The Quare Fellow is Brendan Behan

Brendan Behan

Brendan Francis Behan was an Irish poet, short story writer, novelist, and playwright who wrote in both Irish and English. He was also an Irish republican and a volunteer in the Irish Republican Army.-Early life:...

's first play, first produced in 1954.

The title is taken from a Hiberno-English

Hiberno-English

Hiberno-English is the dialect of English written and spoken in Ireland .English was first brought to Ireland during the Norman invasion of the late 12th century. Initially it was mainly spoken in an area known as the Pale around Dublin, with Irish spoken throughout the rest of the country...

 pronunciation of queer

Queer

Queer is an umbrella term for sexual minorities that are not heterosexual, heteronormative, or gender-binary. In the context of Western identity politics the term also acts as a label setting queer-identifying people apart from discourse, ideologies, and lifestyles that typify mainstream LGBT ...

, meaning 'strange' or 'unusual'. In context, the word lacks the denotation of homosexuality

Homosexuality

Homosexuality is romantic or sexual attraction or behavior between members of the same sex or gender. As a sexual orientation, homosexuality refers to "an enduring pattern of or disposition to experience sexual, affectional, or romantic attractions" primarily or exclusively to people of the same...

  which it holds today. The play does feature a gay

Gay

Gay is a word that refers to a homosexual person, especially a homosexual male. For homosexual women the specific term is "lesbian"....

 character, but he is referred to as The Other Fellow.

Plot

The play is set in Mountjoy Prison

Mountjoy Prison

Mountjoy Prison , founded as Mountjoy Gaol, nicknamed The Joy, is a medium security prison located in Phibsboro in the centre of Dublin, Ireland. It has the largest prison population in Ireland.The current prison governor is Mr...

, Dublin. The anti-hero

Anti-hero

In fiction, an antihero is generally considered to be a protagonist whose character is at least in some regards conspicuously contrary to that of the archetypal hero, and is in some instances its antithesis in which the character is generally useless at being a hero or heroine when they're...

 of the play, The Quare Fellow, is never seen or heard; he functions as the play's central conceit. He is a man condemned to die on the following day, for an unmentioned crime. Whatever it is, it revolts his fellow inmates far less than that of The Other Fellow, a very camp, almost Wildean

Oscar Wilde

Oscar Fingal O'Flahertie Wills Wilde was an Irish writer and poet. After writing in different forms throughout the 1880s, he became one of London's most popular playwrights in the early 1890s...

, gay man.

There are three generations of prisoners in Mountjoy including boisterous youngsters who can irritate both other inmates and the audience and the weary old lags Neighbour and "methylated martyr" Dunlavin.

The first act is played out in the cramped area outside five cells and is comedic

Comedy

Comedy , as a popular meaning, is any humorous discourse or work generally intended to amuse by creating laughter, especially in television, film, and stand-up comedy. This must be carefully distinguished from its academic definition, namely the comic theatre, whose Western origins are found in...

, sometimes rather like an Irish episode of Porridge. After the interval, the pace slows considerably and the play becomes much darker, as the time for the execution approaches. The focus moves to the exercise yard and to the workers who are digging the grave for the soon-to-be-executed Quare Fellow.

The taking of a man's life is examined from many different angles: his fellow prisoners of all hues, the great and the good and the prison officers.

The play is a grimly realistic portrait of prison life in Ireland

Ireland

Ireland is an island to the northwest of continental Europe. It is the third-largest island in Europe and the twentieth-largest island on Earth...

 in the 1950s, and a reminder of the days in which homosexuality was illegal and the death penalty common. The play is based on Behan's own prison experiences, and highlights the barbarity of capital punishment

Capital punishment

Capital punishment, the death penalty, or execution is the sentence of death upon a person by the state as a punishment for an offence. Crimes that can result in a death penalty are known as capital crimes or capital offences. The term capital originates from the Latin capitalis, literally...

, then in use in Ireland

Ireland

Ireland is an island to the northwest of continental Europe. It is the third-largest island in Europe and the twentieth-largest island on Earth...

. The play also attacks the false piety in attitudes to sex, politics and religion.

Performance

The play was offered to Dublin's Abbey Theatre

Abbey Theatre

The Abbey Theatre , also known as the National Theatre of Ireland , is a theatre located in Dublin, Ireland. The Abbey first opened its doors to the public on 27 December 1904. Despite losing its original building to a fire in 1951, it has remained active to the present day...

, but was turned down. It premièred at the Pike Theatre Club, Herbert Lane, Dublin on 19 November 1954 to critical success. The Quare Fellow had its London première in May 1956 at Joan Littlewood

Joan Littlewood

Joan Maud Littlewood was a British theatre director, noted for her work in developing the left-wing Theatre Workshop...

's Theatre Workshop

Theatre Workshop

Theatre Workshop is a theatre group noted for their director, Joan Littlewood. Many actors of the 1950s and 1960s received their training and first exposure with the company...

 at the Theatre Royal Stratford East

Theatre Royal Stratford East

The Theatre Royal Stratford East is a theatre in Stratford in the London Borough of Newham. Since 1953, it has been the home of the Theatre Workshop company.-History:...

. On 24 July 1956 it transferred to the Comedy Theatre, London. In September 1956 the Abbey Theatre finally performed The Quare Fellow. It had such success that the Abbey's artistic director, Ria Mooney, pushed the next play back to allow The Quare Fellow to run for six weeks. Its first New York performance was on 27 November 1958 at the Circle in the Square Theatre

Circle in the Square Theatre

The Circle in the Square Theatre is a legitimate Broadway theatre in midtown Manhattan on 50th Street in the Paramount Plaza building.The original Circle in the Square was founded by Paul Libin, Theodore Mann and Jose Quintero in 1951 and was located at 5 Sheridan Square in Greenwich Village...

Adaptation

In 1962 the play was adapted for the screen by Arthur Dreifuss and starred Patrick McGoohan

Patrick McGoohan

Patrick Joseph McGoohan was an American-born actor, raised in Ireland and England, with an extensive stage and film career, most notably in the 1960s television series Danger Man , and The Prisoner, which he co-created...

, Sylvia Syms

Sylvia Syms

Sylvia M. L. Syms OBE is a British actress. She is probably best known for her roles in the films Woman in a Dressing Gown , Ice-Cold in Alex , No Trees in the Street , Victim and The Tamarind Seed...

 and Walter Macken

Walter Macken

Walter Macken , was born in Galway, Ireland. He was a writer of short stories, novels and plays. Originally an actor, principally with the Taibhdhearc in Galway, and The Abbey Theatre, he played lead roles on Broadway in M.J. Molloy's The King of Friday's Men and his own play Home Is the Hero...

. Although the film received some favourable reviews, it is not regarded as a faithful adaptation of the play.

The Auld Triangle

"The Auld Triangle

The Auld Triangle

"The Auld Triangle" is a song written by Dominic Behan for his brother Brendan Behan and is featured in Brendan's play The Quare Fellow. It is used to introduce the play, a story about the occurrences in a prison the day a convict is set to be executed...

", a song from the opening of the play, has become an Irish music

Music of Ireland

Irish Music is the generic term for music that has been created in various genres on the island of Ireland.The indigenous music of the island is termed Irish traditional music. It has remained vibrant through the 20th, and into the 21st century, despite globalizing cultural forces...

 standard and is known by many who are unaware of its link to The Quare Fellow. Famous versions of the song were performed by Ronnie Drew and Luke Kelly. A version appears on the album Red Roses for Me

Red Roses for Me

Red Roses for Me was the first full length album by the London-based band The Pogues and was released in 1984. It is filled with traditional Irish music performed with punk influences. Traditional songs and ballads mixed with Shane MacGowan's "gutter hymns" about drinking, fighting and sex was...

, by The Pogues

The Pogues

The Pogues are a Celtic punk band, formed in 1982 and fronted by Shane MacGowan. The band reached international prominence in the 1980s and early 1990s. MacGowan left the band in 1991 due to drinking problems but the band continued first with Joe Strummer and then with Spider Stacy on vocals before...

. Dropkick Murphys

Dropkick Murphys

Dropkick Murphys are an Irish-American punk rock band formed in Quincy, Massachusetts in 1996. The band was initially signed to independent punk record label Hellcat Records, releasing five albums for the label, and making a name for themselves locally through constant playing and yearly St....

 also covered the song on The Warrior's Code

The Warrior's Code

The Warrior's Code is the fifth studio album by the Irish-American Celtic punk band, the Dropkick Murphys. Released in June 2005, it is also their bestselling. It features a dedication to Lowell's own "Irish" Micky Ward...

.