 60 shor t s t ories and 3
novels, none of which was pub I ished.
A ccording to himself they were all qu i te bad .
To support himself during this doldrum period,
Mr. Schisgal worked at an astonishing number
of j obs which included sett i ng up pins in a
bowl ing al l ey, p l aying in a band, hanging up
dresses in a department store, and push i ng a
hand truck in the garment centre.
Then along came 1 Luv 1 w hi ch changed al l that.
On the strength of hi s success, according to
Mr. Schisga l he had his teeth fixed and bought
himself some shoes, some pants and a ve l our
hat which he saw on Fifth Avenue!
When taxed about the meaning of ' Luv'
1\1\.J r ray Schisgal had this to say "The sense of
it Is that the emotion of love has been
perverted and misused to such an extent that
it can only be defined by using another word
which comes closer to what we exper ience,
. to what we think, to how we behave , i t can be
1-u-v, 1-o - v , or x-y-z, but i t cer tain l y can't
be a word that has been abused so muc h as
f
I am going to write 900 words on why I like M.Jrray Schisgal.
I I i ke 1\1\.Jrray Schisgal because he is one step ahead of the avantgarde. The avant - garde, which is supposed to be ahead of
everybody, has spent some years now scraping its aching feet
against the dusty, inhospitable earth Whi l e standing in exac t ly
th e same pl ace. Pick up a foot, put it down, move not at a l l but
complain of !he pain. The p l ace where the avant-garde has been
standing is known as T he B r ink. On the brink of despair, on the
brink o f the void,· on the brink of a park-bench, th e defeated have
been observed waiting for Godot, waiting for love, waiting fore
word that wou l d make communication possible, waiting for
someone or something to put them ou t of their misery.
Occasional l y they have tried to hang themselves f rom i n adequate
tr·e es; sometimes they have succeeded in getting themselves
disemboweled; mostl y they have survived to disintegrate in
the failing fight, patient candidates f or the t h rash-heap. There
has a l ways been some aptness in the image: modern man does
feel estranged and abandoned and at I that. But there has o f ten
been something else in the image, especially as it began to
repeat its nausea ad nauseam: there has been self-love, selfdramati zation, romantic self-pity in it. See how drained I am,
how devastat ed, the squirming near-cadaver says, p r oud of his
position as The Man Who Has Been Most Badly Treated. The
lower l ip trembles but the eyes l ook up: where is that spotlight
that wili display me as victim? Come closer, spotlight; I have
a very good speech ready about the abuse the.,sil ent universe
has heaped upon me. The universe may be silent, but I will not
be. Hear my moan. Isn't it something, really something, how I
am ravaged ? I I ike Murray Schisga l because he hasn' I stopped
at this point, content to assu me that we h ave come to the end
of the l ine beyon d which no bu s runs and only ragweed grows.
Mr. Schisgal doesn' t necessarily deny t hat things are tough all
over; he just sees how preposterous it is that we shou l d take
such pleasure in painting the c l ouds black. If the avant-garde
up to now, has successfully exploded the bright balloons of
cheap optimism, Mr. Schisgal is ready to put a pin to the soapy
bubbles of cheap pessimism. Whatever socia l anq philosophical
stalemates we may have come t o, wit at least need not be
halted in its tracks. Wit may still venture f orward. It may go
right on t o notice that the woe Which has become so fashionab l e
i s fashionable; as such it is subject to some nose-thumbing.
Wit may notice how thoroughly professionalized our postures of
despair have become, how prepackaged our sorrows are, how
slickly and sweetly the lozenges of l ament roll about on our
active ton9Ues. Wit may look at the man who is trying to hang
himsel f and say "Come off it". That is one of the t h ings
Mr. Schisgal is doing in his new comedy,''Luv~ Which I am
happy to say looks like a very big hit. " Luv" is an
extraordinarily funny evening in t he theatre, beautifull y
performed and ma l icious.ly directed, and I shouldn ' t be making
it sound like "The Critique of Pure Reason", even if it is
quite plainly a criticism of fraudulent, opulent heartache.
There is a park - bench in it, va l idating its avant-garde
standing, upon which impassioned characters compare their
unhappy childhoods, growing ever more furious at the thought
that anyone, anywher e, might have been more maltreated,
at nine, t han they. There i s a lamp - post in i t , from which
baggy-trousered H arry t ries to hang himself after he has
several times failed to leap from a bridge. Naturally he does
not su.cceed; if he d id he would have nothing to complai n about.
All three of the play's characters sooner or tater pack knives.
So does their author. Mr. Sch i sgal' s knife- It is a very sunny
one, glinting brightly as i t digs- is o u t for people who wear
black on black whi l e lovingly congratulating themselves upon the
profundity of their losses, the certai n ty that with luck,
mauers may get a good bit wor se.
Men dci not live by bread or love a l one, they live by affectation,
and 1\1\.Jrray Schisga l knows precise l y how to display- in half
a hundred zany visual i mages - the sp l endidly heartless
disparity which has come to exist between the choked-up speeches
we make and the frequently noticeable fact that we don't mean
a word of them! Due to the fact that our fashionab.le postures
have become detached from any actual processes that may
be going on in our minds, passion- particu l ar l y anguishcan be applied to absolutely anything! I l i ke 1\1\.Jrray Schisgal
because he has not on l y made his vision - that of Man wrapped
in a cloak of borrowed pain -coherent, he has made i t
hi l arious to begin with.
4.
F inal dat e for receipt of entri es s h all be Feb r uar y 1st 1977 .
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Whatever shal I b e entered Into.
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the judges, that entry shall be awardeet an ou tright prize of
£100 .
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accorded a production by the Everyman Playhouse Ltd. ,
at a p l ace, time and date to be decided by the Directors o f
Everyman P l ayhouse.
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following note: "Winner of the Everyman (Cor k) Pl ay
Compel it Ion 1976".
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Cork.
We gratefu lly acnow ledge the assistance given by
The A rts Council (An Chomhalrle Ealalnl,Cork Corporat ion and
W. H . Ferry and Carol Bernstein Ferry, U.S.A.
Directors :
DA!'I DONOVAN (Chotnnenl
JOHN O'SHEA
MICHAEL McCARTHY
ALBERT COl£
M. J. O'KANE
BRIA!'I IOliNGBROKE
Pat Talbot
Monaglng Director (Autumn/Wint.r Seuon): JOHN O'SHEA
General Manager : DONN McMULLIN
Reoldent StaGe Manever: FRANK O'BYRNE
Fl"'lftt of HooiM Bt8ff :
Brian Bolingbroke
Ray Cuey
Frank Fitzgerald
n.....aa Byrne
Mary O'leary
MaryKennealy
Judy Bollngbrolce
Trlcla Mulllna
1'1otrlclo Mahon
Shootla Murphy
Elloen Kelleher
Mauroen Holland
Madeleine Morgan
Francoise Letellier
Lois Bolingbroke
Frank Fltzo.,.old (Chairmen
Ooloreo Colt..Cethenne Mohon
Roy Ceoey
Kemo G10e9er
Brian Boll~roko
Cetflerlno O'Gorman
Bernadette Cremin
lily Arnold
Denio Stounton
liz Cronltch
liz Gllloece
Elaine Stevone
Oebo<ah Hegotty
leo O'Maf>ony
Niamh Honderaon
Geraldine Mcloughlin
Nancy Raftery
Jackie Mccarthy
Cotherlne lluQa-n
Mai'IJarot Wolah
Irene O'S\JIIIvan
Franeoa O'Sullivan
Doloroa CellonAR
Anthony Corbett
Betty O'Shea
Dolores lynch
Enda Tobin
Norma Foley
Charlie O'Brien
Tony Callenan
Mary Ahern
Kerrle Groeger
Don Kelly
Dan O'Mehony
Frank Hanrahan
Jo Egar
Mary Meeney
Oonten McMullin
Valerie Wimtng
Sylvia O'Mal>ony
Anne Kelly
Noreen Dorgan
Mary Tobin
Anne Archer
Evelyn Herley
Catherine Mohon
Gabriel Vend
Eileen t..ordan
June Rooney
Rodney Bolingbroke
WEDNESDAY, lOth NOVEMBER
E VERYMAN THEATRE
p resent s
SAVAGBS
B y Ch r i sto p her H a mp t o n
Di r ect ed b y JOH N 0 1SHEA
This recent play deals with the fates of a kidnapped
of guerillas demanding r eforms, and of the primitive
of B razil faci n g r.uthfess extinction.
HOUSTON. PR I NTER. C"f>RK
WHERE DO YOU GO ... .
. .. . BEFORE OR A FTER THE SHOW ?
MONDAY, 25th OCTOBER
Laughs f or th6
·r<ing • . ..•....
audiences ado r e it/
"Theatre Wor l d"
THEATRE OF THE SOUTH
present s
love. L - u - v is the perversion of 1-o-v-e.
I don 1 t have the audacity to define the other !
- Love has become a commodity rather than an
emotion. By a commodi ty I mean relationship.
By pretending in personal relationsh ips that
What we say i s what we mean. To talk so
g l ibly that our words are removed from our
fee l ings. To be so 'hip 1 that we don 1 t even
kn ow what our feelings a r e". -And that i s
the serious foundat ion on Which Murray
Schisga l has bu i lt his hilarious, devastatingly
malicious and ou t rageous comedy.
EVERYMAN
PLAYHOUSE
...... c -.
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