Midnight Mass

by Nancy Lucia Hoffman

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Characters

 

BRIDGET SWEENEY, late 20s, bartender

 

SEAN O’LEARY, late 20s, slight, unfortunate looking guitarist

 

MERVIN DEVANE, late 20s, laborer (construction worker) and local lothario

 

PATRICK SULLIVAN, late 20s-early 30s, big, tall, rugby lover, pious 

 

FATHER O’SHEA, late 40s, priest of local parish, infinitely kind

 

MONSIGNOR, 70s, in charge of local diocese, diligent

 

CRAZY ANNIE MALLOY, 50-70, town loonie

 

 

Setting

TIME:  current

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PLACE: Small pub in a small Irish town in County Kerry; Seven Sisters Stone Circle

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Acknowledgement

Merv’s tale of his family’s curse are drawn from Irish legend. The rest of the play is original.

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ACT ONE

Scene 1

 

A not-much pub in a not-much Irish town.

 

Framed photographs, a bodhran, and Guinness signs hang on the wall. 

 

Entrance to the bar is upstage center.  Bar is either stage left or right with 3-4 stools, and a wash station behind it. Tap for Guinness. A swinging door behind the bar leads to a back room.

 

Opposite the bar are an enclosed fireplace (already lit), a low table and chairs. Downstage from the fireplace are a dartboard and scoring chalkboard.

 

It’s late fall. Dusk.

 

SEAN enters. It’s WINDY out. SEAN carries a guitar case. Opens case on table by fireplace, for guitar to warm up. HE removes toothpicks – one for his mouth, another to clean his nails with. 

 

Backroom door swings open and BRIDGET enters with armful of bar supplies. THEY see each other but are so familiar they don’t bother to say hello. WIND rattles panes.  BRIDGET returns to back room, then reenters with an armful of clean towels and places them under bar, leaves again.  SEAN picks up guitar, rubs its body to warm it and begins tuning.

 

Tunes first string. WIND rattles door. 

Second string. BRIDGET enters with a log, crosses to fireplace. Pulls back screen, adds log, tends with poker. FIRE pops.

SEAN plays first 3 notes, moves to fourth.

BRIDGET pours drink and brings it to SEAN.  Fifth string.

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BRIDGET

Up.  Up, up, up, up, up.

 

SEAN adjusts pitch as he’s told.  Sixth string.

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BRIDGET

Down, down, down, down, down.

 

SHE swats SEAN’s hand away, tunes it as he plucks.

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SEAN

I got it.

 

BRIDGET

I believe I’m the one who’s got it.

 

SEAN

Oh, you’ve got it all right there, love.

 

BRIDGET

Tsh. I’m the human pitch pipe I am.

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SHE crosses back to bar. 

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SEAN

You’re the 8th wonder of the world. What’s your pleasure, lassie?

 

BRIDGET

Play what you like.

 

SEAN

I’ve almost got me song worked out.

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SEAN plays a bit of a song. His skill is fine, but the song is not. 

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BRIDGET

Are you workin’ on any new ones?

 

SEAN

I’m working on this one.  You don’t just give up on it.  You think it’s gotten worse?

 

BRIDGET

I’m only sayin’. It’s grand, like.

 

MERV enters. 

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MERV

Well if it isn’t Sean O’Leary, the sorriest bastard on the face of the earth. 

 

SEAN

Mervin, you’re back from the dead.

 

BRIDGET returns. MERV sits at bar. SHE pours him a drink.

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BRIDGET

Mervin Devane.  Haven’t seen you in a while.  How are ya?

 

MERV

If I was doin’ any better I wouldn’t know how to feel.

 

BRIDGET

So you weren’t scared away after all?

 

MERV

Wha?

 

BRIDGET

By Annie’s romantic overtures.

 

MERV

I’m not talkin’ about that. 

 

SEAN

Yeah, where’s your new girlfriend?

 

MERV
Where’s your first? Annie hasn’t been back has she?

 

BRIDGET

Never been in before, hasn’t been in since.

 

MERV

Good to hear.  Sorry to break both your hearts, but I can only stay a half hour tonight. I’ll have a couple of pints, beat Sean in darts, enjoy the radiant beauty of Ms. Sweeney, and then I’ll be off.  Patrick been in?

 

BRIDGET

You don’t smell his cologne do you?

 

 MERV

Can I use the bar phone?

 

BRIDGET

Of course not.

 

MERV

This is why you need to relocate the building.

 

BRIDGET

I’m not moving the pub.

 

MERV

Seriously.  Give me 24 hours with the power winches, earth mover and the lads, and we’ll drag the whole establishment 100 metres that way, where there’s reception for mobile phones.  Jesus, your ancient grand-grand-dad picked a truly terrible location.  Backroom floods when it rains, no satellite reception.  I don’t think there’s a worse location in all of Ireland.

 

BRIDGET

Then why has the pub lasted 350 years here? 

 

MERV

Cause we’re stupid, sentimental bastards who love the ruts we’ve spent years embedding ourselves in.

 

BRIDGET

Except you, perhaps.  Scampering off to the competition.

 

MERV

I’ve been making the rounds, it’s true.  I’ve got to keep the women of Kerry happy, you know. 

 

SEAN

You’re takin’ in laundry are you?

 

MERV

Go work on a song, you tosser. 

 

BRIDGET opens a ledger and computes some figures. 

 

BRIDGET

So the competition’s pulled you away?  Are you becoming too good for us?

  

MERV

You’re too good for me, so.  You’re a goddess, I’m a mere laborer, my hands forever dirty. That’s why you’ve never graced me with a date since we was 10 years old. That’s all right, it’s me lucky year, I can tell. My fortunes will swell what with the rising trend in homebuilding and I’ll buy a ring pretty enough to woo my way into your lovely, lovely heart.

 

HER posture means MERV can catch a peek down her shirt.

 

BRIDGET

Don’t waste your time, your good money, or my lovely heart.

 

MERV

I dunno, Bridget, I think it’s my destiny to rest my soul there.

 

BRIDGET keeps her pose but nails MERV with a look.

 

BRIDGET

I don’t think you’re up to the task.

 

BRIDGET slaps the ledger closed.

 

MERV 

It’s said and done.

 

SEAN

Oh, without a doubt.

 

BRIDGET

What do you need me for? You’ve collected a grand harem, right?

 

MERV

Oh, go on. I’ve no harem.

 

SEAN

You should think about just one woman, Mervin.  They’re runnin’ out of medicines for your sort of lifestyle.

 

MERV

You should think about one woman too, Sean.  Save your right hand for the guitar.

 

SEAN

Speaking of me guitar, I wrote a song for you Mervin.  Adapted it really, but I think you’ll like it.

 

ENTER PATRICK, a big, tall rugby-saturated kind of lad.

 

BRIDGET

You’re just in time – it’s a song about MERV.

 

PATRICK

Ah, grand.

 

SEAN begins an intro of a fast Irish traditional song, then switches into The Rolling Stones’ Honky-Tonk Woman.

 

SEAN (singing)

I met a gin-soaked barroom queen in Dublin.

My aftershave was working really well that night.

She wasn’t pretty but her name began with the letter X.

I nailed her so I could finish off the alphabet!

 

Oh, great-grandma’s curse has made a 180.

The women, the women, the women love me so much.

Oh, great-grandma’s curse has made a 180

They just can’t, just can’t, just can’t get enough.

 

Everyone applauds. 

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BRIDGET

Brilliant!

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PATRICK

He nailed you, Mervin!  Genius, Sean.

 

MERV

Singin’ about me grandmum are ya?

 

BRIDGET

Don’t get all sensitive now.  It’s the miraculous curse that turned into a blessing for you! 

 

MERV
It did turn into a blessing.

 

PATRICK (As Merv)

Ah, yes, me 32nd great grandmother…

 

MERV

Four greats:  great-great-great-great. That’s all.

 

PATRICK (As Merv)

Yes, me great, great, great, great, great, great grandmum gave birth and cursed her bastard of a husband and all the men of the family.

 

MERV
She did!

 

PATRICK (As Merv)

And the men suffered the pains of childbirth every 9 months.

 

MERV

You can ask me granddad

 

BRIDGET (As Merv)

But the curse turned 180 degrees for me and has made me so in tune with women that they all blindly flock to me and crave me, and oh! They can’t help themselves!!

 

MERV
Tell it proper, now.  My great—

 

ALL

—great-great-grandmother’s curse—

 

MERV

— You fuckers, yes, my great-great-great-great-grandmother’s curse did the trick. 

 

SEAN

C’mon, now, do you still believe that?

 

MERV

Yes, I do.  When me 4th great-grandmum was giving birth to her first child her husband was nowhere to be found.  He’d sworn to be with her in sickness and health, but he ran from home in her final weeks.  No one was there when she went into labor, no one to go and fetch the midwife.  She spent the next

 

PATRICK

- four-thousand hours -

 

MERV

- a little respect, please! - twenty-four hours in pain on the dirt floor by the hearth, trying to keep the fire going all the while giving birth to his daughter.  And since she was doing all that, she figured it would be a good thing to also spend that time concocting her curse on him. 

 

PATRICK

Pint, Bridget-

 

BRIDGET

Right.

 

MERV

And it wasn’t just on him.  No, she cursed all the men of his family.  Boys, young men, old ones, the ones still to come.  Every 9 months those men were racked with the pains of labor for three whole days.  Every 9 months.  They couldn’t escape it. 

 

SEAN

Are you sure the women didn’t just poison their food every 9 months? 

 

MERV

You think the men didn’t wonder about that and take precautions?  Prepare their food themselves?  Leave home when the time came?  Nothing they did could change it.  Her curse landed hard. Over the generations, however, the curse has softened. My great-grandfather gathered a fistful of wildflowers for his wife every Sunday.  It kept her forgiving him while he drank away their money.  His son, my grandfather, learned how to grow special roots for a soup that assuaged the pains of childbearing.  My father saved bits of money here and there to buy my mother a barrette for her hair each year.  And with me, well, the curse has turned a full 180 degrees.  The ladies, they just want to be in my presence, to feel the touch of my hands, my arms, my gentle tongue, my pressing lips.

 

PATRICK

Would you ever have another drink so we can shut your lips up!  The ladies can’t keep away from you, oh spare me the lies. The men in your family are the only men ever to get their period each month, and you’re moody as can be then, you bastard. 

 

MERV

I’ve had more women than you.  Proof is in the pu—  pudding.

 

BRIDGET

Jesus Christ.

 

PATRICK

Not around me, Bridget.

 

BRIDGET

Come off it, Paddy, you can’t be serious.

 

PATRICK

I’m deadly serious. Mortal sin.

 

BRIDGET

Shite, Paddy, you church it up Sunday morning but ninety minutes later you’re destroying your fellow man with cleats and elbows on the rugby pitch, but you’re the one tellin’ us not to take the Lord’s name in vain?

 

PATRICK

Rugby is a game and the rules allow that fashion of play. Commandments are the law and that’s what law number three says. 

 

BRIDGET

So you’re tellin’ me you’re also still a virgin, keepin’ your purity for your wedding night, since that’s what the church says?

 

PATRICK

That’s not in the commandments now, is it?  Just not supposed to covet a married woman. (To Bridget) You go to church but don’t stand by the commandments.  Think you’ve punched your ticket but you don’t live the life.

 

BRIDGET

Don’t tell me I just punch my ticket every week. Surely God prefers bad words to bad behavior. Jesus, your brains are in your bollocks, which is why they’re so feckin’ puny.

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