A PLAY IN TWO ACTS
BY
JACK MITCHELL and NOLLAIG TATE
[Lights up. Pizarro standing in circle.]
PROSECUTION : Are you Francisco Pizarro, conquistador?
PIZARRO : Si, senor.
PROSECUTION : You are the famous conqueror of the Incas of Peru?
PIZARRO [proudly] : Si, senor.
PROSECUTION : And you vanquished them inside a week with no more than 62 horses and 106 foot soldiers?
PIZARRO : Si, senor.
PRESIDENT : These Incas, were there many of them, senor?
PIZARRO : Muchos - muchos, Presidente!
PROSECUTION : Why did you undertake this venture?
PIZARRO : Venture for greater glory of God and Espania.
PROSECUTION : History has treated you less than kindly, senor. Your name has become a byword for bloody rapine and the slaughter of an ancient people. How would you answer this charge?
PIZARRO : Que?
PROSECUTION : Did you kill them?
PIZARRO : Almost they fall on our swords, senor, were ripe for kill.
PROSECUTION : Was this not strange behaviour from so legendary a race of warriors as the Incas?
PIZARRO : Que?
PROSECUTION : Why did they not fight?
PIZARRO : They see glory of Christ in our squadrones, and are unmanned. Is at an end God's paciencia with their idolatry. Francisco Pizarro is chosen instrument of Hees wrath. Pizarro destroy their burnished idols and knock down to earth their savage 'temples.
DEFENCE [aside] : Gold, of course, would have nothing to do with it.
PROSECUTION : Senor Pizarro, during your years as viceroy in the South American colonies I believe you familiarised yourself with the customs and traditions of the Incas?
PIZARRO : Que?
PROSECUTION : Was their civilisation not of a high order?
PIZARRO : No, senor! Their irrigacion it is genious, true. Allow them to grow crops with little labour. But this make them lazy, senor. They worship the sun all day and do not invent wheel or arch.
PROSECUTION : And what was the crop that grew so abundantly with little labour?
PIZARRO : La patata.
PROSECUTION : The potato.
[Potato stands on his rock and bows; remains standing.]
PIZARRO : They discover la patata - then no more discover. Bloody lazy hounds.
PROSECUTION : So we have got to the root of this root.
[Lights low, Potato spotlit.]
POTATO : Ye have, and a long ways back it goes. Me mother was the Inca earth, me father the Inca sun, and he was a god. It was the Inca who found me running wild. 'Twas them that nurtured me and who was it but la patata inspired them to build their lovely terraces and murmuring canals. Make them lazy? It was me that made them industrious. I was their mother, earth mother of their civilisation. And I'd've done the same in Ireland if I'd got the chance.
[Lights up.]
PROSECUTION : You did do the same, the very same. Inspired them to build, did you? Mr President, I suggest he inspired the Incas with the same complacent inertia with which he later inspired the Irish peasant. As it was in the beginning, so it is and ever shall be. Senor Pizarro, you have established that the dominance of the potato in the Inca diet was the beginning of the end, that end of which you were the destined instrument.
PIZARRO [who is now busy ogling Defence] : Que?
PROSECUTION : Eating so much potatoes weakened their soldiers, is this not so?
PIZARRO : Is true, they do not eat the red meat like we soldiers of Christ.
DEFENCE : Was la patata their sole means of subsistence - their only food?
PIZARRO : No senora, also they love very much the maize.
DEFENCE : Indian corn? Amazing!
PROSECUTION : Senor Pizarro, what possessed you to bring this feckless root [indicating Potato] to Europe?
PRESIDENT : Really? - and I thought it was Raleigh.
PIZARRO : The English they say so. But is not true. We, the conquistadores, we bring la patata to Espania first.
PROSECUTION : Yes, yes, but for what reason?
PIZARRO : Are so beautiful ...
[Potato takes up pose with imagined mirror. General looks of incredulity.]
PIZARRO : ... the flowers, so pretty. We Espaniards love all i-flowers. The senoritas, they wear them in their hair, [makes a flowery bow towards Defence] we grow la patata for this - no eat.
PROSECUTION : In this way, Mr President, this plant, this growth - this tumour began its systematic subversion of Europe - wolf in sheep's clothing that he is.
[Potato, still looking in mirror, puts head back and wolf-howls. All look at him in a startled manner. Pizarro leaps from circle, pulls a dagger from under his shroud.]
PIZARRO : Fear not fair laady. El Conquistador is by your side. His weapon is at your service.
[He puts his arm round her shoulder and moves his hand downwards.]
PRESIDENT : Order in court. [hammers Bench] Senor Pizarro, desist from manhandling Defence.
PIZARRO : How should I handle? I am man, and she is woman.
PRESIDENT : Prosecution ... ?
PROSECUTION : No more questions.
PRESIDENT : Defence, have you any desire ... ?
DEFENCE : No desires regarding this witness, sir.
PRESIDENT : The witness is dismissed. [Exit Pizarro] .... My dear, I hope this little episode has not unsettled you. Conquistadores will be conquistadores, you know.
DEFENCE [laughingly] : They can try!
PRESIDENT : Enriching as our excursion to Peru has been, it is time to be moving on.
DEFENCE : Mr President, I was not finished questioning the witness Trevelyan.
PRESIDENT : Why did you not say so, Defence. Recalls can lead to confusions. I returned him to his rest.
PROSECUTION : Sloppy procedure.
PRESIDENT : I beg your pardon?
PROSECUTION : I was referring to Defence, sir.
DEFENCE : Percy, you knew damn well I hadn't finished with Trevelyan. Terrified I'll get at the truth, are you?
PROSECUTION : You didn't get much change out of him last time round. Going to have an other go, Gwen?
DEFENCE : Mr President, I recall the witness Trevelyan.
PRESIDENT : If you insist [shrugs] but a certain transmogrification cannot be ruled out. The witness is recalled.
[Enter Trevelyan.]
TREVELYAN [looking bewildered] : How nice to meet you all again. [Gives a courtly bow. He takes his place in the circle.]
PRESIDENT : Sir, you have been recalled by Defence for further questioning.
PROSECUTION : The Prosecution would like to apologise to Sir Charles for this unwarranted disturbance.
TREVELYAN : Think nothing of it, sir. If the laady is not finished who am I to argue? God bless the laadies, say I.
DEFENCE : You are Sir Charles Trevelyan late of London?
TREVELYAN : Yes, madam. I am he ... of course I am he.
PRESIDENT : It is as I feared.
DEFENCE : Mr.President, Sir Charles has been presented as someone working within the ideological bounds of his time, a man servant to the theories of political economy and laisser-faire. What Pizarro did with a sword, the witness Trevelyan did with the stroke of a pen. Pizarro’s excuse was the greater glory of God. Yours the greater glory of Political Economy. Behind both of your glorious ideoligies lie one and the same purpose; plunder and the elimination of a people.
TREVELYAN [aside] : See what we missed debarring members of this sex from the bar, such passion, such flight of fancy. [to Defence] I can only repeat that I stand with a clear conscience before my God and my sovereign.
DEFENCE : Your God, sir? Indeed never was a God more closely fashioned in the image of his maker than yours. Did you and your like not claim that the famine was God's wrath visited upon an indolent and unthrifty people? [Trevelyan remains silent.] Was this your view?
TREVELYAN : The Lord is terrible in his righteous wrath.
DEFENCE : Is it true you were acting without the knowledge of your superiors in government; exceeding your brief?
TREVELYAN : Sir Robert was at all times informed of my actions. Not once did he think fit to reprimand me or countermand my measures.
DEFENCE : He appears to have expressed strong disapproval of your highhandedness in some of his correspondence with others, yet never called you to heel. In fact he was quite happy to let you do his dirty work, while he maintained the public face of an honest statesman.
TREVELYAN : Sir Robert was a man of honour, as I am myself.
DEFENCE : Mr President, let me refer to this official memorandum of 9 October, 1846 in which Trevelyan advocates the eating of the Indian corn in an unground state. Is this your work, sir?
TREVELYAN [smilingly smug] : Si, Senora ... I say, what is going on?
DEFENCE : I quote one of its gems ... 'Indian corn in its unground state affords an equally wholesome and nutritious food.'
POTATO : Atrocious food, more like. Peel's brimstone ... that's what they called - Oh God, now I've said the word myself. [Whimpers noisily.]
DEFENCE : There you are, the people knew who was really behind it.
PRESIDENT : Potato, this is becoming tiresome. Be assured we are not referring to potato peel..
DEFENCE : I now move on to the said Prime Minister’s public works. It looks laudable enough, on paper : a generous scheme of road and wall building giving the able-bodied in distressed areas the chance of earning enough to purchase food.But once again, Sir Robert leaves the actual implementation to Charles Edward Trevelyan. Is this not so?
TREVELYAN : Sir Robert gave me a free hand. His faith in my abilities was most gratifying, especially in one so young.
DEFENCE : So you had the Cabinet's tacit approval for your policies?
TREVELYAN : Absolutely.
DEFENCE : Yours was a two-pronged attack, wasn't it? ... On the one hand, you successfully blocked any works of a truly useful nature -
TREVELYAN : Of course I had to make sure that any improvements made were not abused by individuals to gain unfair advantage over commercial competitors.
DEFENCE : What could be more natural on the part of a hard-headed Treasury official? The curious result was that, increasingly, only works of no possible use to anyone were sanctioned by you. Follies in more senses than one. Sorry fragments of roads leading nowhere.
PRESIDENT : In Erehwon all roads lead to nowhere.
DEFENCE : That was the one prong, now for the other. Sir Charles, is it true that you had these schemes limited more and more to areas where the people were on the very verge of extinction?
TREVELYAN : We had to ensure that none but the deserving poor were taking advantage of our benevolence. Such care was especially called for in Ireland.
DEFENCE : What could be more logical? I ask the Court to imagine those poor emaciated souls ... those famished ghosts breaking and man-handling stones for mockeries of roads. Of course they died like flies from exhaustion and the fever that swept through the labour gangs. Was ever a death trap more callously constructed? The only comparison that comes to mind is the later slave labour concentration camps.
TREVELYAN : What ... where?
PROSECUTION : That is a monstrous impudence. There was no forced labour and the people were paid a wage. Is this not so, Sir Charles?
TREVELYAN : Indeed they were paid, so that they may buy food. [smiles broadly] You see, it is all quite logical.
DEFENCE : Wages ... yes, but just below the going rate and with the price of bread rising all the time. The whole thing gives a classic display of Political Economy in practice. At the same time it reveals how well crafted this theory was to the task of lending respectability to murder.
PRESIDENT : I must say that your arguments with regard to these relief measures are not lacking in persuasiveness, but these, er soup kitchens, [looking among papers] surely there are some mitigating ingredients involved here?
PROSECUTION : Indeed by mid-1847 no less than three million people were being kept alive by the new scheme of government soup kitchens. Was this not so, Sir Charles?
[Trevelyan bows graciously in his direction.]
TREVELYAN : Si, senor.
DEFENCE : So apparently the government could act quite efficiently when it wanted to! But why did it come up with this simple and, apparently, effective measure so late? It was much cheaper than public works, as has been pointed out.
TREVELYAN : Well, of course, the danger was pauperisation, the enticement offered to an all too easily tempted population to live at public expense.
DEFENCE : An attitude showing how well met Political Economy and racism were in the Irish famine context! Why, sir, did you and the laisser-faire government under Russell start them up at all?
TREVELYAN : The churches and charitable organisations -
DEFENCE : Were showing you up, weren't they? They couldn't be allowed a free hand ... why, they might actually stem the dying and the emigration and the essential land clearance.
TREVELYAN : Madam, you excel yourself in discourtesy. You ask me a question and at once interrupt my answer. Worse still, you heap unforgivable insult upon hundreds of our dedicated volunteers!
DEFENCE : I have no wish to belittle the efforts of charitable volunteers. But not all the Government sponsored soup was good, was it, Sir Charles?
PROSECUTION : Mr Soyer's soup was recommended by several society ladies, who considered it very good and nourishing.
POTATO : Considered it, did they? They should have tried drinking it. There was never a better recipe for the runs.
DEFENCE: A certain 'Medico' writing to the press from the Athenaeum said that Soyer's soup was 'preposterous and utterly deficient' in all nutrients necessary to sustain life. Another doctor, writing from Skibbereen -
POTATO : Remember Skibbereen!
DEFENCE : ... writing from Skibbereen, stated that the soup was actually 'injurious' to the large numbers who were suffering from dysentery. In this place, whose name is synonymous with the mass dying of the famine, we have your vaunted soup, sir, actively participating in the slaughter.
PROSECUTION : OTT, Gwen, and you know it.
DEFENCE : Just as with the relief works, the government soup dried up in later 1847 when Ireland was sliding over the brink into the pit of hell. People like Sir Charles were content to let the operation of 'natural causes' take its course. The new workhouses became actual 'concentration houses' where typhus and cholera could breed under ideal conditions..
PROSECUTION : You have it all sown up, haven't you! Conspiracy ... conspiracy everywhere.
DEFENCE:.. Listen to this : 'The great evil with which we have to contend is not the physical evil of the famine, but the moral evil of the selfish, perverse and turbulent character of the people!' Did you utter these words, sir?
PROSECUTION : Mr. President, Defence is quoting completely out of context. I submit that Defence is playing with pure speculation!
PRESIDENT : Pure speculation ... ah, who would wish to be without it? ... Erehwon and this Court are its creations. Without it we would not exist. It is the air we breathe, sir. [proudly] I too, your President, am a figment of the imagination!
PROSECUTION : Speculation and imagination, sir, are two very different things.
PRESIDENT : Re-imagining history ... you don't subscribe to this school of thought, Defence?
DEFENCE : We leave that to the graduates of West Bretonia.
PROSECUTION : Spoken like a true graduate of Dullriada.
PRESIDENT : Dalriada surely, the University of Dalriada. We must make an effort to give people and places their correct names. Defence, you may continue with your examination of Sir Travesty.
DEFENCE : Thank you, Mr President. My esteemed colleague suggests I see conspiracy at every turn. Very well, but my suggestion of a hidden agenda to 'clear' Ireland of its surplus population is reinforced by other contemporary reactions. Mr Trevelyan, were you acquainted with the economist Nassau Snr.?
TREVELYAN : Indeed, a brilliant mind.
DEFENCE : Undoubtedly. Can you recall his assertion that the famine would only kill a million in Ireland, which would scarcely be enough to do much good? Similar sentiments were no doubt being bandied about the exclusive London clubs.
TREVELYAN : My dear woman, things are sometimes said in the deep flush of a good port which will not bear the cold light of day. Besides, this man was an economist. He was observing the situation from an economist's point of view.
DEFENCE : Not all officials viewed the situation from an economist's point of view. Take - Edward Twistleton or Lord Clarendon, both Britons, men of your own time and subject to the same pressures as you were. Twistleton resigned his post in 1849 on the grounds that he refused to be, and I quote, the 'agent of a policy which must be one of extermination. His word. Do tell the Court what position Mr Twistleton resigned from.
TREVELYAN [pause] : He was head of the Poor Law in Ireland ... but -
DEFENCE : In the same year the Lord Lieutenant, Lord Clarendon, protested in a letter to Premier Russell and I quote 'I don't think there is another legislature in Europe that would disregard such suffering as now exists in the west of Ireland or coldly persist in a policy of extermination'. His word. A government policy which you operated to the best of your ability.
TREVELYAN : The Prime Minister was busy governing an empire. I doubt that he had the time to sit about plotting the extermination of the people of the west of Ireland.
PROSECUTION : When Defence insinuates that this famine was a boon to a government policy of land clearance one would be forgiven for thinking that the British were the only beneficiaries. It is an historical fact that progress is born from great tragedy. Such was the case in Ireland. A more efficient and modern agricultural industry emerged -
DEFENCE : Exactly. The situation had been engineered to accelerate land clearance, just as I have pointed out.
PROSECUTION : What you haven't pointed out, my dear, is that among the beneficiaries of this sad situation were those Irish farmers and merchants who took advantage of the new opportunities. This is something Defence does not care to dwell upon.
POTATO [jumps from Dock] : Gombeen men [spits] as bad as the stranger they were. [sticks his tongue out at Trevelyan]
PRESIDENT : Potato, come up here and sit by me. We can't have you disrupting questions.
[Potato leaps on to Bench and sits in a squatting position.]
PROSECUTION : There he squats, thinking he has made it, the lumpus vagabundus vulgaris.
POTATO [turns, stands on Bench and wriggles his bottom] : Pog mo hon.
TREVELYAN : Eh! What did he say?
DEFENCE : Roughly kiss me arse.
TREVELYAN [in Pizarro's voice to Defence] : What passion, just one kees. [He leaps towards Defence, grabs her in a passionate embrace.]
PRESIDENT [rises] : Senor Charles please return to the circle.
TREVELYAN [bewildered] : I do beg your pardon.
DEFENCE [shaken] : Mr President, can you not do something about this ... this confusion?
PRESIDENT : I did warn you Defence. However, be calm, you know no harm will come to you in Erehwon. Now let us proceed.
[Potato blows kisses at Trevelyan.]
PROSECUTION : Gladly, sir. Defence would have us believe that Sir Charles Trevelyan, one of the most brilliant and caring representatives of the world's most civilised nation, was the instigator of this famine and not this rotten potato and the low folk it had interbred with!
DEFENCE : No. Trevelyan was architect of a process already in motion. Neither he nor his God was its prime mover .
[Lights low, Potato removes mask changing to Mrs Flaherty. He hangs mask on the peg as before.]
TREVELYAN : Enough! I have been pilloried and slandered in a way that only the dead can be. [Old Woman moves slowly from the shadows unbeknownst to Trevelyan.] This so-called historian has twisted the truth for her own ends. I have no need to defend myself. I have no regrets for any of my actions, I have ever been a man who can face truth ...
OLD WOMAN : The curse of Trevelyan is upon us. [Trevelyan half turns towards her.] I want a word with you.
TREVELYAN : I believe we have not been formally introduced. [He shrugs and turns away.]
OLD WOMAN : You'll not be turnin' your back to me this time.
TREVELYAN : I have said all I have to say, and received the abuse of one madwoman, I'll not wait to parley with another.
OLD WOMAN : Maybe I was mad ... from hunger and famine fever. Where did you die, mister? ... In your grand feather bed, I'd say. I died ... in the filth of the workhouse. First you took the plot that kept me in life. ... Then you robbed me of the plot that was to hold me in death. [Turns towards President.] That was a terrible thing, your Honour, at the end being put into an unmarked grave, along with all the others. [Pause] Nobody would ever know where we lay or who we were, sure 'twas like we'd never been. [She turns towards Trevelyan.]
TREVELYAN : It was unfortunate, Madam, that mass graves and quick burials were necessary. The authorities had little choice.
OLD WOMAN : It was that one there [pointing to Prosecution] said we were no better than praties. [Turns to Trevelyan.] And in the end your authorities raked us all together into the one pit, like a field of rotting lumpers.
TREVELYAN : I did not deprive you of your headstone. And now, Madam, I will return to my rest. This is a place of no substance and I was unwise to attend here. [He half turns to her.] You would be well advised to leave. No good has come of this disembowelment of the past. [Exit]
OLD WOMAN [to audience] : Sir Charles Edward Trevelyan, a donkey's bray in the face of Eternity. Ah, may God forgive me for insulting a decent animal.
PROSECUTION : Mrs Flaherty, I do not recall recalling you.
OLD WOMAN : I recalled meself and now I've had me say, I dismiss meself.
[Old Woman returns to Dock to resume Potato character.]
PRESIDENT [watching her leave] : There's determination, [turning to Prosecution] wouldn't you say.
PROSECUTION : Indeed. If I may be allowed a little time?
PRESIDENT : Of course, Prosecution. I am all ears.
[Potato jigs about restlessly.]
PROSECUTION : Thank you, Mr President. I would like to begin with -
PRESIDENT : Mr Potato, what are you doing?
POTATO : Nuthin'.
PRESIDENT : Well, do nothing a little less obtrusively. You are far too excitable.
PROSECUTION : We've all had an exciting time. We were taken on a fairy-tale ride through my colleague's version of an historical period. We were given wicked prime ministers, evil bureaucrats and the dastardly landlord lurking behind every hedgerow. With her undoubted skill, Defence drew the Court's attention away from the real villain of the piece, [indicating Potato] preferring to indulge in character assassination and ridiculous conspiracy theories.
[Takes hip flask out of his briefcase, removes cap and waves flask under Potato's nose.]
PROSECUTION : Do you know what this is?
POTATO : Poteen, and a good year too, I'd say.
[Prosecution places flask on Bench.]
PRESIDENT [lifts flask] : What kind of substance is this poteen?
PROSECUTION : An illegal alcoholic drink, sir. And what, you may ask, is its main ingredient? The Potato, of course. Oh yes, he has been lurking in this liquor for many a long year. Another of his tricks to addict the people.
POTATO : I may not be the makings of your grand port, but a drop of poteen never did anyone any harm. [Goes to President.] Try a sup, your Grace. You'll not taste finer.
PROSECUTION [rushes towards Bench] : Stop, sir. It'll make you go blind.
[President pours some into the cap and drinks.]
PRESIDENT : We've been through all that already, Prosecution. Hm, seems to be an agreeable beverage.
DEFENCE : Contrary to Prosecution's insinuations, the whole Irish nation is not and never has been addicted to poteen.
PROSECUTION : What I am saying is, the Potato could only become an ingredient of this liquor with the collusion [President takes another sip.] of that class of person whom he has already enslaved.
PRESIDENT : As you have entered this poteen as evidence, Prosecution, I shall take charge of it. And now Mr ... um ... Kiljoy, if you would care to draw towards a conclusion. Age puts a limitation on my stamina, you know.
PROSECUTION : I am on the last lap, sir. In my exhaustive case against the accused I have taken you back to his roots in Peru. Now the time has come to bring you forward to the latest and basest of his machinations, his piece de resistance. Voila! [He pulls out a large bag of crisps from his briefcase.] This is he at his most deadly. Mr President, whole generations of those who used to be the working classes are being raised on these potato crisps. Dress him up as cheese and onion, soak him in salt and vinegar and what have you got? A lethal package.
PRESIDENT : Let me sample this crisp.
PROSECUTION [opens bag] : I suggest, Mr President, you first sample the aroma. The stink should forewarn the refined nose of a devastating culinary experience in store.
PRESIDENT [smells the bag] : Hm. [He pops one in his mouth.] Very highly flavoured.
POTATO [lifts flask and pours] : Here, have another sup to wash me down.
PRESIDENT : Indeed I will, Lumper. How kind. [drinks]
POTATO [moves centre stage] : If you want my opinion - [Prosecution snorts.] my opinion, the whole pratie population is to be congratulated, so they are. When we were dying in the fields, who'd have thought we'd have the strength to rise again. But rise we did, stronger and better than ever. [He runs over to the Bench, grabs the flask and raises it.] Here's to all praties everywhere.
[Hands the flask to the President, who takes another swig. Potato runs over to Defence and swings her about playfully.]
POTATO [singing] :
There's a neat little still at the foot of the hill,
Where the smoke curls up to the sky;
By a whiff of the smell you can plainly tell
That there's poteen, boys, close by.
For it fills the air with a perfume rare,
And betwixt both me and you,
As home we roll, we can drink a bowl,
Or a bucketful of mountain dew.
Di the diddle lie the dum di the diddle lie the dee
Di the diddle lie doodle dom day -
PRESIDENT : The dignity of the Court, Lumper old boy, don't forget the dignity -
POTATO [interrupts with much slurring] :
Di the diddle lie the dum di the diddle lie the dee
Di the diddle lie doodle dom day
PROSECUTION : Look at the way he hides his anarchistic nature behind a bucolic begor and begorra carry-on. I appeal to you, Mr President, do not give him the run of the Court. His class must be controlled, not condoned. In the 1840's he and his ilk willingly destroyed themselves, thereby breeding a ferment of rankling hatred and discontent. In contemporary times he promotes malnutrition among the youth, albeit of a certain socio-economic grouping. But how long will it be before his ideology infects all civilisation.
DEFENCE : Mr President, we are here to decide on who committed a genocidal crime in the 1840's, not to discuss the gastronomic habits of modern youth.
PROSECUTION : We are here to talk about the Potato. You decided to use this opportunity for your dubious purposes. Mr President, the defendant is not only guilty of causing the Great Famine but his present intent is to upset the world order. He is Beelzebub, he is an opium, he is a ... a MARXIST!
PRESIDENT : Well, well and I thought all along he was a potato. Thank you for that summoning up, Prosecution. Now I'm sure Defence would like to take exception to it.
POTATO : Give him stick, girl.
PRESIDENT : The floor is yours, Defence.
DEFENCE : Prosecution with his wild exaggerations peels away the Potato mask from the person in the Dock - a mask he created himself - and lo! his chosen culprit stands exposed : the poor people of Ireland. You know, Percy, [turning to Persecution] so long as you achieve this I don't think you care very much whether you win or lose this case. The potato crop failed at a most opportune time. Certainly there was a blight, the blight of Colonial dictatorship. Yes Mr. President, a blight almost killed Ireland; the blight of imperialism.
POTATO [Picks up flask.] : Thank you, Defence. That was a grand speech, a grand speech. There's only a dropeen left. You may as well finish it.
PRESIDENT : With pleasure, Lumper. [He drains the flask.] I must say I feel unusually warm. Heat waves are rare in Erehwon.
POTATO [aside] : Sounds like Ireland. [Turns to President.] Relax, here let me help you out of that there robe.
[Potato begins to help President.]
PROSECUTION [leaning over President] : Mr President ... Wake up, sir!
POTATO [kneels and pats President on the head] : You're all right there, Presie, aren't you?
PRESIDENT : A - ha
POTATO : Do you want me to look after things for you?
PRESIDENT : Yes ... yes. Very nice ... hm.
POTATO : Now so, I told you I was Mr President. [Leaps from Bench.]
PROSECUTION [to Defence] : Can you not control your client, Gwen?
DEFENCE [laughingly]:. You know he is harmless.
PROSECUTION : Harmless is it! Did you know that the Great Duke of Wellington himself said that rotten potatoes were at the bottom of it all.
POTATO [taking centre stage] : Me, the President, has somethin' to say. First of all, that nice little Lumper shouldn't have been put on that Rock. 'Cause it was awful uncomfortable and he didn't do anything wrong anyway. The Prosecution is a shoneen, so he is.
POTATO : Get you into that circle, go on now, out of me way.
PROSECUTION : Gwen, do something! [He is pushed into circle by Potato waving his hammer.]
DEFENCE [picking up newspaper] : Mind if I have a glance at your paper, Percy? [Sits and reads newspaper.]
PROSECUTION : Hag!
POTATO : She's a fine girleen and it's the President of Erehwon that's tellin' you. Mark you everything she said was right.
PROSECUTION : You don't understand even the half of what she was saying.
POTATO : I do so. She said I ... I mean Lumper didn't do it.
PROSECUTION : For God's sake, she has no interest in you, she used you. It was the Colonial System she was after.
POTATO : So she wasn't here for the Pratie at all?
PROSECUTION : The Pratie? Delusions of grandeur has been your trouble all along.
POTATO : The Defence girl said you weren't after him at all. No, you were after the ones who grew me and cared for me.
DEFENCE : That's right Lump ... Mr President. Prosecution was the one who used you. Now don't you think you could bring proceedings to a close and let us go?
POTATO : You'd like that, wouldn't ya!
PROSECUTION : Yes, it's all over now. Lumper, go wake the President so we can get out of here.
DEFENCE : I'll do it.
POTATO : No, you won't. [Waves hammer.]
DEFENCE : Lumper!
POTATO : Into the ring there with him, go on now, Miss. Do as I say. [She moves protestingly to circle.]
PROSECUTION : No hard feelings now, Lumper.
POTATO : I'm the gaffer here. You both used me and now we're going to do it all over again my way.
[Lights out.]
PROSECUTION : I told you so.
[The song 'The Praties they grow small over here' is heard.]
Oh, the praties they grow small
over here, over here;
Oh, the praties they grow small
and we dig them in the fall
and we eat them coats and all
over here.
How I wish that we were geese
night and morn, night and morn;
how I wish that we were geese
and could live our lives in peace
till the hour of our decease,
eating corn.
Oh, we're down into the dust
over here, over here;
oh, we're down into the dust,
but the Lord in whom we trust
will repay us crumb for crust
over here.
[Curtain]
THE END