An open national identity: Rutherford Mayne, Gerald MacNamara, and the plays of the Ulster Literary Theatre

Eire-Ireland:Journal of Irish Studies, Spring-Summer, 2004 by Karen Vandevelde

A play that satirizes political history and national identities needs to be funny in order to be appreciated by all sections of society. The advance publicity described Suzanne and the Sovereigns as an "extra vanganza" and the production coincided with the Christmas pantomime season. This encouraged the reception of MacNamara's play as a piece of harmless entertainment. The broadsheet handed out to the audience also positioned the play within the sphere of folklore drama and street ballad singers, away from the modernist "problem play" and serious social criticism. (40) A drawing of King William at the top of this broadsheet, rocking on a wooden hobby horse, might have caused some offense in loyalist circles. (41) Any tension, however, was instantly deflated when the audience read the rhyming couplets of the "Ballad of the Play" on the broadsheet:

   William Three. A hero-king,
   Brave and kind and good look-ing.

   James the Second. (For him see
   Note above on William Three.)

Before even a word of the play was heard, the Ulster Literary Theatre had already placed Suzanne and the Sovereigns in the sphere of banter. When the lights in the theater went down, the opening scene in the Stadhuis of Amsterdam confirmed these expectations. A love-struck court painter, Van Tootil, explains that he and King William are both infatuated with a mysterious woman whom they do not know, but when a deputation from Belfast arrives, the Dutchmen discover that this woman is Suzanne, the daughter of one of the delegates. Seventeenth and twentieth-century history are interspersed with the delegates' reference to the present state of unrest in Belfast:

   MASTER: Nothing but strikes.

   MCCANN: And riots.

   SIR JOSEPH: We, at the present time, have absolutely no reliable
   Reigning ruler. (28)

The farcical mood continues: King James bribes the starving Lundy with a sandwich in order to settle the Siege of Derry. Van Tootil, smoking a cigarette, scares Lundy to death because he is "full of gunpowder" (41). Lundy switches back to the Williamite forces with a burlesque-style Oath of Allegiance. The actual confrontation between the two kings at the Boyne River takes place off-stage, but a messenger brings the news to the White Horse Inn, near the battlefield. At this point, the accumulation of witty jokes and comic references reaches a climax: King William is announced as champion of the "game" with 304 points to 291 for King James:

   MCCANN: Well, you see, he [William] was to cross the river on a
   White horse and he didn't. It was a brown horse. He lost 15 points
   for that. The prayer brought him 27, and the fortunate escape 19,
   but then James was allowed 21 on that for being a good shot. Up till
   this James wasn't doing so bad at all, but the thing that killed him
   altogether was the running away. He lost 50 in the first place for
   running away at all, then 19 for exceeding the speed limit. But the
   road got that bad after a while that he couldn't go on. Then he lost
   15 more for trying to run away and not being able. (49)