Sive (play)

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Sive
Written by John B. Keane
Characters Liam Scuab
Mike Glavin
Mena Glavin
Carthalawn
Nanna Glavin
Thomasheen Seán Rua
Sive
Pats Bocock
Seán Dóta
Date premiered March 1959
Place premiered Walsh's Ballroom, Listowel, Ireland
Original language English
Subject Illegitimacy, marriage, poverty
Genre Comedy, drama
Setting Rural County Kerry, 1950s

Sive is a play by the Irish writer John B. Keane, first performed in Listowel, County Kerry in 1959.[1]

Plot

The story is centered on a young eighteen year old girl called Sive who is illegitimate. She lives with her uncle Mike, his wife Mena and Nanna who is Mike’s mother. A local matchmaker Thomasheen Sean Rua decides that Sive should marry an old man called Sean Dota. Sean is rich but old and haggard. Thamasheen convinces Mike and Mena to organize the marriage of Sive to Sean Dota. They will receive a sum of two hundred pounds as soon as she marries him.

Sive however is in love with a young man by the name of Liam Scuab. Liam however is not suitable as he is related to the man who abandoned Sive’s mother when he realized that she was pregnant. Mike refuses permission for Liam to marry Sive on this account.

Sive is distraught but is forced to do the will of her uncle and his wife. Nanna does not approve and would prefer her to marry Liam. Two local tinkers by the name of Pats and his son Carthalawn connive together and decide to help her escape from Sean Dota and marry Liam. The plot fails however as Thomasheen discovers the letter and destroys it. On the night before her marriage Sive disappears and shortly afterwards her body is discovered in a bog hole. Liam finds the body and carries it in to the house announcing to Mena and her husband that they are responsible for her death. As Liam cries over the dead body Sean Dota and Thomasheen both leave the room. The play concludes with Pats and his son singing about a maiden who was drowned as she would not be a bride.

References

  1. ↑

External links

Template:John B. Keane

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