‘The Two Sisters’
Dennis Corcoran
This play, written by St. Louis playwright Dennis Corcoran, is set in 1980 in the women’s prison at Armagh, Northern Ireland, and addresses the heroism and brutishness that can arise in the face of political and religious conflicts.
Historical Background on the play:
In February, 1980, IRA inmates in the women’s prison at Armagh joined this “dirty protest.” In Ireland and in the Catholic Church the feeling was that women didn’t belong in prison anyway. They were “special”—assigned by God to nurture children and support husbands. The fact that these were women (who were smearing not only excrement but also menstrual blood on their cell walls) raised a wide public outrage. There were marching demonstrations by Catholics, Protestants, feminists—really everyone concerned with human rights—against these deplorable conditions.
The play itself:
We see five prison cells—two left, two right and one up center. Fragmentary concrete walls with exposed re-enforcement bars convey the grim reality in which these women are forced to live. Guards’ desks flank the stage, left and right. Above the center cell is a large screen, framed by graceful flourishes, on which striking period images are projected.
We meet five prisoners: Άine, Siobhán and Maureen arein the IRA. Janice is a Protestant jailed for murder and she’s raging fierce. Emma is a battered wife who killed her husband; she’s mute, depressed, suicidal. The two female guards are most definitely “good cop” and “very bad cop”. And then there is the dancer, who rises from beneath the stage to introduce the evening with an interpretive modern “Dance of War.”
The play consists of eighteen brief scenes in which we see the growing conflict and violence between the inmates and the authorities. There are occasional “voice-over” monologues between scenes; these are in graceful rhymed verse. The forbidden Gaelic drifts through the dialogue—most notably in a common prayer. There is much anguish—and much beauty in this play.
Reactions to the Play: (Steve Callahan)
Author Dennis Corcoran does little to mask his bias toward the Catholic cause. And why should he? The Protestant brutality is presented vividly. Yet, though it can be shocking, it is hardly real drama to simply show bad people doing bad things; far better if we can see something of ourselves in these bad people—our feelings, our fears, our motivations. Most of the scenes are of unrelieved suffering, with hatred and vituperation hurled back and forth between the inmates and the guards. Once, indeed, Siobhán does a bit of stand-up comedy for her friends, parodying her own arrival at the prison as if she’d arrived at a grand hotel. But she falls a tiny bit short of the pace and punch of a true stand-up comic. So for the most part we see nothing but misery, misery, misery. There are many beautiful things here, but I felt something was missing: I didn’t find a real arc of plot.
Moreover, I sensed more than one voice at play here. I don’t know if this was the case, but there seemed to be hints that Corcoran’s play had been subjected to “workshopping”. Did each actress contribute to her scenes and monologue? Did the presence of dance talent persuade the author to include dance? If so perhaps these elements were not quite perfectly integrated into the play. For me it lacked an overall coherence. But it is nevertheless a work of considerable strength and beauty, and a triumph for all involved.