B&B CULTURE: What secrets lie behind the scenes at an Irish B&B? Lots, says playwright Joe O'Byrne.........................The B&B was likethe modern-day Martello Tower,the bastion of thetrue values of old Ireland.........................
You'd stand at the door, your legs quaking, the doorbell ringing. "Yes?" "We're looking for a room for the weekend." She'd look you up and down, the woman of the house, and you'd be asked the dreaded question: "Are you married?"
Once upon a time those were the anxieties felt on looking for a room in a B&B in Ireland. But no more. That anxiety seems to have imperceptibly slipped off the horizon. But when and why did that happen? Of course, not all guests were from within. The B&B's were there to receive guests from foreign shores. The B&B was like the modern-day Martello Tower, the bastion of the true values of old Ireland. The interface between the Irish family and the rest of the world was to be found in the imaginary line that divided the family from the guests - the Irish family with the world en suite. But in the 1980s we were in dire straits, we needed the foreign dollar, mark, franc, lire, so beggars couldn't be choosers, money before morals.
These thoughts were the germs of the idea for the play I was writing in 1998. It would be a play about change in Ireland, which in that year was getting into top gear. It would have a fancy European title. It would be called En Suite. It would be about bathrooms. It would be about us getting very grand indeed. But, of course, it couldn't just be about bathrooms.
Change involved other things.We needed to flee the dark secretive past and, at the time, this seemed to be defined by two words: openness and transparency. Yes, the secrets would have to be revealed, the skeletons would have to come out of the cupboard.
For many years, I have tried to do theatre that very pointedly drew on the traditions of our European neighbours. Some of you may know the plays, though I suspect most won't (I've written plays with such titles as It Come Up Sun and The Sinking of the Titanic and Other Matters and therein lies the up and down of my career), and that is why I am writing this article; so that you might come and see my next offering.
But, as I was saying, I had an idea for a play, a play that would be set in a B&B, and I needed a shape for it. So I thought long and hard about this and I dipped into the tank of forms and drew out Ibsen (with Chekhov and Brecht and a few others hanging on by the claws) - Henrik Ibsen, the 19th-century Norwegian master of the realistic five-act play, and a great inspirer of James Joyce. Good company indeed! An Ibsen play often involves a character who returns home from some distant place to reveal a secret from the past. And I thought to myself, what better form than this to reflect the current state of Irish life. Every day some new skeleton is pulled rattling out of the cupboard, and now there are so many of them that they have nightly parties in the grounds of Dublin Castle before setting off in a riverrun past Eve and Adam's and the Four Courts, and then down the highways and byways of the land to the crossroads where they hold hands and riverdance, and cry out the names of their leaders: Mr Mór, Justice O'Flahoolach, Father Smut, etc., etc., etc., though these and all the rest of the names are barely intelligible above the clackety-clack of their dance.
But, back from surreality. I'd found the basic shape the play, it would be a five-acter in the manner of Ibsen. The play would be about openness and transparency in the heart of the Irish family. And so the family would have a dark secret. It would involve a priest, a suicidal pregnant teenage girl, a murder. This all will have happened 20 years ago. But the suicidal teenage girl did not die. She now runs "The Bower" bed and breakfast. She has two grown-up daughters. She is a modern woman with a modern family. Her husband is gone. Need I say more? And what of the daughters? Well, one sings hymns and is gay, and the other is about to give birth. And is there a man in sight? No, I'm afraid not. That is where Evelyn Dwyer, the proprietress of "The Bower" bed and breakfast, finds herself. Her life is a farce. She is at her wits end. And then her brother returns from 20 years of living in Las Vegas with a mission: the truth will out, the skeleton will have it's day out. And if it wasn't so funny, it would be tragic.
This would all be reflected in the shape of the play. It would be no ordinary five-acter, the form would unravel at the end, the walls would fall away, all would be exposed. Openness and transparency would be the order of the day, and the bastion of old Ireland will have fallen. Perfect! So, a memory of a trembling finger on the bell of a bed and breakfast sometime in the 1980s has led to this play that will soon be accepting paying guests. Everyone who has stayed in a B&B must have wondered at some time what goes on behind that imaginary line that divides the family from the guests, and if you ever did wonder, then this play is for you. Oh, and spare a thought for the Italian couple who checked into a B&B in Galway, left their stuff there, and went off to sample what Galway had to offer, and then, later, went to look for their B&B and couldn't find it. They knocked on the door of the one I was staying in, but it wasn't the right one, and all they could remember about their B&B was that it had a sign outside with a green shamrock!
So, as you will gather from the above, it's all happening at "The Bower" B&B, rooms en suite, at the Peacock Theatre, Abbey Street. Booking 01-8787222.
Ask for Mrs Dwyer.
En Suite by Joe O'Byrne opens at the Peacock theatre, Dublin, on Tuesday