The Speckled PeopleAdapted for the stage from the best-selling memoir, The Speckled People tells a profoundly moving story of a young boy trapped in a language war. Set in 1950s Ireland, this is a gripping, poignant, and at times very funny family drama of homesickness, control and identity. As a young boy, Hugo Hamilton struggles with what it means to be speckled, "half and half... Irish on top and German below." An idealistic Irish father enforces his cultural crusade by forbidding his son to speak English while his German mother tries to rescue him with her warm-hearted humour and uplifting industry. The boy must free himself from his father and from bullies on the street who persecute him with taunts of Nazism. Above all he must free himself from history and from the terrible secrets of his mother and father before he can find a place where he belongs. Surrounded by fear, guilt, and frequently comic cultural entanglements, Hugo tries to understand the differences between Irish history and German history and to turn the strange logic of what he is told into truth. It is a journey that ends in liberation but not before the long-buried secrets at the back of the parents' wardrobe have been laid bare. |
Contents
| 3 | |
The Speckled People Characters | 6 |
The Speckled People Act One | 7 |
The Speckled People Act Two | 36 |
The Speckled People Act Three | 55 |
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Common terms and phrases
afraid Aran sweater armchair Aunty Eily barking Beat beekeeping bees Blitzen Boy Gummy Boy My father Boy runs Boy Yes Boy’s briefcase Bully Boy Buttermarkt square can’t chess chocolate Christkind Christmas Connemara diary Elisabeth Schwarzkopf Elvis Presley English facing the audience Father Irmgard Father shouting Father walks Franz Kaiser Gearóid German going handcart head hear Heil Herr Stiegler Hitler homesick Hugo Hamilton Ireland Jaysus Kempen kiss kneels language laughing limp listen Mother and Boy Mother Hanni Mother I promise Mother looks Mother sits Mother stands Mother What’s Mother Yes Mutti Nazi never nightmare offstage ofthe wardrobe parcel Pause sailor Schweinhund Seán shake hands Shopkeeper Sieg Heil Silence silent negative sing smile sorry Speckled stick Stiegler Stiegler walks suitcase takes talk thefloor thefront There’s things Tottenham Hotspurs trousers turns Wait Wooden Heart writing desk wrong You’re