THE WALLS
'Stella What a to-do to die today-
Mary That’s it.
Stella -at a minute or two to two
A thing distinctly hard to say but harder still to do.
There’ll be a tattoo at twenty to two
With a ta-ta-ta-ta taroo
And a dragon will come and beat on his drum
At a minute or two to two today-
Stella & Mary At a minute or two to two.
(They laugh. Pause.)
Mary You did remember, after all.
Stella It all came back.
Mary Once you started.
Stella After all these years. The elocution.
Mary It’s so important.
Stella To speak clearly.
Mary The impression it makes.
Stella To make yourself understood.
Mary So important-
Stella To make yourself understood.
Mary To make the right impression.
Stella Yes.
Mary Were you ever on the stage?
Stella I beg your pardon.
Mary On the stage. Were you ever on the stage? With your accomplishments-
Stella No. I was never on a stage. No.
Mary I’m sure you would have been very good.'
The Walls, Act 2, Colin Teevan
Dublin. The night before Christmas and Mrs and Mrs Walls are preparing for the arrival of their son Joseph and his new bride, Mary, from London. "George Bernard Shaw wrote: ‘I have not yet found real homes except in very stupid families to whom a house is a world.’ The tragedy was when, as in his own family - or Stella’s in The Walls - intelligent people attempt to make a house their world. Shaw turned his own childhood tragedy into comedy but the comedy retained - as does Colin Teevan’s - sharp pathos of emotions and ambitions thwarted and lonely lives unfulfilled.
The Walls was premiered at the National Theatre, London as part of the Springboards season, 2001.
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'The Christmas gathering in The Walls is reminiscent of that in Joyce's Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man. the mother substitutes food for love and views any conversation bordering on reality as a sabotage on her careful construction of family life. . .In the new wave of Irish Lieterature and drama the settings have veeered from Listowel to Las Vegas but little has been written of middle-class Dublin, which is odd, as most of its best proponents come from this background. Colin Teevan's play marks a notable first and should act as a warning to consumer-driven Celtic Tiger Dublin of today which had exactly the same conditions of reckless spending and galloping inflation as the early seventies. the Walls is also perhaps, an elegy for an extinct institution - the home held together with food and manners - love locked away and kept for 'good'.. . .sharp pathos of emotions and ambitions thwarted and lonely lives unfulfilled.' Clare Boylan
To download the article 'De l'intime a l'utopie: The Walls, de Colin Teevan' by Alexandra Poulain of the Sorbonne, Paris, click here.
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 The Walls is published by Oberon Books. To order a copy click here.
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