Sive is a tragedy by John B Keane from 1959. The play is set in rural Kerry, and concerns the orphan Sive and the machinations of her aunt and the local matchmaker to marry her off to an elderly farmer for a gift of £200.
Keane pitched the play to the Abbey Theatre and they turned it down, so he produced it himself in Listowel. It was such a success that the Abbey came back and offered to produce it after all.
Tropes:
- Arranged Marriage: Thomasheen Seán Rua arranges a match between Sive and the elderly farmer Seán Dóta.
- Batman Gambit: Nanna knows she can't pass Liam's letter to Sive without Mena or Thomasheen seeing, so she tells her son Mike it is merely a goodbye letter from Liam and trusts that Mike's fondness for Sive and guilt over the marriage will compel him to give it to her.
- Bilingual Bonus: Although the characters speak English, it's still peppered with Irish words.
- Crapsack World: Rural Kerry in the mid-Fifties is not an easy place to live, full of small farmers eking out a precarious living from poor land.
- Creator Cameo: Keane himself played Carthalawn in the original production.
- Dirty Old Man: Pats Bocock's judgment of Seán Dóta is that he's an old man who only craves a young woman's body and cares not at all for Sive as a person.
- Dowry Dilemma: The reason Mena and Mike agree to the match is because they can't afford a decent dowry for Sive, and Seán Dóta not only doesn't want a dowry, he's willing to gift them £200 to marry her.
- Establishing Character Moment: Seán Dóta is introduced impugning the trade of poets, then reciting a terrible bit of doggerel in a pathetic attempt to impress Sive.
- Flowery Insults: Multiple characters. Thomasheen has the spectacular "It comes to me that you're the biggest lump of a fool of an eejit of a dul amú in the seven parishes! You shouldn't be trusted with a quenched match!", for instance. Carthalawn's only lines are his songs, most of which are elaborate insulting curses.
- Greek Chorus: The Travellers Pats Bocock and Carthalawn are outsiders to the situation and give the outsider's perspective that the marriage is only a cynical sale of a young woman to a Dirty Old Man.
- Homage: Just like Romeo and Juliet, Sive never receives the letter telling her of the plan to elope with Liam, and so ends up committing suicide in despair.
- The Ingenue: Sive, through and through.
- Meaningful Name: Pats Bocock's name isn't a surname. Bacach is an Irish word that can mean both "lame" and "beggar", of which Pats is the former (and frequently accused of being the latter.)
- Obnoxious In-Laws: Mena and Nanna despise each other. Nanna tries to protect Sive, but it's worth noting that her mockery of Mena's childlessness is extremely cruel and deliberate.
- Silly Rabbit, Idealism Is for Kids!: Thomasheen Seán Rua has a lengthy speech in the second scene telling Mike and Mena not to be sentimental about Sive and Liam's young love.
- Star-Crossed Lovers: Sive and Liam Scuab. Mike Flavin hates Liam because Liam's cousin seduced Sive's mother away to London, where she met another man who fathered Sive and then abandoned her.
- Tragic Villain:
- Mena was raised in a poor house and knew from childhood her only route out of poverty was to marry well. She genuinely believes that marrying a rich farmer is the best thing Sive can hope for, and marrying an old man for his remaining years will be well worth the cost of financial security for life.
- Thomasheen Seán Rua takes a cynical attitude to love because his dreams of courting a young woman were dashed when his father committed suicide and Thomasheen had to sell his two pigs, his only financial independence, to pay for the funeral. He believes his father only did it to spite him, and his comments reveal he is deeply lonely. He plans to use his cut of the money to marry a widow he knows.
- Mike spends the whole play caught between the lure of financial security and his revulsion at the thought of Sive marrying a man who was full grown when he was a child. The scales are tipped by the fact that he hates Liam Scuab, the young man Sive actually loves.
