Modern Drama

The Theatre of Thomas Murphy and Federico Garcia Lorca JOSE LANTERS Thomas Murphy has said in an interview that he learned much of the business of playwriting by reading the works of established writers for the stage, and that in the course of doing so he discovered his "favourite playwright " in Lorca.' While underlining that Lorca and Murphy are very different in many respects, and that Murphy has too much of an original mind for his works to be considered in any sense derivative. this article will attempt to trace some of the connections between Murphy's work and Lorca's, both in thematic terms and in terms of stagecraft. Although these connections may suggest ways in which Murphy was influenced by Lorca, this is, of course, difficult to prove. However, the similarities do suggest reasons why Murphy should have felt particularly drawn to the works of the Andalusian playwright. When Murphy began reading Lorca he was interested to learn that the latter "had based his style on Synge's.'" Both Lorea and Synge derived and re-created the very distinctive, lyrical language of their plays from the speech and songs of the folk of their native countries: Synge from the dialect of County Wicklow and the Gaelic spoken in the West of Ireland, and Lorca from the cante jondo or "deep song" of the Andalusian gypsies. Murphy's language is less rooted in the folk tradition, but the way in which the language of his plays alternates between highly naturalistic contemporary idiom and startling poetic outbursts has frequently been remarked upon. What Edwin Honig says of Synge and Lorea is also to a large extent true of Murphy: With Synge, Lorea shares the creative mission of returning poetry to its basic dramatic function on the stage. ... His drama celebrates the life of instinct; which is to say, it does not come bearing a message. It comes in the ancient spirit of the magician and soothsayer - to astound, to entertain, and to mystify.3 Modern Drama, 36 (1993) 481 JOSE LANTERS "Magician" is one of the key words here, for this magical quality also forms the core of Murphy's stagecraft. In broad thematic terms this celebration of the "life of instinct" finds similar expression in the works of Lorca and Murphy. Lorca's oeuvre reiterates the themes of passion, loss of illusion, frustration, and death, and the same can be said of Murphy's plays. What is perhaps most striking in each case is the way in which these themes are given expression through music. Much has been written about the musical aspect of the works of Lorca and Murphy individually; what is interesting is the marked similarity of the musical nature of their work. Lorca's plays, says Honig, "cannot be viewed simply within the category of conventional drama. Far too often do they gain completeness only in the musical imagination."4 The musical conception of Lorca's plays is akin to that of opera; it does not involve merely the addition of music to the dramatic structure, but "a subtle thema!ic organization which seems based on a musical rather than on a dramatic pattern."5 Furthennore. "The significant thing to notice is not that the musical conception succeeds where the dramatic would or could not, but that an esthetic relationship has been established between two media which has rarely appeared in the modern theatre.'.6 Of Thomas Murphy it has also been said that his "linguistic resources easily invite analysis in para-musical terms, His highly stylised dialogue, and the brilliant rhetoric which it encloses, allest to a theatrical imagination absorbed by the processes of music.'" This involves in particular "his characteristically musical organization of theatrical speech into long and often insistently repetitious set-pieces.'" One might think here of Mommo's long rambling narrative in Bailegangaire, which Mary refers to as her "unfinished symphonY."9 ' Both Lorea and Murphy, then, use music'- popular and classical music and in particular opera - as a form of dramatic expression which operates on all levels of their plays. Many of their characters sing songs; these usually create violent contrasts and affect the mood and tone of th~ plays. A...