Renfrew High School
Drama Department
2012
Higher Drama
Contemporary Scottish Theatre
STUDY PACK
Men Should Weep
by
Ena Lamont Stewart
MEN SHOULD WEEP
MAIN THEMES AND ISSUES
MEN SHOULD WEEP will be examined from the following perspectives:
· Use of History and Nostalgia
· Issues Of Gender
· Social Conditions
· Political Dimensions
The following main themes and issues will be explored as we examine the text:
· Tenement family life in the 1930’s ‘slums’ of Glasgow
· The importance of community
· Role of the mother within the family
· Balance of power within the family and in marital relationships
· Role of women in 1930’s urban Scotland
· Social conditions and their effect upon the individual and the family.
ENA LAMONT STEWART AND MEN SHOULD WEEP
MEN SHOULD WEEP is a play about the depression of the 1930’s and the subsequent squalor experienced in the slums of Glasgow, seen from a female perspective. It was first produced by Glasgow Unity in 1947. Today, that particular staging remains one of the greatest of Unity’s many productions. The play is still produced regularly by contemporary companies such as 7:84, TAG and the Citizens theatre.
Its author, Ena Lamont Stewart, was born in Glasgow in 1912 and lived there for most of her life. Her father was a minister and Ena had a happy childhood. She recalls the jumble sales and bazaars her father’s church organised and the ‘shawlies’ and others, less fortunate than herself, who came to them.
At the time that Glasgow Unity was at the height of its popularity, Ena was a young woman. She had married actor Jack Stewart, of Rutherglen Repertory Theatre, and had given birth to a baby son. Encouraged by her family, her actor husband in particular, Ena wrote her first play for the Rutherglen Repertory Theatre. This was a one act piece called DISTINGUISHED COMPANY and was first performed in September 1942.
During this period, Ena also worked as a receptionist in a sick children’s hospital in Glasgow - an experience which led her to write her first full-length play STARCHED APRONS, a study of hospital life and the nursing profession. This play was picked up by Glasgow Unity Theatre Company and became Unity’s biggest ever box office success. As a result of this Robert Mitchell, the Director of Glasgow Unity, commissioned Ena to write a second play, this time about Scottish working-class life and conditions in the 1930’s, from a female perspective. The play that she produced, the greater part of which was written in two days, was MEN SHOULD WEEP.
Ena’s work at the sick children’s hospital influenced MEN SHOULD WEEP as much as it had STARCHED APRONS. She was deeply affected by the experience and distressed by the number of people who came to the hospital suffering from malnutrition and the many other diseases caused by poverty and poor living conditions. On one occasion a woman came to Ena carrying a child’s clothes and shoes. She was obviously in a state of shock and, asking for a piece of brown paper to put the bundle of clothes in, she said in a bewildered fashion, “They’ve kep him in”. This moment is replayed in MEN SHOULD WEEP when Maggie returns home from the hospital without her little boy, Bertie.
MEN SHOULD WEEP was first performed at the Atheneum Theatre, Glasgow on the 30th January 1947. Over the next few years, it enjoyed tremendous success and was restaged in several theatres across Scotland before transferring to the Embassy Theatre in London. MEN SHOULD WEEP continues to be a firm favourite with audiences and has come to be regarded as a classic.
In 1998, the National Theatre conducted a poll of actors, directors, playwrights and journalists, asking them to nominate ten English language, twentieth century plays that they felt to be ‘significant’ in terms of their quality, popularity and the way in which they affected change in the theatre world. MEN SHOULD WEEP featured strongly in the top 100 responses, over fifty years after it was first performed.
USE OF HISTORY AND NOSTALGIA
MEN SHOULD WEEP by Ena Lamont Stewart was written in the 1940’s however the action of the play is set in the depression of the 1930’s. As a reflection on working class Glasgow at this time, the use of the historical setting in the play works both as a record of a specific time and place (a social commentary) and a contemporary critique of social deprivation. The play still has a clear resonance today – outbreaks of Dysentery on Glasgow housing schemes are still being recorded and in the past ten years it has been reported that the incidence of Tuberculosis is rising for the first time in many years. A recent report also stated that one in three Scottish children are currently living significantly below the poverty line.
In the 1930’s, Scotland, in common with the rest of the world, was in the throes of a depression. Unemployment was high and disease and poverty were rife. Tenement life was hard. Several families lived ‘up the same close’ in one-roomed (the infamous ‘single-end’) or two-roomed houses – the main room serving as a living area, kitchen and bedroom. The second room (if there was one) was another bedroom. A toilet was shared with the other families on the same landing. Bathrooms were a luxury to be found in the homes of the ‘better off’. Poorer families made do with a zinc bath in front of the cooking range or visits to the local washhouse.
There was little work for the men and so they hung around on street corners waiting to hear if any firm was ‘taking on’ – often on a daily or weekly basis.
John: I’m on casual labour; ye never ken whit’s comin up. There might be work and there might no…Hundreds o us, Maggie, beggin for the chance tae earn enough for food and a roof ower our heids. P.14 – 15.
Families existed on a meagre dole allowance and whatever the ‘parish’ could provide. To qualify for extra money families had to undergo the cruel and humiliating Means Test whereby all possessions and income were assessed and any ‘luxuries’ (e.g. clocks, small items of jewellery etc.) had to be sold (or pawned) and the money used, before help was given. As a result of this test families and homes were often stripped to the bare essentials.
Despite this there was great community spirit in areas like Govan, the Gorbals and the east end of Glasgow that is sadly lacking today. Electronic entertainment, in the form of television, videos and computer games, was yet to be invented but there were the cinema and dance halls and, of course, the local public house. Occasionally, when money allowed, the monotony could be broken by taking a trip to one of these venues, however, for families like the Morrisons’, this would have been a very rare occurrence. If you had no choice than to stay at home, there was always the wireless (radio) – if you could afford one.
Children played street games like peever (hopscotch), skipping ropes, and football, either with or without a ball – an old tin can often had to serve the purpose. Singing games were also enjoyed, which the mothers often joined in with.
There was little privacy in tenement living and neighbours were well aware of all that went on within their closes – beneficial when you needed help and support but not when you wanted to keep events to yourself. There were few secrets kept in tenement living.
Mrs. Wilson: Problems! She hasnae hauf got them. Puir Maggie. And she’s no the only yin on this stair. The Bones Wis at it again last night. P.17
Gossip spread like wildfire through the practise of the ‘windae-hing’ – no coffee mornings or light lunches here. Instead, women would lean out their front or back windows and chat to their neighbours, who were either out in the street or leaning out of their own windows. Sometimes, on sunnier days, chairs would be taken into the backcourts and the women could share their worries and joys with others in the same position as themselves.
Children were the property of all. If any child misbehaved it was the responsibility of whoever witnessed the misdemeanour to chastise – be it the parent or another nearby adult.
Although this sense of community spirit and enjoyment is apparent in the play - which at times takes on an almost nostalgic tone, especially at the beginning of Act three - things quickly take a turn for the worst and we are left only with hardship and suffering. The nostalgic moments of the play are in clear juxtaposition to the real toil and hardship experienced by the family, and thus the social injustice of the piece is further underlined.
Life was rarely harmonious in the East End of Glasgow in the 1930’s. Living in such close proximity often led to arguments (‘stair-heid rows’) as nerves frayed and tempers rose. A simple act like forgetting your turn of washing the close stairs could mean incurring the wrath of more fastidious (exacting) neighbours.
Maggie: Are you insinuating that I don’t take ma turn o the close?
Mrs. Harris: No, I’m no insinyatin. I’m telling ye. P.18.
Health suffered due to the poor living conditions and inadequate diets. Doctors required payment for their services – the National Health Service was not yet in force – and so ailments, major or minor, were neglected until the few shillings needed for medical attention was found. Dysentry and tuberculosis were common (as was scarlet fever and all the childhood diseases) and because families lived in such close proximity, infection spread quickly. One child with dysentery could infect a whole close. Because of the unhygienic living conditions head lice, nits, scabies and the like were commonplace despite frantic efforts to keep them at bay.
Maggie: I’ll tell ye whit an odd louse is: it’s the mither o a hale battalion that’s no content tae bide on hame grun. So jist you get something frae the chemist’s, or I’ll get the Sanitary tae ye. P.18
Women worked hard both within and outwith the home, often combining a cleaning job or work in the local bakery with looking after their often large families. Husbands offered little practical help in the day-to-day running of the home – it was not their job to cook, clean or look after children. That was women’s work.
Maggie: It’s no fair! Naebody lifts a haun tae help me! I’ve tae go oot charrin a day and then come hame tae this! Whaurs’s yer feyther? P.42
Men spent their time in the company of other men – in the streets or public houses. Their inability (through no fault of their own in most cases) to provide for their families led many men to find solace in drink. This caused many a family dispute – money that was spent in the pub, that should have been spent on food or rent, was the basis for many family rows. It was not the age of enlightenment, no ‘nineties’ men here, and a man was still considered to be head of the family no matter what his shortcomings. It was a rare woman indeed who tried to usurp a man’s position within the household. His word was law and all major decisions were left to him. Most women of the working classes accepted this without question (if not without comment), hence the reason why Maggie’s journey to self-assertion is so significant.
HOMEWORK EXERCISE 1: AFTER READING THE ABOVE, WHAT ARE THE SIMILARITIES AND/OR DIFFERENCES BETWEEN A WORKING CLASS PERSON’S LIFE IN THE THIRTIES AND TODAY? (REMEMBER AGE AND GENDER ARE ALSO IMPORTANT FACTORS IN TERMS OF DIFFERING LIFE EXPERIENCES)
WRITE DOWN YOUR CONCLUSIONS.
ISSUES OF GENDER
Above all, the play explores the growth of female emancipation (liberation) through Maggie’s journey to self-assertion. Maggie’s relationships with her husband, John, and sister, Lily, are central to the play and offer scope for examining Issues of Gender in some depth.
The role of women within the play is that of daughter, wife, mother, granny, stoic, prostitute and redeemed Magdalen. The main character in the play is clearly Maggie Morrison. She works both within and out with the home. At the start of the play she is very supportive of her husband. She gives him his place and ensures that others do likewise. When Lily suggests that John should be ashamed of himself for giving Maggie so many children, Maggie defends her husband:
Maggie: He’s a man and I’m a wumman. We’re flesh and blood. P.6.
Lily often criticises John and his role within the family, Maggie always defends him:
Lily: If John wid gie hissel a shake…
Maggie: You leave John alane! He does his best for us. P.8.
Lily has an unusual role for a woman of her day – a spinster. Maggie feels sorry that Lily has no man in her life and no children of her own. Lily, however, cannot see that being a slave to a husband and family would be a life that held any kind of satisfaction:
Lily: Livin in a slum an slavin efter a useless man an his greetin weans. P.8.
Maggie, however, is just as disparaging about Lily’s chosen lifestyle:
Maggie: Servin dirty hulkin brutes of men in a Coocaddens pub. P.8.
The relationship between the sisters is an integral part of the play and Lily’s presence in the final scene underlines her role within her sister’s family. They see each other’s faults and are at times exasperated with one another, but are ultimately joined together in their wish for a better life for Maggie and her children. Lily is on Maggie’s side:
Lily: Maggie’s ma sister! An I’ve had tae fight hauf your battles for ye John Morrison, or the hale lot o ye would hae been oot on the street mair than once! P.72.
Maggie’s neighbours also have a role to play in the gender battle that ensues in the drama, in that they are a device used to reinforce the women’s view of marriage and the gender divide within it: