While on a walking tour of Armagh yesterday, I was bombarded with inspiration as to the source material for my upcoming ten-minute play. In a town so rich with culture and history, there is no wanting for a muse. It’s as if they’re all lined up with signs on the street, looking for work. And, obviously, I jumped to all sorts of American presuppositions about what would make an edgy, invigorating piece for the good people of the John Hewitt International Summer School. How about a play that examines the paradoxical nature of Christian hate that fuels both sides of the tensions that dominate the culture and history of this land? How pointed! how ballsy! how judgmental! how masterfully droll! I’ve been struggling with an intention, since the moment I began thinking about what to write for my play on this trip, to be unapologetically preachy, when I, and everybody else for that matter, have no standing to preach to anyone about anything.
What am I do to ensure that I treat these people with all of the respect they deserve? It doesn’t feel right to just waltz in here with my blue jeans and Bruce Springsteen and talk down to all the attendees of the festival. So, I’ve decided to go in the opposite direction: a farce, of sorts. A play about the pettiness of conflict. Because if there was one thing that is true across every nation, creed, and race, it is that conflict is always petty at its root.
So where does the conflict in this shitty little play about nothing stem? These two priests, pastors, whatever, what have you, walk into the church yard (the start of a long, bad joke) on a brisk morning in the 18th century to discover the steeple of the Church of Ireland really, truly, subtly tilting in the air, a lazing of the pointed antennae to God. Surely, there is a conflict between these two caricatured men on how to proceed, but why does it matter how they proceed? What is at stake in the demolition of the esteemed church steeple aside from the private dick-waving of these two gents? In the end, it’s a battle between the good of the people and the good of the institution driven by an aggressive trepidation toward what people they hardly know (Catholics) may or may not do. If you’re a local or remotely familiar with the Armagh Church of Ireland, it’s already spoiled who wins, but every conflict, especially this simple question of whether or not to save a sinking place of worship, is steeped in pettiness.
Or at least that’s what I’m kicking around right now.
You have some good fodder for your researh time at the irish studies library tomorrow. I wonder at what point a meanigful conflict becomes petty? Where is the moment when it goes too far? Who gets to decide that? Now I’m going to have to be up half the night thinking about all this . . .thanks . . .
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