Teddy

As I walked into St. Michael’s Theatre in New Ross, Ireland, on a gorgeous October evening, I gazed at the preset stage. A decorated Christmas tree, with presents tucked underneath, glimmered with a dedicated spotlight center stage. It reminded me of the Christmas setting that frames Henrik Ibsen’s A Doll’s House. Was there a connection, I wondered, between Ibsen’s feminist drama and Sheila Forsey’s new female-centered play, Teddy? When I asked Forsey whether Ibsen was a direct influence, she politely said no. She had other reasons for the Christmas setting in the powerfully tragic Teddy, including the prospect of redemption.It was a sold-out world premiere, composed of Irish and American theater artists, a model of artistic collaboration that has characterized the Eugene O’Neill International Festival of Theatre, now in its fifth year, the mission of which is “one festival, two countries.” The premiere made headlines in the Kilkenny Observer, where a piece from September 26 noted: “Sheila Forsey is making history as the first female playwright featured in the Eugene O’Neill Festival in New Ross.” The evolution of Teddy benefited from multiple drafts, workshops, readings, and artistic mentorship, beginning with a professional reading at the Wexford Playwrights Studio under the direction of Ben Barnes in 2021. According to Forsey in that same newspaper article, “There were many fantastic mentors as part of this process, including our very own Billy Roche, who was truly inspirational.” For the New Ross production, the play was billed as “powerful and heart-wrenching.” It was undeniably both. Directed with clarity and purpose by American director Eric Fraisher Hayes, whom Forsey credits as valuably shaping the piece, the production featured the sublime American actress Isabel Siragusa and an outstanding Irish cast.Teddy takes place on a farm in Enniscorthy, County Wexford (not far from New Ross), during the 1980s. In addition to the Christmas tree center stage, the opening tableau featured a red sofa stage left, garlands hanging on the wall, a sitting chair, and a stove in the corner (the symbolic and literal generator of side-lined warmth). The traditional Irish Christmas hymn, “The Wexford Carol” (sometimes called the “Enniscorthy Carol”) was woven sonically throughout the production. It is a rousing Christmas carol harkening back to the sixteenth century that every Wexford audience member would immediately recognize, lighting designer Tomás Kavanaugh told me. Rose, played excellently by the stirring Siragusa, appeared on the front of the stage, and the lights rose for the first scene. In this flashback monologue, she relived her anxiety of having a baby out of wedlock. “Where is my baby?” Rose asked painfully, “Am I going to hell? Will he blame me for leaving?” These questions lingered as the lights dimmed to black.Scene 2 took place in the seemingly normal living room of the Harris family. The matriarch of the family, Lily Harris (Margaret Rossiter) tidied up the room while her husband, Jim (Andy Doyle), read the newspaper, and seventeen-year-old Teddy (Kevin Phelan) eagerly anticipated the arrival of Rose, whom he did not realize is his mother. This scene established the intersecting traumas of those transplanted from the Irish diaspora and unwed mothers who gave up their children. Teddy, played with wonderful spirit by Phelan, literally embodied this trauma with an intellectual disability that may have been caused, as Lily has callously told her daughter, by Rose’s reckless behavior and abandonment. Played with memorable intensity by Margaret Rossiter and award-winning Andy Doyle, the Harris (grand)parents portrayed the veneer of normalcy, under which dysfunctional abuse and neglect lingers. Little has been nourished in this household; the fire in the corner has not warmed the room, nor have the lighthearted jokes offered by Rose’s brother Bobby (the excellent Sean O’Brien) taken the chill off. Rose entered, wearing a “fine” jacket made from Donegal wool, which she sells to “Yanks” in her Chicago shop. Rose has retained her Irish accent, even as she has missed a few Christmases due to her immigrant dream of setting up her own shop. Indeed, the play is about broken promises and dreams, with a trauma-filled family carved out of a Eugene O’Neill play. There are no dead children in Teddy (as found in Desire Under the Elms and Long Day’s Journey Into Night), just buried suffering, which was held in tension with Teddy’s joyous claim that this will be one of the best Christmases ever, an ironic foreshadowing of the tragedy that will crush the Harris family.Scene 3 began with a segment from a 1980s radio broadcast by a well-known and beloved Irish radio and television presenter named Gay Byrne. It featured a whimsical Christmas recipe of the usual flour, eggs, sugar, and importantly (to the sound of chuckles from the audience), “a pint of whiskey”—for the baker, not the batter. As Rose and her father chatted about the possibility of Teddy returning to America with her, Jim cautioned his daughter not to upset Lily, because such news will “crack her up.” He reminded Rose that it wasn’t easy for the grandparents to raise a boy with special needs. The action and insults escalated when Lily entered the room like an icy sovereign and refused to let Rose take Teddy with her. What she said next was unforgiveable: “You are not fit to be a mother. You are a troublemaker of the highest order. A tramp!” When she hurled this last insult, there was a gasp in the audience. Rose was stunned as well. The audience then learned the circumstances of Rose getting pregnant: that she was drunk and could not remember what had happened that night or who the father was. The murky details made me wonder if Rose had been able to give consent, though this is not explicit in the script. Rose finally confronted her mother: “You said I was dirt, a Jezebel, that it was my fault. And I believed you that I was worthless. I needed you and you turned your back on me.” Forsey crafted an emotional scene that showed how personal catastrophes have often been reignited as secondary traumas within dysfunctional families, and alliances aren’t necessarily along gender lines. This was the first time that Rose’s father learned about what happened. Yet Lily could only see the pregnancy as a moral failing, calling Rose a “dirty tramp” in spite of Jim’s pleas for her to stop. The scene ended with a blackout and “The Wexford Carol.”After intermission, act 2 began with Rose delivering a second monologue in a nightgown, a flashback to when she returned home after giving birth in a London hospital (likely in a wing for wayward girls) only to be chased away by Lily. Delivered with emotional intensity by Siragusa, the monologue featured Rose calling out to an imaginary baby Teddy: “Is it you?” before shouting out the painful words her mother has called her, revealing a deep yet fresh pain. Trapped in a web of shame, she recounted how she left Teddy on Christmas Eve seventeen years ago, another agonizing reminder of the holiday.Act 3 began with the somberly beautiful Wexford carol and a spotlight on the Christmas tree, which burned with significance, with Jim and Rose on stage. What is important about Forsey’s portrait of this conversation is that Jim faulted himself for not knowing the details of Rose’s pregnancy or why she moved away to America without Teddy: Lily wouldn’t allow it. More than expressing regrets, he accepted responsibility for unknowingly contributing to his daughter’s isolation and trauma. This emotionally powerful scene, played with excellence by Doyle and Siragusa, fleshed out a complex father figure. “Now I understand,” he revealed through tears, signaling a moment of Aristotelean recognition (anagnorisis) in tragedy. Conspicuously absent, Lily, the monstrous mother (or shall we call her Medea?) lay in bed offstage, “not well.” In her absence, a plan was hatched for Rose to take Teddy back to America at the end of her visit in January. But first, the family attended midnight mass.The final act surged toward a Christmas Eve tragedy with the soundtrack of “Joy to The World” ironically framing the action. Lily sat catatonic in the chair like a dazed monarch while the rest of the family indulged in a Christmas drink. Jim went to bed, Bobby left, and, after an awkward pause, Rose turned in as well. Teddy and Lily were left alone on stage. Then the seemingly comatose Lily sprang into action. Oblivious, Teddy expressed his excitement about Christmas and traveling to America, never realizing that upstage Lily was putting sleeping pills into their drinks. This was a brilliant directorial move by Hayes, for most audience members could not see this happening. Teddy and Lily drank their Christmas punch with stirring simplicity. Blackout. “Away in a Manger” played as extradiegetic sound. And finally, the light faded out on the tree.The closing scene took place on Christmas morning. The lights rose on the tree, revealing the destructive aftermath of Lily’s manic behavior: Teddy and Lily dead in the living room. Bobby came down to tell Teddy about the snow outside and discovered the bodies. Soon thereafter Rose entered, shrieking inconsolably; and then Jim joined them—a wrecked family right out of a Greek tragedy. As the lights dimmed in the family room, Rose stepped to the front of the stage to deliver a final monologue. It is cold now, she told the now deceased Teddy. It is snowing. Siragusa began singing “The Wexford Carol” in a frail voice: “Good people all, this Christmas time, / Consider well and bear in mind.” Hayes clarified its meaning: “She belatedly fulfills her Christmas promise to sing for Teddy, to teach him this song.” Because this was a figment of her imagination, Teddy arose from the couch to join her at the front of the stage, singing:ROSE AND TEDDY:What our good God for us has doneIn sending his beloved son.TEDDYWith Mary holy we should pray,To God with love this Christmas DayIn Bethlehem upon that morn,There was a blessed Messiah born.End of play. As the lights came up, there were audible sniffles in the audience, and I saw many women whose eyes were brimming with tears. As one audience member told me during intermission, this is a sad but familiar story. Yet, Forsey’s Christmas tragedy also resonates with themes of (re)birth. As Hayes put it, “Teddy seems to have been born as if immaculately conceived, which creates an interesting parallel with Teddy as a Christmas baby and baby Jesus of the Wexford Carol. For Rose the two babies blend when Teddy sings of the baby Jesus.” With Forsey’s masterful writing, Hayes’s excellent direction, and the actors’ superb performances, this production was a resounding success. Here’s to more Teddy productions, so that “good people, all” can experience its powerful story.