Come on Over
The one-act play consists of two overlapping monologues by Matthew, a former Jesuit priest, and Margaret, the woman from his village who became his lover.
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The one-act play consists of two overlapping monologues by Matthew, a former Jesuit priest, and Margaret, the woman from his village who became his lover.
On Christmas Eve, John, an employee at a Dublin funeral home, recounts how drinking damaged his life and family. His estranged adult daughter arrives to tell him that her mother is dying.
The setting is on the shores of Lake Superior in Duluth, in the winter of 1934 and America is in the grip of the Great Depression. The story is narrated by Dr. Walker, physician to the Laine family. Nick Laine is the proprietor of a rundown guesthouse. The bank is threatening to foreclose on the property and he is desperate to find a way to save his family from homelessness. His wife, Elizabeth, is suffering from a form of dementia which propels her from catatonic detachment to childlike, uninhibited outbursts which are becoming difficult to manage. Their children are Gene, who is in his early twenties, and their adopted daughter, Marianne, who is nineteen. Marianne is five months pregnant and the identity of the father is a mystery she guards carefully. Nick is trying to arrange a marriage between Marianne and a local shoe mender, Mr. Perry, in order to secure her future. The social awkwardness is complicated by the fact that Marianne is a black girl living with a white family. She was abandoned in the guesthouse as a baby and brought up by Nick and Elizabeth. Gene is unable to get a grip on his life, and veers between ambitions of becoming a writer and debilitating alcohol binges, a situation not helped when his sweetheart, Kate, announces she is marrying a man with better prospects. Nick has become involved in a relationship with a resident of the guest house, Mrs. Neilsen, a widow who is waiting for her late husband's will to clear probate. They dream of a better future when her money comes through, although she scolds Nick for his constant pessimism. Also staying at the house are a family, the Burkes. Mr. Burke lost his business in the crash. His wife, Laura, and his son, Elias, share a room upstairs. Elias has a learning disability and the family struggle to come to terms with their reduced state. Late at night, during a storm, a self-styled clergyman Bible salesman, Marlowe, and a down-on-his-luck boxer, Joe Scott, arrive looking for shelter. The arrival of these characters is a catalyst, changing everything for everyone in the house.
Three interwoven monologues portray Kevin, a boy leaving home for the first time; Dermot, a man who begins a job he is unqualified for after being chosen by mistake; and Joe, a widower pensioner who receives a mysterious package. Their stories turn on possibilities that might have happened but did not.
Widower John visits Ian, a therapist, claiming he has seen his dead wife in their home. Ian, a former priest struggling with lost faith, leaves his partner and child as both men try to understand their experiences and find another life.
In dystopian Panem, Katniss Everdeen competes in a televised battle royale. The adaptation adds original scenes and gives names to some characters unnamed in the source novel.
In a cluttered Dublin bedsit, fifty-something Tommy scrapes by with his friend Doc and his uncle Maurice. After Tommy rescues Aimee, a young sex worker, from a street beating, she stays in the house and forms tentative bonds with its men; her ex-boyfriend Kenneth soon arrives looking for her.
On Christmas Eve in Dublin, alcoholic Sharky tries to stay sober while caring for his blind brother Richard. A poker game with their visitors turns into a supernatural contest for Sharky’s soul against Mr Lockhart, a figure from Sharky’s past.
The play opens in a County Leitrim pub with Brendan, the publican, and Jack, a car mechanic and garage owner. These two begin to discuss their respective days and are soon joined by Jim. The three then discuss Valerie, a pretty young woman from Dublin who has just rented an old house in the area. Finbar, a businessman, arrives with Valerie, and the play revolves around reminiscences and banter. After a few drinks, the group begin telling stories with a supernatural slant, related to their own experience or those of others in the area, and which arise out of the popular preoccupations of Irish folklore: ghosts, fairies and mysterious happenings. After each man (except Brendan) has told a story, Valerie tells her own: the reason why she has left Dublin. Valerie's story is melancholy and undoubtedly true, with a ghostly twist which echoes the earlier tales, and shocks the men who become softer, kinder, and more real. There is the hint that the story may lead to salvation and, eventually, a happy ending for two of the characters. Finbar and Jim leave, and in the last part of the play, Jack's final monologue is a story of personal loss which, he comments, is at least not a ghostly tale but in some ways is nonetheless about a haunting. The building of a hydroelectric dam, or weir, on a local waterway many years before is mentioned early in the conversation.
Three young men in a small Irish town narrate their lives: bored schoolboy Joe seeks adventure, his brother Frank works in the family chip shop and devises a plan to solve their troubles, and their friend Ray, a university lecturer, dates their sister Carmel.
The one-act play consists of two overlapping monologues by Matthew, a former Jesuit priest, and Margaret, the woman from his village who became his lover.
On Christmas Eve, John, an employee at a Dublin funeral home, recounts how drinking damaged his life and family. His estranged adult daughter arrives to tell him that her mother is dying.
The setting is on the shores of Lake Superior in Duluth, in the winter of 1934 and America is in the grip of the Great Depression. The story is narrated by Dr. Walker, physician to the Laine family. Nick Laine is the proprietor of a rundown guesthouse. The bank is threatening to foreclose on the property and he is desperate to find a way to save his family from homelessness. His wife, Elizabeth, is suffering from a form of dementia which propels her from catatonic detachment to childlike, uninhibited outbursts which are becoming difficult to manage. Their children are Gene, who is in his early twenties, and their adopted daughter, Marianne, who is nineteen. Marianne is five months pregnant and the identity of the father is a mystery she guards carefully. Nick is trying to arrange a marriage between Marianne and a local shoe mender, Mr. Perry, in order to secure her future. The social awkwardness is complicated by the fact that Marianne is a black girl living with a white family. She was abandoned in the guesthouse as a baby and brought up by Nick and Elizabeth. Gene is unable to get a grip on his life, and veers between ambitions of becoming a writer and debilitating alcohol binges, a situation not helped when his sweetheart, Kate, announces she is marrying a man with better prospects. Nick has become involved in a relationship with a resident of the guest house, Mrs. Neilsen, a widow who is waiting for her late husband's will to clear probate. They dream of a better future when her money comes through, although she scolds Nick for his constant pessimism. Also staying at the house are a family, the Burkes. Mr. Burke lost his business in the crash. His wife, Laura, and his son, Elias, share a room upstairs. Elias has a learning disability and the family struggle to come to terms with their reduced state. Late at night, during a storm, a self-styled clergyman Bible salesman, Marlowe, and a down-on-his-luck boxer, Joe Scott, arrive looking for shelter. The arrival of these characters is a catalyst, changing everything for everyone in the house.
Three interwoven monologues portray Kevin, a boy leaving home for the first time; Dermot, a man who begins a job he is unqualified for after being chosen by mistake; and Joe, a widower pensioner who receives a mysterious package. Their stories turn on possibilities that might have happened but did not.
Widower John visits Ian, a therapist, claiming he has seen his dead wife in their home. Ian, a former priest struggling with lost faith, leaves his partner and child as both men try to understand their experiences and find another life.
In dystopian Panem, Katniss Everdeen competes in a televised battle royale. The adaptation adds original scenes and gives names to some characters unnamed in the source novel.
In a cluttered Dublin bedsit, fifty-something Tommy scrapes by with his friend Doc and his uncle Maurice. After Tommy rescues Aimee, a young sex worker, from a street beating, she stays in the house and forms tentative bonds with its men; her ex-boyfriend Kenneth soon arrives looking for her.
On Christmas Eve in Dublin, alcoholic Sharky tries to stay sober while caring for his blind brother Richard. A poker game with their visitors turns into a supernatural contest for Sharky’s soul against Mr Lockhart, a figure from Sharky’s past.
The play opens in a County Leitrim pub with Brendan, the publican, and Jack, a car mechanic and garage owner. These two begin to discuss their respective days and are soon joined by Jim. The three then discuss Valerie, a pretty young woman from Dublin who has just rented an old house in the area. Finbar, a businessman, arrives with Valerie, and the play revolves around reminiscences and banter. After a few drinks, the group begin telling stories with a supernatural slant, related to their own experience or those of others in the area, and which arise out of the popular preoccupations of Irish folklore: ghosts, fairies and mysterious happenings. After each man (except Brendan) has told a story, Valerie tells her own: the reason why she has left Dublin. Valerie's story is melancholy and undoubtedly true, with a ghostly twist which echoes the earlier tales, and shocks the men who become softer, kinder, and more real. There is the hint that the story may lead to salvation and, eventually, a happy ending for two of the characters. Finbar and Jim leave, and in the last part of the play, Jack's final monologue is a story of personal loss which, he comments, is at least not a ghostly tale but in some ways is nonetheless about a haunting. The building of a hydroelectric dam, or weir, on a local waterway many years before is mentioned early in the conversation.
Three young men in a small Irish town narrate their lives: bored schoolboy Joe seeks adventure, his brother Frank works in the family chip shop and devises a plan to solve their troubles, and their friend Ray, a university lecturer, dates their sister Carmel.