Corrib Theatre presents the world premiere of Pretty Proud Boy by Rosaleen McDonagh, the first of three specially commissioned Irish audio plays to be released digitally this spring and summer.
A mother and her son at a crossroads-what do we do when those closest to us become violent strangers? Pretty Proud Boy explores the pressing and timely issues of the far right, the threat of COVID-19, the impact of the Black Lives Matter movement, and how these global events have affected Irish Travellers, an indigenous ethnic minority in Ireland. Pretty Proud Boy will be available to stream online from May 21 onward, with a live launch party on May 21 at 7:30pm PST.
In Pretty Proud Boy, a young Irish Traveller named David navigates the online world of COVID-19 conspiracy theories and the rhetoric of the far right. For David, the Black Lives Matter movement erases his own experiences of discrimination, while the nativist narratives that validate his belonging as "Irish" grow ever more appealing. His mother, Winnie, is becoming increasingly worried as she watches her gentle son's transformation-and then she finds the gun.
Playwright Rosaleen McDonagh, herself an Irish Traveller, explores complicated themes with a compassionate and nuanced touch. Travellers-also known as Pavees or Mincéirs-have a distinct heritage and culture that includes their own language of Cant and a tradition of nomadism, travelling across Ireland in colorful horse-drawn caravans. However, the Irish state has tended to see Travellers as a social problem to be solved rather than a minority culture to be valued. In the 1960s, state policies of forced assimilation criminalized itinerancy and other aspects of Traveller culture. As a result, Travellers have been relegated to state-managed halting sites, often with little or no access to basic sanitation, water, and electricity-living conditions that have exacerbated risk in the current pandemic. Anti-Traveller racism is endemic in Ireland on both a systemic and personal level. Traveller communities are over-policed and over-institutionalized, health disparities such as lower life expectancy and higher infant mortality rates are striking, and Traveller history and culture remains untaught in Irish schools.
We can find many parallels between the experiences of Travellers in Ireland and those of Indigenous and Black communities in America. So, it might be surprising to see David subscribe to the white supremacy promoted by anti-government movements such as the Yellow Vests in Ireland or the Proud Boys in America. But that is what is so powerful about Pretty Proud Boy-it shows how categories of race and identity are shifting and complex, how economic disenfranchisement can result in seeking power where you can find it, and how intoxicating the promise of belonging can be to those who have felt like outsiders their whole lives.
"Irish Travellers are an indigenous group of people," explains playwright Rosaleen McDonagh, "similar to Native Americans or the Maoris in New Zealand or the Aboriginal people of Australia. So we're Irish, but we have a separate ethnic status because we have our own language, our own culture, our own way of doing things, and our own tradition. But we're not static. All cultures evolve and we're in that process. If you read the plays of
Tom Murphy,
John B. Keane, even
Marina Carr, the Irish Traveller are part of those works. We've always been referenced in Irish theatre and the most radical thing in the last ten years is that now we are writing our own stories, rather than being misappropriated by non-Travellers."
McDonagh continues, "Over 80% of our people are unemployed. Only 2% of our children go on to second or third level education. Our suicide rates are eight times higher, particularly for men. So I wanted to play with the idea-if you're up late at night and you're watching videos of the alt-right and you're a very isolated young Traveller man, what does that do? And this young man is lured into a very macho, alt-right, racist mindset. Even though he has a double consciousness-he understands racism because of his own experience-the alt-right keep telling my character 'You're more Irish than any of these newcomers.' And I also wanted to explore how his behavior affects the whole family, especially his mother who, like all mothers, has to tidy the mess up."
