Introduction: What’s Going on in Enda Walsh’s The New Electric Ballroom
Huh.
What?
Wait.
They just stay in that room all the time and tell a story? The same story over and over
again?
These were just some of my preliminary
reactions to reading Enda Walsh’s The
New Electric Ballroom. I was
discombobulated, confused, a little angry
(because I’m smart, how do I not get
what’s going on?) and creeped out. Why
are these women enacting this ritual? Why
are they telling the same story over and
over again? Why are they so mean to each
other? I had to do a lot of research to
understand the finer points of the play and
Ruth McCabe and Rosaleen Lineham in a Druid
Theater Production of the show.
now that I have, I can answer some of these
questions.
Walsh’s work provokes our sense of
“rightness” with the world. He says himself that he takes the familiar world, three sisters
having tea, and breaks it, cracks it, and folds it in on itself until it is something entirely
different, until the world as we know it doesn’t exist anymore.1 This almost exactly aligns
with the categorization of a work as “grotesque.” In uncovering this definition for Enda
Walsh, the world of his plays began to make a lot more sense to me. In an article on
Walsh, Ondrej Pilney outlines what exactly the category of “grotesque” means and then
applies it to the New Electric Ballroom. He quotes Wolfgang Kayser, the father of
grotesque, who says
The grotesque is — and is not — our own world. The ambiguous way in which we
are affected by it results from an awareness that the familiar and apparently
harmonious world is alienated under the impact of abysmal forces, which break it
up and shatter it’s coherence.2
This definition aligns with the way Walsh described his work as “shattering” and
breaking the normal world. Pilney goes on to quote Kayser saying “the grotesque ‘is a
mixture of heterogeneous elements, confusion, fantastic quality…alienation of the
2
Wolfgang Kayser qtd in O.Pilney
world…and the insecurity, the terror inspired by the disintegration of the world.’”3 So I
was supposed to be confused? This is how the audience is supposed to feel after they
leave the world of the play? Enda’s work fits almost exactly within this categorization
and because of this definition I began to see the purpose behind the confusion, the
madness, and the gross out moments of the show.
These elements are quite clear throughout the play as the women inhabit a
fantastical world of their own creation, that of re-enacting a traumatic day in the past. But
why do we have to be grossed out? Why is this world so hostile? The grotesque works to
break down our expectations of what is and isn’t “normal.” Watching these women force
each other into telling this story, we see how fantasy and reality don’t matter here. They
are one in the same for these women and quickly become blurred for the audience as
well. We go into the play expecting to see just that; a play as we have come to expect
them. Instead, what we find is a world of alienation, a world where things are gross, and
the words of sisters are cutting and harsh.
Through an alienating and confusing theatrical experience we leave convention
and societal normalcy outside the theater and we enter a new world. A world where
questions of identity can be explored and play out before our eyes. This fantastical play
space allows us to question the basic foundations of our identities. The re-telling of a
trauma is not as abnormal as we would like to think even as we watch these women
replay their past. I know that when I lay down to go to sleep at night the most traumatic
or embarrassing moments from my past play out in my mind until I realize what I’m
doing and try and think of nicer things. Why do we do this? Why are these the memories
that spring up when we close our eyes? Through the explosion of the normal world, the
play grapples with these questions. The grotesque elements shake us out of our
complacency and open a theatrical space to question how we understand ourselves.
How do narratives and stories define our identities? Is this a valid way of
understanding selfhood or is it inherently harmful? How do we incorporate the opinions
and words of others into our self-narratives and why does that matter? Through an
understanding of the grotesque we can glean some answers to these questions. But…I
won’t answer them here. Instead, I will leave you with an understanding of the grotesque
and its purpose in disrupting our complacency and exploding the peace generally attained
from seeing our world reflected back to us onstage. This is not a peaceful tale. When
viewing the work of Enda Walsh, lean into the crazy. Lean into the gross, the fantasy, the
storytelling, and the shattering of theater-going expectations and accept the obliteration of
normalcy. In this you will find answers to the questions raised here. In this your
confusion will give rise to a beautiful clarity and understanding of purpose.
I hope you enjoy the show.
3
Pilney, Ondrej. “The Grotesque in the Plays of Enda Walsh.” Irish Studies Review, 2013.
Interview with Director Robert Walsh
During rehearsal, I got to
sit down with Bob Walsh
and ask him some
questions about The New
Electric Ballroom. Bob is
the interim Artistic
Director at Gloucester
Stage and will also be in
the upcoming production
of Israel Horowitz’s
Gloucester Blue in September. Watching Bob sensitively navigate the stormy waters of
this text and bring it to life as beautifully as he has, has been one of the best learning
opportunities for me as an apprentice at Gloucester Stage. Bob has an innate ability to see
to the heart of things, explore moments as many ways as possible, and flow and ebb with
the actors to find the truth and humanity that makes this show so powerful.
Why The New Electric Ballroom? What drew you to this work?
What drew me was the impact it had on me when I saw it at Saint Ann’s Warehouse in
Brooklyn in 2009. It felt like I got hit by a ton of bricks. It’s the kind of theater that, you
know, you’re laughing, crying, questioning, talking about…a play that creates that kind
of response is a lot of fun.
The other piece that draws me to it, is being Irish I don’t get to do a lot of Irish plays so
there’s that bit that’s hugely fun. But I also think that he’s a fascinating writer, with a
voice that’s fairly new, he’s got some different energies, he has resonances of Samuel
Beckett, and I think that he loves treating themes by attacking them with words. So it’s a
different kind of theater, a different brand of theater, which I think the audience will
recognize. But I don’t think it’s so far out that it’s not accessible.
What do you most identify with in the show or what is your “way in”?
I love in particular, that one of his principle themes is love, real love, what is it, and of
course how we build up so many expectations with it, but it’s love in connection, in
concert with taking a risk. The play’s very much about the space that we can be in where
we’re in a pattern or a groove, that thing that feels comfortable, and the tricky bit is how
do we find, I suppose, the impetus to take a risk that still begs something of us deep
down, and it’s scary. What’s true about us as humans is that the older we get the less
likely we are to be willing to change, to shift, and make an adjustment. There have been a
couple of points for me where I could go really go do something and shake it up, but I
haven’t.
I also find as a person artistically that I want to take more risks. It might be the sheer
factor of testing oneself or not wanting to do the same old thing. So, I respond to that but
am also empathetic to that thing that gets in the way. If things are working, you’re more
likely to be risk adverse, so what’s that like, and what’s the cost? You know, the devil
you know sort of affair.
Have there been any particularly challenging moments with this play?
Because the play is a fairly balanced blend of seemingly naturalistic behavior and
language along with completely surrealistic behavior and language, the actor and
director’s work and impulse is inclined to, is drawn to, our muscle tone is to sort things
out and have them all make sense. So the piece that is unique with this, is those events for
the playwright where it doesn’t matter that they make sense. He’s not interested in it
making sense except on a potentially emotional level. So yeah, there are those moments
where things get said or done that aren’t grounded in, why is this happening, or what’s
the cause and effect here. He isn’t interested in providing that. He likes us to be a bit on
edge. I think he also enjoys making the audience work. It’s not a play that washes over
you. You don’t just sit back and take it in. You need to lean forward with this play. It’s a
lean in kind of play.
And I think that there is a great history of writers that try to hit us on a gut level and I
think that’s the space that he enjoys and loves. So that just makes it a bit tricky for us to
assemble those things and have a prevailing logic and on another level also be
comfortable with not being able to influence this moment other then playing it as it’s
suggested. So you have to free your mind in a way, to go, you know, this prevailing logic
that I want to apply to this that is not going to work here. But I think that’s what fun and
it's theatrical.
What are you excited for the audience to see or take away from the show?
Well in addition to being introduced to one of Ireland’s top playwrights right now that we
might not otherwise have known about, I’m interested for them to go into that space of
just thinking about it. How words are used as weapons in the play. And we all do it,
we’re human. We label people. And in this case these women have been so labeled that
they have become recluses and retreated to a safe haven. And my take is that the audience
might go, wow, when has that happened to me? When have I been wounded? When have
I wounded?
There’s also the notion of real love, or what is real love for everybody versus what is the
love that is marketed which would be evidenced by the Roller Royale. Popular culture
would tell us that there is a way that it is supposed to be and those ideas become inflated
and consequently very disappointing because we don’t all lead Rock n’ Roll lives. We’re
not all on the cover of people magazine so that sort of, Shangri la of relationships. Which
of course doesn’t exist for anybody because relationships are unique and interesting and
not easy. I think it’s what is love for people? And that other space of thinking about wow,
am I set in my ways or do I look for opportunities to take risks, and where I might
surprise myself, take a risk, succeed, and feel empowered? One of my favorite
Shakespeare quotes is “Our doubt are traitors and make us lose the good we oft might
win, by fearing to attempt.” So it’s that fearing to attempt bit, our doubts are traitors that
foil us by scaring us to walk into something that’s actually better for us.
Insights with the Dramaturge
I think The New Electric Ballroom is a story of hope.
Of dealing with trauma and the narratives that we tell ourselves over and over again in
order to understand and categorize our experiences and the world around us. The women in New
Electric Ballroom are shut-ins who have been mocked and shunned by their small village. They
obsessively engage in the retelling of a traumatic event over and over again, day after day.
I understand these women more then I wish I did. I understand isolation, turning in in the
face of a traumatic event, and the subsequent social fallout of that event. Instead of a romantic
entanglement and scandal, for my family, we turned in after my dad passed away. He was our
light and our joy and losing him “narrowed” our world. He had AIDS and died in 1998. This was
a time when little was known about the disease. The gossip in the show, that of a small fishing
village in Ireland, looks a lot to me like the whispers that swirled around us in 90’s suburban
California. In the words of Breda, “By their nature, people are talkers.” No one else in my family
has HIV, we are all healthy, we were healthy then, and are healthy now. But the people who
were our friends talked. They gossiped and they made assumptions about us and turned away
from us when they found out about my dad. Even after he passed, we weren’t invited to the
potlucks or pool parties, people were too scared even to hug us, and so we shunned them like
they shunned us. We turned in and we survived. We were safe. At home, my world made sense. I
wasn’t the different diseased little girl with no dad, I was just me.
And, like Ada, I found it was hard to leave. I had
separation anxiety for far too long. I was glued to my mom’s
side at any function. Birthday parties were agony. Sleepovers;
hell. And so, I understand the women in this show. I can
understand how trauma and gossip could easily lead to an
insular life. Looking back, I tell myself stories of this time.
Things that I remember, things that my mom remembers, things
that my brothers tell me, all mash up into a certain narrative that
plays out in my head and in this story I know my place. My
world is ordered. That’s all memories are; stories that we repeat
and tell ourselves over and over. The power that these women
are missing is the power to re-write them. To hear your own
story and change it. Ada, Breda, and Clara won’t let each other
change the story, change the past, and so they can’t leave it
My Dad and I.
behind. For me, writing my own story lets me leave it on the page and move
forward. I can be in the world now. I am not as broken as I once was. But in
the “further recesses of the mind” as Breda puts it, the deepest darkest parts of my psyche, the
story’s still there. It hits me when I least expect it. A “lull in the conversation” or pace of my life
lets it sneak back in. And so, I connect with these women. Their need to tell the story, their need
to keep talking to keep the ghosts at bay; I understand them. I feel a kinship towards them.
And so I hope.
I hope that, like me, one day they won’t be so broken.
I hope that one day, things for them will change.
Killybegs
Killybegs, located in the County
Donegal, is a small fishing village in
Ireland. While the play doesn’t specify the
sister’s exact town, Killybegs is a small
and isolated fishing village located on the
northwest coast of Ireland, much like the
one the women describe. Killybegs is the
fishing capital of Ireland with people
making their living from the sea for
generations, much like Ada and Patsy do in
the show. The feeling of isolation and
entrapment would make sense in a place
like Killybegs as the population is only
1,297. The characters in the play are
marked by gossip and Patsy brings them
news of the goings on about town. This is
likely would probably happen in a town like Killybegs since it’s a small community
located far from any neighboring towns.
Enda Walsh
“It excites me to think about characters that live
their lives in physical or mental extremes and that
have developed into these near-monsters. I do
believe in the human spirit. But we’re all accidents
away from falling apart.”4
Irish playwright, Enda Walsh, has mastered the art of
creating a play space in which to understand the
catalysts for madness or as he calls it “mental
extremes.” In an interview he said that it is his job as a
playwright to make the audience identify with
characters they don’t want to feel sympathetic towards.
That is very clear in his work, The New Electric
Ballroom, as Breda and Clara work to keep Ada in their deranged game of reenacting past
trauma. All three characters become “near monsters” but as an audience we feel both haunted
and moved by their story and their insular, repetitive lives. The repetition in this play is inspired
by Walsh’s own bouts with Obsessive Compulsive Disorder. He too had a routine that kept him
grounded in reality, whether it was taking the same route to a cafe everyday or drinking a glass
of water at precisely the same time, the repetition staved off the panic attacks that came when he
deviated from these rituals. Of this time Walsh said, “If I’d fallen out of that pattern, I would
have fallen off the edge of the world, it seemed — like everything would just be fucking chaos.
That’s had a big influence on The Walworth Farce and The New Electric Ballroom and probably
all my plays since then. They’re all about routine and pattern and trying to recreate worlds or
break free of these worlds.”5
4
Small Rooms Full of Words. Christopher Wallenberg. Theatre Communications
Group.http://www.tcg.org/publications/at/mar10/walsh.cfm
5
Wallenberg, Christopher.
Walsh has no formal training as a playwright but attended school where he was taught by Roddy
Doyle and Paul Mercier. After he graduated and moved to Cork, he fell in with a group of young
artists who he says didn’t know if they wanted to be a band or make theater. Eventually, the
group began to put on small improvised works with Walsh as the designated writer. With this
group he wrote his first plays, the most successful of that time being his debut Disco Pigs in
1996. With the popularity of this show, Walsh became one of Ireland’s most refreshing new
voices in theater. He has since talked about the unconscious influence that traditional Irish work
has had on his plays. Walsh takes these themes, like that of familial relations, and shifts them
into worlds that break and shatter and transform into something completely new. Walsh is a
prolific writer with his plays debuting to much praise and acclaim. Disco Pigs was adapted into a
screenplay starring Cillian Murphy, The Walworth Farce (often said to be a companion piece to
The New Electric Ballroom starring an all-male cast instead of all female) debuted at the Druid
theater in 2006, and he wrote the screenplay for the Cannes Film Festival prize winner Hunger
which stars Michael Fassbender and Bobby Sands. Walsh is also well known for writing the
book for the musical, Once, which has won numerous awards, including eight Tony awards, a
Grammy, and two Laurence Olivier Awards.
For all the tumult and monstrousness in his work, Enda lives a relatively quiet life in London
with his wife and young daughter. Those who work closely with Walsh have said that “as a
person, he is modest and quite shy…you’d never pick him out in a room as the writer of such
fucked-up worlds.” In interviews, he sits calmly until he starts talking about his work with his
manner growing in pace until a rapid fire stream of expletives mixed with dramatic insight start
flowing through his conversation. Of himself as a writer he says “I feel pretty inadequate…I
don’t think I’m getting there yet. So the pieces tend to be really anxious. Like sometimes I feel
the writing isn’t good enough. Not that it’s not successful enough. I don’t care about that. But
maybe it’s just not true enough or real enough or imagined perfectly enough…” but of his
writing he says “If I didn’t have it, I’d be a like a fucking puddle on the ground.”6
“Can we not have a cup of tea?”
“Will I not have some tea to wash down this
biscuit, Ada?”
“A cup of tea, a cup of tea will sort me out.”
“Where’s me tea?”
“Aren’t we ever going to have tea again?”
“No chance of a cup of tea?”
“Will we have a cup of tea and some of that
nice cake you made, Breda?”
The women in this play are obsessed with tea. Asking for it, denying it from each other
and from guests, offering to make it, wondering about it, the list is immense. The idea of
tea cannot be ignored. Why do these women want tea so badly? Derry Woodhouse who
plays Patsy in the show, told us that tea makes everything better. As a native Irishman, he
recalled that anywhere you went, any home you visited you’d be offered a cup of tea. If
you had a bad day? Tea. If you got a bad grade? Tea. If you were celebrating a birthday?
Tea. The list went on and on. Tea is the answer to any problem. Tea is home. Tea is
comfort. Tea is safety. And tea is serious. Ireland is the largest tea consumer per capita
than any country in the world. Tea is taken three times a day; 11:00 in the morning, 3:005:00 in the afternoon, and a high tea at 6:00pm serving as the evening meal. A “tea
break” in the working world is uniformly understood to mean a break in the workday
whether or not tea is actually consumed. The
women also won’t stop talking about the “sponge”
or the “coffee cake” to go with their tea. This cake
is also a potent symbol throughout the play and
refers to a traditional Irish sponge cake filled with a
6
Enda Walsh Qtd in Christopher Wallenberg.
layer of jam and custard and dusted with powdered sugar.
Once I better understood the
connotations surrounding tea and cake
in Ireland, the desperate longing for tea
became clearer to me. The women
don’t just want a hot warm beverage
and a snack, they are begging for
comfort, for home, for something to
make everything alright. Tea is offered
by mothers to soothe their children and
the connection to safety, family, and
home that tea and cake represent are
what the women beg for and deny each
other. They do not give their only
visitor a cup of tea, even when he asks,
implying that he is not an official,
welcomed guest. Today, in the world
of the play, no one is having any tea,
and we must watch what happens when
love, safety, warmth, and comfort are
denied. We are left to hope that soon
Clara, Breda, and Ada will finally have
that cup of tea.
‘No Man is an Island’
“No man is an island entire of itself; every man
is a piece of the continent, a part of the main;
if a clod be washed away by the sea, Europe
is the less, as well as if a promontory were, as
well as any manner of thy friends or of thine
own were; any man's death diminishes me,
because I am involved in mankind.
And therefore never send to know for whom
the bell tolls; it tolls for thee.”
—John Donne, Devotions upon Emergent Occasions, 1624
“We don’t want to be alone but we’re alone. We
don’t want to be an island but we are that island”
says Breda at the start of the show. Both the
original poem quoted above and Breda’s speech
are entitled ‘No man is an island.’ The sentiment in
both could not be more disparate. The irony is clear
in the appropriation of Donne’s title for a speech
declaring that even though we have a compulsion
and a need to speak, to connect with others, that we
are ultimately all alone, in a cruel and “created”
world. It is the opposite of what Donne is saying in
his work. The poem quoted above is an excerpt
from the original writing entitled, Devotions upon
Emergent Occasions, in which Donne
John Donne, aged about 42. Poet,
contemplates his recent illness, death, and his
Priest, Lawyer.
relationship and connectedness to God and through
God, mankind. He says that any death diminishes him because he is a part of a
whole. Breda, Clara, and Ada would vehemently disagree. There’s is a story of
loneliness, of the pointlessness of forging connections to “mother,” “father,”
“brothers and sisters,” and so on. Trying to rationalize the use of the same title for
both pieces is difficult. The irony employed here emphasizes the meaning of the
speech. Donne’s poem represents the common viewpoint, the opinion of religion,
of a community, while the sisters in the play are violently individual and avoid
healthy relationships even with each other. Walsh nods to a wider literary canon,
to a traditional mode of thinking, and completely subverts it, both in style and in
content. We are alone even when we are together. The women know it and the
audience feels it. By the end of the play we are challenged to rethink our
perception as the play asks, is no man an island or are we that island?
What’s an Irish Ballroom?
During the mid 1950’s all the way
through the 80’s, Irish ballrooms and
dance halls dotted the country. These
venues were built for dancing and often
included a few bathrooms, a cloak room,
and a mineral bar (mineral is the Irish
equivalent of soda). Both Breda and
Clara remember riding their bikes to a
neighboring town in order to go to the
“New Electric Ballroom.” This would
have been a common occurrence as many
halls were often built in less occupied
areas or further out of town and would draw patrons from villages miles away. Most of these
ballrooms stayed in business and were very popular
for a good ten or twenty years.
The ballrooms were sparsely furnished, as to leave
room for dancing. It is said that most of these halls
were more reminiscent of a shed than an
entertainment facility. Seating was limited to a row of
benches around the perimeter of the dance floor.
Some included an upstairs balcony but most were
packed with men and women dancing to live music
on the one floor.
There was no hard liquor allowed inside the
ballrooms. The strongest drink served was
either a Mineral or a lemonade. This was
what eventually did the ballroom in as hotels
started getting in on the dancing craze and
could sell Guinness and hard liquor until 2am
along with food (often chicken and chips).
Hotels generally had nicer amenities then the
ballrooms and caused ballrooms to shut down
A common ballroom of the 1950’s.
across the country.
Irish Showbands
The concept of the Irish showband is an
exciting and titillating one for the women in
the play. Looking through pictures of 1950’s
heartthrobs made it easy to see why young
women were drawn to these boys and why
men in the audience wanted to be them. Their
slicked back greaser style hair, chiseled jaws,
and sultry confidence had me giddy and
wishing for the return of “ballroom” culture
50 years after these fades have come and
gone. Showbands, which were popular during
the 1950’s and 60’s, exuded sex and rebellion
in a time when the distinction of a “teenage”
population was taking shape. For the first
time in European history there was a separation between adults and teenagers. New youth cults
like the “Teddy Boys,” who wore tight fitting suits or black leather and denim jeans, sprang up
throughout Europe. These groups were greatly influenced by American rock idols, like Elvis
Presley, Bill Hayley, and Jerry Lee Lewis. These trends worked their way into the music scene in
Ireland at the time and were reflected in the aesthetic of the traveling showband which was
extremely similar to “Teddy Boys.” For instance, band members often wore tight clothing and
would jump around onstage as lead singers wildly gyrated like American rock sensations of the
50’s.
In the play, both Breda and Clara are taken in by
the mysterious and dreamy “Roller Royale” a
fictitious amalgamation of real show band lead
singers at the time. This figure is most likely based
on Brendan Bowyer, Billy Fury, and similar front
men for real traveling show bands. Brendan
Bowyer was the front man for the extremely
popular Irish group the Royal Showband which
has been said to be the most popular traveling
band in Irish history. Coming from a musical
background, it wasn’t long before Brendan
Bowyer’s talents took center stage and he became Brendan Bowyer quickly became the front man for the
Royal Showband.
the official front man of the band. Bowyer’s single “Kiss me
quick” won the band national acclaim and put Bowyer on the
map as a major heartthrob of the late 50’s and early 60’s. His
look and his place in Irish history make him a logical inspiration
for the Roller Royale, as the name Royale is clearly inspired by
Bowyer’s band as is his swagger and way with women.
Billy Fury
In the play, Clara remembers being soothed by the Roller
Royale’s hit single “Wondrous Place” as she nervously makes
her way into the ballroom. While the Roller Royal is fictional,
the song “Wondrous Place” is a very real hit by Billy Fury. Fury
was a popular singer/songwriter in the late 50’s and early 60’s
who had almost as many popular songs in the UK as the Beatles.
Pictured to the left, Billy Fury fits the description of the Roller
Royal as a dreamy front man who exuded sex and spoke to the
generation of Europe’s Teddy Boys.
Canneries
Women often comprised the majority of
cannery workers in both America and
Europe due to the seasonal nature of the
work. During the late 1880’s women
competed with Asian men in California
for these temporary jobs and eventually
won these positions because of the
passage of the Asian Exclusion Act and
the fact that women could be paid less
than men. With wages about equal to
what could be made in domestic service
and farm labor, jobs in canneries were
seen as a step up in status. Married
women also preferred seasonal to year
around work in canneries because of the
7
double-day responsibilities of home and wage work. While most women worked on the line
crews preparing the food for canning, some women did hold jobs like Ada’s in the offices
turning “fish into money” as she says. Three percent of female employees in canneries held
positions that required experience of one year or more, and some of these positions involved
supervising other female line personnel.
There is only one fish cannery in Ireland. It is located in county Donegal, near the fishing village
Killybegs. The company, Irish Fish Canners, was founded in 1977 and was purchased by a local
entrepreneur, Michael J. Bonner in 1988. On the company’s website, they state that Michael’s
vision for the business was to “provide sustainable jobs within the local community by utilizing
what nature provided, premium quality canned fish from the sustainable cold clear waters of the
North Atlantic Ocean.” What the website omits, however, is the health risks to it’s employee’s
that come from the process of canning fish. In the play, Patsy says that Nana Carter’s “hearing is
shot from years of working in the cannery” which is a real problem for cannery employees. A
study of the workplace hazards for fish processing workers states that due to excessive noise
levels, low temperatures, and bacterial and parasitic infections often result in occupational
diseases such as “frostbite, noise induced hearing loss, skin infection and sepsis, allergic
respiratory diseases…and stress related health problems.”8
7
8
Cannery Women, Cannery Lives. Vicki Ruiz.
http://oem.bmj.com/content/61/5/471.full
Fishmongers
A Fishmonger is someone who sells raw fish and seafood. Fishmongers can be
wholesalers or retailers, and are trained at selecting and purchasing, handling,
gutting, boning, filleting, displaying, merchandising and selling their product.
Today, many fishmongers are being absorbed into the fish sections of
supermarkets. In The New Electric Ballroom, Patsy travels door to door to sell his
fish, interrupting the woman’s ritualistic storytelling. This is an antiquated practice
but in a small town in Ireland it makes sense that old practices like this would
remain in use.
Glossary
Biscuit — The term in Ireland and the UK
refers to what we think of as a cookie.
However, they are generally small, hard,
dry, and dunked in tea. They can be
covered in chocolate and the term also refers to sandwich biscuits which are
two hard round cookies with jam or cream in the middle. Digestives are a popular type of biscuit
to be eaten with or dunked in tea.
Crisps — Potato chips. In Ireland one of the most popular brands of potato chips are called
“Tayto’s.”
Custard Cream — A popular kind of biscuit (cookie) in Ireland. Its structure is that of a
sandwich, with a creamy, custard-flavored center between two flat cookie layers.
The Hucklebuck — A popular dance in Ireland during the 1950’s-60’s. With their hit song, The
Hucklebuck, Brendan Bowyer and the Royal Showband made the dance extremely popular in
Ballrooms across the country.
Jelly — In Ireland, what we think of as Jello desserts are called “Jelly’s.” They are made in a
ring shaped mold and come in a variety of flavors.
Malibu — Is flavored rum-based liquor made with natural coconut extract. It has an alcohol
content of 42 proof. There are five standard Malibu flavors: tropical banana, pineapple, passion
fruit, island melon, and mango. However, there are twelve Malibu Rum variations in the
worldwide market.
Mineral/ Mineral Orange — A soda or an orange soda. Mineral refers to a soft drink in Ireland
as does “fizzy drink.”
Pensioner — Refers to someone eligible for an “Old Age Pension” in Ireland. The Old Age
Pension is available at the age of 66 and gives an individual benefits, a free phone, and free train
travel. In Ireland, when people live to be one hundred years old they get the “Centenarian
Bounty” which pays €2,540 and is accompanied by a signed letter of congratulations from the
President.
Quiff — Popular hairstyle in the 1950’s-60’s in which men would sweep the hair up at the top of
their forehead and then comb it back.
“Roller” Royale — In the play, this name refers to the front man of
a popular Irish showband. However, the term “roller” is slang for
slut or tramp. There is also a blue, crow sized bird called a Roller. It
is indigenous to some European regions but predominantly lives in
Africa.
Saturday Fry — Also known as a “Full Irish
Breakfast.” It consists of a fried egg, black pudding
(blood sausage), a fried half of a tomato, white sausage
(pork, spices, oatmeal), cut and sautéed mushrooms,
thick cut Irish bacon, toast, and sometimes a small slice
of fried bread or potato. This meal is eaten either
weekend mornings or is often eaten Saturday or
Sunday night as the name “Saturday Fry” implies.
Scampi — Irish Scampi does not refer to an Italian pasta dish, like
we commonly think in America. In Ireland, it refers to a fried
shrimp dish usually served with chips (french fries) and tartar sauce.
It is generally always prepared with Langoustine, often referred to
as “Dublin Prawns,” which are the size of a small crayfish and
fished from the silty bottom regions of the Atlantic or
Mediterranean.
Sermon at the Mount — Patsy references the longest piece of teaching from Jesus in the New
Testament to explain how old Mags family surrounded her in the pub. This is probably because
this is the most widely quoted of the canonical gospels. He is also conjuring the image of Jesus
preaching with his disciples surrounding him and hanging off his every word. He also references
the “loaves and fishes” which in the sermon Jesus multiplies to feed the multitudes of people
gathered before him.
Sponge Cake —A very light, porous cake. It is usually filled
with a layer of cream or jam or both. It is dusted with powder
sugar and is often eaten at tea time. It can also be called a
“coffee cake” as seen in the play. The characters refer to the cake as both a “sponge” and “coffee
cake.”
Tarmacadam — Tarmac, Black top, or Asphalt. In America, we generally refer to these
surfaces as asphalt but the actual substance that asphalt is made out of is tarmacadam. This term
stands for the process of stabilizing macadam surfaces with tar.