Silent + Forgotten

Title: Silent + Forgotten
Author: Kinevane, Pat
Price: $19.99

Silent is the touching and provocative story of homeless McGoldrig who once had splendid things. But he has lost it all - including his mind. He now dives into the wonderful wounds of his past through the romantic world of Rudolph Valentino. Silent has been described as 'a moving story, which, until its end, pulses with the erratic noise of life' (Irish Times), 'a must see if ever there was one' (The List), and as 'magnificent, remarkable' (Irish Independent).

By the same writer, Forgotten features the interconnecting stories of four elderly people living in retirement homes and care facilities around Ireland, who range in age from 80 to 100 years old. Both challengingly dark and startlingly hilarious, Forgotten is 'an unequivocally beautiful piece' (Scotsman), 'beautifully written and vivid' (New Yorker), conveying 'the secrets, the hidden past, of the aged, and the dignity often behind their quaint seemingly innocuous bearing' (New York Times).

Forgotten was produced by Fishamble: The New Play Company at over sixty Irish venues, in eight European countries, and in three US cities between 2007 and 2012. Silent was originally produced in 2011, also by Fishamble, winning the Scotsman Fringe First and the Herald Angel awards at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival, and the Argus Angel at the Brighton Festival 2012, as well as touring Ireland, Paris, Edinburgh, Los Angeles and New York.

'Kinevane has an extremely acute, innate and intuitive sense of comedy that enable him to tightrope across the gross and heartbreaking circumstances of life, in jest without sacrificing the poignant sadness of a given predicament' Irish Theatre Magazine

Pat Kinevane brings extravagant expressiveness to the role of Tino McGoldrick, a homeless drinker What in other hands might be relentlessly grim material is saved by Tino's mocking black humour. Keeping self-pity at bay, his wit skewers those around him. (on Silent) Helen Meany, Guardian

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Monologue:

Oh!! My brother Pearse named after Pdraig the freedom fighter. My brother Pearse, the faggot! That’s what they shouted after his heels every hour of his short Faggot life. He was soft and cried each day and ran to school and back so there would be less time for them to call him faggot. Faggot Mc Goldrig. I never called him that, I swear. No way law. But I let the others do it and when they did they chopped him to pieces . . . Every flawless inch of him murdered him with giggles and sneers I should have stood up, and stopped them But I remained shtumm.

He was . . . he was . . . he . . . (taking off his jacket) Imagine a gorgeous version of me. One year older, shorter nose and face, slanty eyes, curly jet-black locks and the lips of Marlon Brando cheekbones that would cut Waterford Crystal and the smile, as my Auntie Rita would say, the smile that would trump the smile of Jesus. All those things, the gorgeous version of me, all put together in the morgue the Bon Secours Sisters were brilliant at jigsaw corpses. Ye’d never think that he was scattered in chunks the day before . . . cos on the 7th May, 1987, Pearse, Pearse looked like a movie star from way back . . . Soundless, perfect and for the first time in his twenty years of battle, looked like a hero, yeah like Padraic, like a hero, coming home.

Hold on!!! If anyone asks, I’m not here at all, alright?

(Picks up the larger white bottle.) Hello and welcome to the Mental Health Hotline! If you are obsessive compulsive, press 1 repeatedly!! I love the Merlot! Oh, I wouldn’t be your normal bum. Oh no! This is what I call hobo chic! A screw-top Merlot! What would they say about that now in Montenotte, or the Rochestown road? I wouldn’t know anyways haven’t been down the Deep South in a decade ‘Had to get away from it!’ If they saw me now ‘Oh a screw top! I don’t know about that now at all!! You can’t beat the old Cork!’ Years ago a screw top was only for bushwine but these days, even the vintage ones have them. I keep them for a girl who makes funky jewellery on Cathal Brugha Street. Gretta, she’s German, and very purty. She gives me a few bob for collecting them around the place, as well as my own. She strings them all together right, on gold chains or silk threads with stones and old coins names her price and stupid rich bitches from Foxrock wear them to charity balls at the Radisson standing beside some celebrity from TV3 or RTE all spray tan and veneers, posin at Punchestown races with a huge fuckin ostrich feather stickin out of her botox forehead and round her neck . . . Foxrock Fanny wears the screw tops, vintage couture, photo on the back pages of Social and Personal magazine and delighted with herself that she is not now, nor ever will be, a hobo!! Oh oooo!

(Unpleasant thought approaching!!) Slinte!

Mam said he was a selfish fucker that he cared for no one but himself, that he took the easy way out, that he never once considered anyone else when he leapt in front of the quarter past five train from Cork to Cobh, that he wore her out from the age of four with his queerness, Crolly dolls instead of Action Men, tea-sets instead of Meccano then Boy George-itus, big white shirts with women’s brooches on the neck and the whole town laughin their holes off at him and when the Guard, Pisspot, told her the horrible news about his carcass all over the tracks on Fota Island where the Wildlife Park is and the animals roam free My ‘wonderful’ Mother landed Pisspot an uppercut right there in the throat told him go home and wash out his colostomy bag with Vim that he was a disgrace to the forces and he reekin with the bang of onions and urine! That was dark Friday, the 6th May, my brother in bits and the driver saw a Lemur run away with his breastbone!

Silent by Pat Kinevane is published in Silent and Forgotten by Bloomsbury Methuen Drama

Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing PLC
Publication date: 01/06/2012
Format: Paperback
ISBN: 9781408173275
Publishing status: OS Archived