The Quare Fellow
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The Quare Fellow is a play by Brendan Behan, first produced in 1954.
The title is taken from a Hiberno-English pronunciation of queer, meaning 'strange' or 'unusual'. In context, the word lacks the direct connotations of homosexuality it holds today. The play does feature a gay character, but he is referred to as The Other Fellow.
The play is set in Mountjoy Prison, Dublin. Unusually, the anti-hero of the play, The Quare Fellow himself is never seen or heard. However, he is the pivot around whom Brendan Behan's debut is constructed. He is a man condemned to death the following day, for an unmentioned crime. Whatever it is, it revolts his fellow inmates far less than that of The Other Fellow, a very camp almost Wildean, gay man.
There are three generations of prisoners in Mountjoy. including boisterous youngsters who can irritate both other inmates and the audience and the weary old lags Neighbour and "methylated martyr" Dunlavin.
The first act is played out in the cramped area outside five cells and is comedic, sometimes rather like an Irish episode of Porridge. After the interval, the pace slows considerably and the play becomes much darker, as the time for the execution approaches. The focus moves to the exercise yard and much more worryingly, to the detail that is digging the grave for the soon to be executed Quare Fellow.
The taking of a man's life is examined from many different angles - his fellow prisoners of all hues, the great and the good and the prison officers.
The play is a grimly realistic portrait of prison life in Ireland in the 1950s, and a reminder of the days in which homosexuality was illegal and the death penalty common. As such, it is perhaps more of a historical piece than might have been expected.
[edit] Trivia
The Auld Triangle, a song from the opening of the play, has become an Irish music standard and is known by many who are unaware of its link to The Quare Fellow.
 |
This article on a play is a stub. You can help Wikipedia by expanding it. |
