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Part 2
Commented Mr. Siegel,
"While Mrs. Boyle is kind hearted, she does
have a tongue. Her linguistic
powers in the field of excoriation and
invective are quite good."
She says of her husband and his buddy, Joxer
Daly:
There'll
never be any good got out o' him so long as
he goes with that shoulder shruggin' Joxer.
I killin' meself workin', an' he sthruttin'
about from mornin' till night like a
paycock!
This is "the first time
'shoulder shruggin' has been used as an
expletive" Mr. Siegel pointed out. And he
continued, “As Aesthetic Realism sees it anyone
given to excessive 'shoulder shruggin' has
already made up his mind that the world is not
too interesting and you can't expect too much
from it.” As the scene continues Boyle and
Joxer return home and Mr. Siegel read the
following:
[…Captain
Boyle is singing in a deep, sonorous,
self honouring voice.]
The
Captain. Sweet Spirit,
hear me prayer!
Hear…oh…hear…me
prayer…hear oh, hear…Oh, he…ar…oh,he…ar…me…
pray…er!
Joxer.
Ah, that's a darlin' song, a daaarlin' song!
Mr. Siegel
commented "It seems Joxer has two tendencies, he
shrugs his shoulders and he wants to like things
very much with that word "daarlin."
Captain Boyle finds out that Jerry Devine, a
young labor leader, who cares for Mary, has
been looking for him, to tell him about a job
he might get, and O'Casey has the following:
Boyle.
(Suddenly catching his thigh) U ugh, I'm
afther getting' a terrible twinge in me
right leg!
Mrs.
Boyle. Oh, it won't be
very long now till it travels into your left
wan.
"This is part of the
cruelty in comedy," Mr. Siegel said. As he
read O'Casey's lines, often in a wonderful Irish
brogue, and commented on them with such depth,
humor, and feeling— showing
how the comic and tragic are one—we
laughed and at the same time felt
tearful. We saw at the same moment
the petty, the awry, the ridiculous in people,
and the suffering they have endured.
Towards the end of Act I, the Boyles learn a
distant relative has died.
It seems there is a will and that Jack Boyle
is entitled to a large
inheritance. However, this
will, the Boyles learn later, does not
exist. It was invented by a man named
Charles Bentham because of his interest in
Mary. But at this point Mrs.
Boyle, very excited, tells her husband to go
take off his work clothes—
his "moleskin trousers"—
"an' put on a collar an' tie" because a
visitor is coming and he has great
news. Mr. Bentham enters
with Mary. As Mr. Siegel read these lines I
felt tragedy and comedy as one thing:
Mrs.
Boyle. An' to think of you
knowin' Mary, an' she knowin' the news you
had for us, an' wouldn't let on; but it's
all the more welcome now, for we were on our
last lap! Voice of Johnny
inside. What are you
kickin' up all the racket for?
Boyle (roughly). I'm takin' off me
moleskin trousers!
"That is one of the
metrical lines" commented Mr. Siegel. "It's as
good a line as any for studying meter.”
“I’m takin’ off me moleskin trousers!” As
he discussed the words, the stage directions of
this play, Mr. Siegel showed one of the most
hopeful things: that two aspects of reality
people have seen as painfully, utterly apart—t
he comic and tragic—can
make sense, are in a deep relation, an
aesthetic relation. In the discussion
following this lecture, Ellen Reiss commented on
the value of what Mr. Siegel was showing, and
what she said represents what I felt hearing
this talk:
I do feel
this is one of the kindest things in the
world.... How Aesthetic Realism has you like
the world is technically what we were
experiencing; we were seeing, hearing,
feeling these opposites as one thing.
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