A PLAY WITH SONG
by Sonia Fernandez

The Cliffs of Moher in County Clare, Ireland

To get at the heart of Edna O’Brien’s adaptation of one of her most beloved novels, you need only know the original title: A Play with Song. While the story of Kate and her family unfolds in the 50s and 60s, the struggles they face, the traditions they cling to and spurn, the futures they yearn for are embedded in the history of Ireland over the previous 100 years. The color and richness of this history is inextricably bound with the songs of the land and its people. The play’s incorporation of traditional music not only provides a more authentic portrayal of Irish life but also serves as a reflection of the journey Kate and her home country are about to embark on.

When Tir na nÓg opens, Ireland was at a crossroads.  The country had only become a nation in its own right in the 1920s.  During English colonial rule, the Irish saw a need for an Irish national identity.  In the early 1900s the establishment of the Irish Literary Theatre as well as a revival in traditional music sought to fill that need.  Irish language revivalists began to travel to Gaeltacht (Irish speaking) areas to study the language. There they became aware of the native style of singing, a style that was foreign to them as academics and city dwellers.  They called the singing sean nós, meaning old style.  Yet the Gaetalcht people would not have called it sean nós; they would have just called it singing.

Song has been an intrinsic part of Irish culture for centuries.  Until the advance of mass media, people were entirely dependent on music for entertainment.  In the 18th and 19th centuries, rural and some urban areas were alive with song and dance. Singing and dancing gatherings were held in people’s homes. People sat by the fire listening to a story-teller or a solo, unaccompanied singer. Everyone knew the songs, as they had heard them a thousand times.

The first song in Tir na nÓg is an example of this traditional singing.  Because sean nós is a solo, unaccompanied genre, it has given rise to long, slow melodies with a great deal of ornamentation. The performer is free to vary the ornamentation, pacing, and even the words for any performance. The freedom that a performer enjoys in the execution of a song is an essential part of the Irish tradition. Thus, sean nós is a highly personal form. The personal freedom of a singer underscores Kate’s own journey to find her voice as an artist and as a woman.

Even though parts of Ireland began to change with the infiltration of mass media, the tradition of singing in the old style was never broken. This is especially true in western Irish County Clare, where Kate and Baba have spent their whole lives and have been steeped in the sounds of the old world.

However, with the rise of urbanization, city-dwellers frowned on what they saw as rural traditions. The 50s and 60s were a period of great poverty in Ireland. Its post-colonial heritage left Ireland without the economic infrastructure to modernize. Ireland, like Kate, was young and poor. To people in Dublin, the rural culture reeked of poverty. Yet for many, song was an outlet of joy with songs for everything: work songs, songs of welcome, love songs, street songs, humorous songs.

By the time the play occurs, records and radiograms were available and music was slipping away from its old roots. People would listen to parlor songs like John McCormack’s Snowy Breasted Pearl on the radio the same way night after night – and they liked it. Another tradition was introduced after World War II – the tradition of dance hall music. People didn’t gather in each other’s houses any more, they were going to American influenced dance halls.  One other genre of songs, now termed ‘folk music’ is what might be described as rousing Irish songs – loud pub music with accompaniment. Whereas sean nós was born of silence, this folk music was born of pubs and noise. The traditional solo music, parlor songs, dance hall music, and folk music swirling through the play were also a central part of Irish life in the 50s and 60s.  For some, this musical intermingling reflected the undermining of the pure tradition of the land; yet for others, it was a sign of the rich and undiscovered possibilities that lay waiting in the new world.

In Tir na nÓg, this juxtaposition of the free spirit and the strong hand of tradition is brought out through the character of the Singing Woman and Sister Immaculata, both played by the same actress. Ireland was under a particular burden of having inherited the repressive attitudes of the church towards sexuality, as well as the Victorian attitude of England. While England was shifting away from the Victorian ideal, Ireland was not. Thus, the Irish people were doubly burdened beneath the heavy load of social repression as well as poverty.  Yet the country was beginning to come of age, for better or for worse. Music was an opportunity to break away from that and participate in the joy of a song.

The title Tir na nÓg refers to Irish mythology and means ‘the land of the ever young’. And, indeed, the myths and struggles and desires of Ireland are compressed into the story of Kate: a young woman coming to terms with her own loss of innocence. The songs that swirl around her throughout the play become an apt reflection of her journey to make a life of her own.

Áine Uí Cheallaigh and Molly Rhodes contributed to this article.