This is a backstory based on the play, “The Steward of Christendom,” by Sebastian Barry (1995), about a Dublin Castle policeman who is senile; his wife and son are ghosts. He was called a traitor by the Catholics in 1922. when the Irish Free State was formed, because he had worked for the British Crown. It drove him insane. Like King Lear, two of his three daughters have abandoned him.
Only ANNIE, whose back is deformed by polio, visits him.
HOUSE OF MEMORY is about a ghost wife of the Dublin policeman, CISSY who died in childbirth ca. 1904.
The events recounted are of W.W.I. Willie is their dead soldier son. The play is set in a cottage in Dalky, near Dublin, Ireland, during two time frames, 1922 and 1932.
CISSY’s story stops in 1904. Though she is still present, she unable to communicate with her family. Cissy is house-bound, tied to the place where she lived and died in childbirth.
ANNIE’s mother CISSY, is talking to her, but ANNIE, not hearing her, has her own monologue about life treating her unfairly, being a spinster, wanting a family, feeling abandoned, feeling guilty about committing her father to the asylum...
LIST OF CHARACTERS:
CISSY, Thomas’ dead wife, a ghost who died in childbirth in her late 20’s.
ANNIE, her daughter, her spine crippled from polio, she hobbles, she plays two time periods, at the age of 19 years and age 29.
THOMAS, a deranged retired policeman (offstage voice)
Two men carrying straitjackets
ACT I
Scene 1
A cottage near Dublin, 1922
