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Richard Bean: Plays One
Includes the plays The Mentalists, Under the Whaleback and The God Botherers
"The Mentalists confirms Richard Bean as a writer of beguilling originality with a gift for both laugh-out-loud dialogue and a sympathetic understanding of the darker recesses of the human heart" - Charles Spencer, Daily Telegraph on The Mentalists
"An instant modern classic" - Kate Bassett, The Guardian on Under the Whaleback
"Richard Bean must have had a hell of a life" - Michael Billington, The Guardian on The God Botherers
"The Mentalists confirms Richard Bean as a writer of beguilling originality with a gift for both laugh-out-loud dialogue and a sympathetic understanding of the darker recesses of the human heart" - Charles Spencer, Daily Telegraph on The Mentalists
"An instant modern classic" - Kate Bassett, The Guardian on Under the Whaleback
"Richard Bean must have had a hell of a life" - Michael Billington, The Guardian on The God Botherers
200 pages, Paperback
First published April 1, 2006
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July 19, 2017
The Mentalists: This play focuses on the difficulties faced by two old friends to find their place in the world, and the very different strategies they use to cope with what seems to me a very modern isolation. On the one hand, Ted thinks he's found a utopic formula for a perfectly constructed society in behaviorist psychology, and he obsessively pursues that idea in the attempt to gather people and funds to set up a utopian colony. Morrie, on the other hand, largely lives through a web of fantasy, having largely made up the father he talks obsessively about, the mother he almost met, the many unique and interesting characters who peopled his former barber shop, and many of his multitudinous love affairs. One really interesting reversal of this play is that Ted initially seems to be the stable, bourgeois, slightly-conservative character that centers this play, but ultimately it is the flighty, fantasy-driven Morrie who becomes the reliable center.
Under the Whaleback: Much like The Mentalists, this play is about the challenges working class men can face in finding meaning, purpose, and orientation in the world. In particular, the dangerous world of Arctic circle fishing. The recurring character through the three acts is Darrel, who ages and becomes more experienced as the play goes on--beginning as a novice being trained by a legendary, though crazy, trawlerman, then becoming the old salt who manages to survive a cruise where most of his shipmates die, and finally as the aged curator of a museum dedicated to the fishermen and the fishing he had devoted his life to. Darrel is the steady center of the play, and around him others struggle to make sense of their place in the world. They try to find anchors--like family, friendship, work, etc.--but these all prove elusive, sometimes even deadly. This is the paradox of the play, that Darrel survives and remains stable not because he has family and some work, but incidentally. Darrel happens to be stable, but it isn't a feat that others in the play could replicate, could look to as a model for their own stability.
The God Botherers: This is the only one of the three plays in this collection which doesn't focus almost exclusively on men's sociability and the problems of working class men in finding their place in the world. However, this play does still deal with the struggle to fit into the world, this time in both a foreign country and in a world with a complex and contradictory set of religious values. The play basically focuses on a young woman who goes to the fictional African nation of Tambia (Tambekistan to the women), where she tries to help a group of local women entrepreneurs, navigate her way through a country that is both Muslim and animist (with a bit of Christianity thrown in), and figure out how to work with an older male colleague whom she doesn't completely trust. To me, one of the most interesting elements of the play is the continually shifting religious values in the play, most obviously embodied in Monday--a Tambian who works with the NGO workers--who is officially a Muslim, but had a vision of Jesus as a child and became a Christian (at least when he's drinking, which Islam prohibits), but he is Jewish due to a clerical error (and was poorly circumcised), and also he follows the local Poro religion. The terrain of religious faith is continually shifting, and the role that religion plays in the society seems more about what is convenient than about a stable and definite dogma.
Under the Whaleback: Much like The Mentalists, this play is about the challenges working class men can face in finding meaning, purpose, and orientation in the world. In particular, the dangerous world of Arctic circle fishing. The recurring character through the three acts is Darrel, who ages and becomes more experienced as the play goes on--beginning as a novice being trained by a legendary, though crazy, trawlerman, then becoming the old salt who manages to survive a cruise where most of his shipmates die, and finally as the aged curator of a museum dedicated to the fishermen and the fishing he had devoted his life to. Darrel is the steady center of the play, and around him others struggle to make sense of their place in the world. They try to find anchors--like family, friendship, work, etc.--but these all prove elusive, sometimes even deadly. This is the paradox of the play, that Darrel survives and remains stable not because he has family and some work, but incidentally. Darrel happens to be stable, but it isn't a feat that others in the play could replicate, could look to as a model for their own stability.
The God Botherers: This is the only one of the three plays in this collection which doesn't focus almost exclusively on men's sociability and the problems of working class men in finding their place in the world. However, this play does still deal with the struggle to fit into the world, this time in both a foreign country and in a world with a complex and contradictory set of religious values. The play basically focuses on a young woman who goes to the fictional African nation of Tambia (Tambekistan to the women), where she tries to help a group of local women entrepreneurs, navigate her way through a country that is both Muslim and animist (with a bit of Christianity thrown in), and figure out how to work with an older male colleague whom she doesn't completely trust. To me, one of the most interesting elements of the play is the continually shifting religious values in the play, most obviously embodied in Monday--a Tambian who works with the NGO workers--who is officially a Muslim, but had a vision of Jesus as a child and became a Christian (at least when he's drinking, which Islam prohibits), but he is Jewish due to a clerical error (and was poorly circumcised), and also he follows the local Poro religion. The terrain of religious faith is continually shifting, and the role that religion plays in the society seems more about what is convenient than about a stable and definite dogma.
Displaying 1 of 1 review