EXCERPT 1

This excerpt takes place at the beginning of the first act. The protagonist, Kate, is told by her teacher that she has been into a convent school for girls. This event marks her first step in departing her provincial town for greater things. Her best friend and bad influence, Baba, tells her that she will be joining her on her journey. The language between Kate and her teacher sets the precedence for the restrictive nature of Kate’s guardians and teachers that continues throughout the play.

MISS MORIARTY
We have news to be proud of…our school has made a name for itself because our prize pupil has swept all Ireland before her.

BABA
Who who?

MISS MORIARTY
(to Kate)
You Kate have made the annals, you are one of two girls to have won a scholarship and so secured for yourself a coveted convent education.

KATE
Gosh.

MISS MORIARTY
Oh yes, I schooled you in the works of our Bards. (Getting carried away) O Dun-dalgan, Dun-dalgan, thou city of my sires, my own city, how red now are thy consuming flames; but on the other march there shall be a red eric for thy destruction, when the Boyne shall receive the hosts of that bitter and relentless queen, (she gestures Kate to join her in the recitation) and their horses shall trample down their footmen, and mariners out in the Murinet will wonder at the ruddy tide which those sacred waters will roll down to the sea.

BABA
(interrupting)
Where will she be going?

MISS MORIARTY
I am recommending that she go to St Edna’s…they have a great record with star pupils.

GIRL
Can we have the day off Miss?

MISS MORIARTY
Certainly not.

EXCERPT 2

This excerpt is from the middle of the first act. Kate is left alone with a character names Mr. Gentleman. Mr. Gentleman is Kate’s great love and his presence in her mind haunts her for the duration of the play. The long paragraph about the nature of love that she expresses in this scene is spoken again in the last moments of the play.

The others leave, except for KATE and MR GENTLEMEN.

MR GENTLEMAN takes one of her red shoes and goes carrying it.

KATE watches, then runs up the steps of the inner room to catch sight of him.

KATE
(breathless voice)
Gerhardt Gerhardt.

MR GENTLEMEN leans from the niched window holding the red shoe.

MR GENTLEMAN
Cathleen.

KATE
Yes.

MR GENTLEMAN
Are you coming?

KATE (Breathless)
Yes

MR GENTLEMAN
May I hold your hand?

KATE
(storytelling voice)
Yes…I said yes to his yes. His hand came off the steering wheel and rested on my lap. My hand was waiting for his. We locked our fingers and for the rest of the journey he drove like that except going around the sharp bends. His hand was large and white like a piece of marble. It began to snow. Softly the flakes fell, soft and oblique against the windscreen; it fell on the trees and on the treeless plains beyond. He kissed me. It was a real kiss. It affected my entire body, my toes, even though they were numb and pinched inside the new shoes, responded to that kiss and for a few minutes my soul was lost.

EXCERPT 3

This scene takes place towards the end of act one. In this scene, Kate speaks with one of the nuns in her convent, Sister Mary, a young nun who has become her friend. The nun talks of her sorrow at being trapped in a life of service to God. The scene represents the theme of the Church holding many of the women in this story as emotional captives.

SISTER MARY (actressy)
There is much beauty in your soul.

KATE
Were you ever in love Sister?

SISTER MARY
What do you know about love?

KATE
Books… the pictures… Cathy and Heathcliff on the moors.

THEIR hands touch just barely as they separate.

KATE reads from her book of poetry and SISTER MARY from her breviary, the lines to be interwoven.

SISTER MARY
Holy wound in the side of my Jesus, I adore thee, I compassionate thee for the cruel insult though did suffer. I thank thee, my Jesus for the love which suffered thy side and heart to be pierced, so that the last drops of blood and water might issue forth, making my redemption for to abound.

EXCERPT 4

This scene takes place towards of the second act. In this scene Kate and her friend, Baba, venture out on a double date with two young men. As Baba shamelessly flirts with her date, Kate pushes hers away. The looming presence of Mr. Gentleman is heavy in her mind. The young men also tell the girls what they believe to be the key differences between men and women, they speak of the ability of a woman to bewitch men.

BABA
(interrupting to defuse tension)
What do men ask for, most, in a woman?

REG
Bewitchment.

HARRY
Yes definitely bewitchment…I must confess I like a bit of flesh…I don’t like these scarecrows that you see in Grafton Street.

REG
Then there’s always the mystery factor.

BABA
The oomph.

HARRY
Exactly…the oomph. The rhythm…the rhumba.

REG
(to Kate)
How about a song…pretty eyes.

BABA
She can sing.

KATE starts to sing, but her song keeps being interrupted by their speech.

KATE
(singing)
Come all ye late fowlers
That follows the sun
Beware of nights rambling
By the setting of the sun
Beware of an accident
As happened of late
It was Molly Bawn Leary
And sad was her fate