Chapter 1: What is the significance of Samuel Beckett's adaptation of The Old Tune?
rte.ie forward slash drama on one.
Drama on One is offered as a podcast at rte.ie forward slash drama on one and of course here on RTE Radio 1 on Sunday nights. This year we celebrate the 120th anniversary of Samuel Beckett's birth. Our Beckett season is available online featuring radio versions of What?, a piece of monologue, All That Fall, and tonight's featured work, The Old Tune.
The work is introduced by Gerry Dukes, whose stage adaptation with Barry McGovern of Beckett's post-war trilogy of novels, I'll Go On, has played around the world. So, before we hear the play itself, Gerry introduces The Old Tune by Samuel Beckett, adapted from the radio play La Manivelle by Robert Pangey.
Interestingly, the old tune is not described as a translation. It's described as an adaptation of a play by Robert Pange, who was an acquaintance of Beckett's. In fact, I think he was a good friend. Pange had written a radio play called La Manivelle. The word in French means crank.
as in a crank that you would crank a bicycle with or it opens with a barrel organ and of course a barrel organ is driven mechanically by a crank turning the drum to make music. And what Beckett has done with it is to adapt the play for two old cranks, two elderly gentlemen who are committed to reminiscence and gossip. Pagé was a parallel to Beckett.
He was a French-speaking Swiss national who moved to Paris because the centre of culture was Paris. He was a novelist and a playwright. There is some suggestion that he gave Beckett some support during his struggles with translation from French into English and English into French. for some of the more difficult theatrical pieces in the late 50s, early 60s.
And Beckett was a promoter of Pange's work. Any American academic that came to you would always recommend Pange's work. So he brought Pange's French language work into English. but he played fast and loose with it, obviously with permission, because the two characters in that play, Cream and Gorman, they're both ex-servicemen. They've served in the First World War.
Survivors of the First War who were Irish weren't particularly welcome back in Ireland post-1916, and quite a few of them stayed on in Britain. Beckett had, memorably, he described two of his uncles on his father's side, I believe it was, who were survivors of the war and, quote, they shared one leg between them. So they were obviously both in the infantry.
And, of course, being in the infantry in the First World War was the deadliest place to be. Particularly if you happen to be in the place called Wipers or Ypres. or anywhere on the Western Front. And of course, that devastation, that world, there's a suppressed reference to Picardy in Endgame.
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Chapter 2: Who are the key figures involved in the creation of The Old Tune?
The two characters, Cream and Gorman, these elderly gentlemen, one of them is living with his daughter and he complains bitterly about the fact that she discourages him from smoking and steals his cigarette lighter and all that kind of carry on. He lives with her because he is a widower. The other character, his wife is still alive. She's still in it, as it's put.
In fact, the play is an extraordinary deployment of Hiberno-English, which, of course, is, in many respects, Beckett's native language. It's the English spoken in Ireland. And, of course, he in particular... Exposure to it, I would think. Now, I can't cite chapter and verse on this, but he grew up in a very comfortable suburban home with a father, a professional quantity surveyor.
Hence the rather magnificent house at Cooldriona in Fox Rock with a gardener. and a live-in nanny who was invariably a young woman from, let's call them the provinces, whose native language would have been Hiberno-English. So it's the language that he grew up with.
Chapter 3: How does Beckett's adaptation differ from the original play La Manivelle?
He was a gifted linguist. That gift also allowed him to deploy his Hiberno-English. And the two characters in the old tune are resident in Britain, but they haven't given up their language and they've maintained their accents. They both have faulty memories. If we look at a brief passage from near the close of the play, there's talk about a Miss Victoria. It's a name to conjure with.
Her initials are on some of the post boxes in Dublin still. V.R. And later post boxes have G.R. on them. And then they become P. Augustine. No recollection. Miss Victoria, come on now. She must have married an American and she's in the turrets yet. I thought they'd sold.
sell the tourists is it well they'll never sell the family seat three centuries and maybe more three centuries mr cream you might be their historiographer gorman to hear you talk what you don't know about those people histriographer no mr cream i wouldn't go as far as that but miss victoria right enough I know her through and through, and stop and have a gas, like when her aunt was still in it.
Ah, yes, nothing hoity-toity about Miss Victoria. You can take my word she is a great chip of the old block. Hadn't she a brother? The lieutenant, yes, died in 14 wounds. There you have it. It's conversational. It's deeply rooted in historical realities. It's in a language that we still speak in this country.
And Beckett has been a resident in France and speaking French for 50-odd years at this stage. Well, 40 anyway. And then what happens in the text? Deafening roar of engine. The bloody cars. Such a thing as a quiet chat, I ask you. I'll be slipping along now I'm holding you back from your work. Right. turning a barrel organ on the corner of a busy corner intersection on the street.
It's an adaptation, but it has been localised to a very specialised location, to the Irish diaspora in Britain that never quite fitted in fully and still doesn't as far as I know. So the old tune is a fascinating exercise from Beckett.
Gerry Duke's there and Gerry will be back next week to introduce a piece of monologue. Gerry was speaking to Kevin Brew and Tommy O'Sullivan was on sound. Next, we'll hear the old tune by Samuel Beckett, adapted from the radio play La Manivelle by Robert Pangey. The play is directed by Conall Morrison and stars Barry McGovern as Cream and Eamon Morrissey as Gorman.
Two old acquaintances trade memories, but they can't agree on any of the facts in a dimly remembered past. This is The Old Tune by Samuel Beggett.
There we go. Bust again. Cursed bloody music. Ah, about time.
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Chapter 4: How does the play reflect on the experiences of Irish ex-servicemen?
You remember? Peace and quiet. Do I remember? Fields it was. Fields. Bluebells over there on the bank. Bluebells. Oh, when you think...
So,
Ah, the horses, the carriages, and the barouches. Ah, the barouches. And all that's the dim, distant past, Mr. Cream.
And the brooms. Remember the brooms? They were style for you, the brooms.
The first car I remember, I saw it here. Here, on the corner.
A pick-pick she was. Not a pick-pick, Omen. Not a pick-pick. A dee-dying button. A pick-pick.
A pick-pick. Don't I remember it well? Just as I was coming out of Swan's, the bookseller's beyond there on the corner. Swan's, the bookseller that was. Just as I was coming out with a rise of fourpence. There wasn't much money in it in those days. I did dine. I did dine. You had to work for your living in those days. It wasn't at six you knocked off. No, not at seven either. Eight it was.
Eight o'clock. Yes, by God. Where was I? Ah, yes. Eight o'clock, as I was coming out of Swan's, there was the crowd gathered and the car wheeling round the bend.
I did dine, Gorman, I did dine. I can remember the man himself, from whom he was, the vintner. What's this his name was? Bush. Seymour Bush. Bush, that's the man.
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Chapter 5: What themes are explored through the characters Cream and Gorman?
Mr. Cream, always a great one for a crack.
Here, Gorman, while we're at it, have a fag. Here. The daughter must have whipped them again. Doesn't want me to be smoking, mind her own damn business. Ah, I have them. Here, have one. I wouldn't leave you short. Short? For God's sake. Here, have one. They're packed so tight, they won't come out. Take hold of the packet. Ah, what ails me, your bloody thumbs. Can you pick it up?
Here we are. Ah, yes. A nice puff now and again. But it's not what it was. Their gasp was now not worth a fiddler's. Remember in the forces, the shag. Remember the black shag.
That was tobacco for you. Ah, the black shag, my dear Garman, the black shag. Fit for royalty, the black shag. Fit for royalty. Have you a light on you?
Chapter 6: What linguistic elements are present in The Old Tune?
Well, then I haven't. The wife doesn't like me to be smoking.
Must have whipped my lighter too, the bitch. My old tender jizzer.
Ah, well, no matter. I'll keep it and have a draw later on. The bitch!
Sure as a gun, she must have whipped it too. That's gone beyond the beyonds, beyond the beyonds. Nothing you can call your own. Perhaps we might ask this gentleman... Beg your pardon, sir. Trouble you for a light?
Ah. The young nowadays, Mr. Cream. Very wrapped up they are, the young nowadays. No thought for the old. When you think... When you think... Where were we? Ah, yes. The forces. You went in in 1900. 1900. 1902, am I right? 1903. 1903.
And you, 1906, was it? 1906, yes. At Chatham. The Gunners. The Foot. The Foot. But the Foot wasn't Chatham, don't you remember? There it was, the Gunners. You must have been at Caterham. Caterham the foot. Chatham, I tell you. Isn't it like yesterday?
Morrison's pub on the corner. Harrison's?
Harrison's Oak Lounge. Do you think I don't know Chatham? I used to go there on holiday with Mrs. Cream. I know Chatham backwards, Gorman. Inside and out. Harrison's Oak Lounge on the corner of... What was the name of the street? On Ariser was. It'll come back to me. Do you think I don't know Harrison's Oak Lounge? There on the corner of... Damn it, I'll forget my own name next. And the Square.
It'll come back to me. Morrison or Harrison, we were at Chatham. That would surprise me greatly. The gunners were at Chatham. Do you not remember that? I was in the foot at Chatham. In the foot. The foot. That's right. The foot at Chatham.
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Chapter 7: How does nostalgia play a role in the characters' dialogue?
Have they children?
They? Children. Two doughty little boys. Little Johnny, I mean Hubert, and the other... the other...
But tell me, your daughter, poor soul, she was taken then, was she? That's sick arrest, Wilbur Assis. I might try this gentleman. I beg your pardon, sir. Trouble you for a light? Ah, the young are very wrapped up, Mr. Crane. Little Hubert and the other.
The other, what's this his name is? And Mrs. Gorman?
Still in it.
Ah, you're the lucky Jim, Gorman. You're the lucky Jim. Mrs. Gorman, by God. Fine figure of a woman, Mrs. Gorman. Fine, handsome woman.
Oh, handsome, all right. But, you know, age. We have our health, thanks be to God, touch wood. You know what it is, Mr. Cream. That'd be the way to pop off. Chatting away like this of a sunny morning.
None of that now, Gorman. Who's talking of popping off with the health you have as strong as an ox and a comfortable wife? Ah, I'd give ten years of mine to have her back. Do you hear me? Living with strangers isn't the same.
Miss Bertha's so sweet and good.
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Chapter 8: What are the concluding thoughts on the impact of The Old Tune?
You're on the pig's back, for God's sake.
On the pig's back. It's not the same. You can take it from me. Can't call your soul your own. Look at the cigarettes. The lighter. Miss Bertha. So sweet and good. Sweet and good, all right. But damn it if she doesn't take me for a doddering old driveling dotard. What did I do with those cigarettes?
And tell me, your poor dear daughter-in-law... What am I saying?
Your daughter-in-law... My daughter-in-law, my daughter-in-law. What about my daughter-in-law?
She had private means. It was said she had private means.
Private means, ah? They were the queer private means. All swallied up in the war every ha'penny, do you hear me? All in the bank, the private means. Not as much land as you tether a goat. Land, Gorman. There's no security like land. But that woman, you might as well have been talking to the bedpost. A mule she was, that woman was.
Ah, well, it's only human nature. You can't always pierce into the future.
Now, now, Gorman, don't be telling me. Land. Wouldn't you live all your life off a bit of land? Damn it, now, wouldn't you? Any fool knows that. Unless they take the fantasy to go and build on the moon the way they say. Ah, that's all fantasy, Gorman. You can take it from me. All fantasy and delusion. They'll smart for us one of these days. By God, they will.
You don't believe in the moon, what they're experimenting at.
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