RAGNAROK by Ryan Murphy #TinyPlayChallenge

Keep your creativity flowing with Fishamble's #TinyPlayChallenge
In these challenging times, Fishamble - along with many of our colleagues in the wider Irish artistic community - is working hard to keep imaginations lively, communities engaged - and most of all offer people the opportunity of creative expression. We asked our audiences: Would you welcome the challenge of exploring your thoughts and feelings through drama? Do you have a dramatic story that you feel the urge to work out for yourself, and maybe share with your fellow citizens?
​Below is one of the chosen plays from our global submissions.



Lights. Audio of rain, continuous. Stage middle, a woman in late-twenties – Herself – sitting on left of armchair before a barricaded door, staring left as if into unfathomable depths. A man – Himself – appears from right of stage, pacing, sitting upon armchair, reaching right-arm out. Herself accepts his touch.

Herself:   Would have wanted children.

Himself:   Would a’ like to’ve been a dad.

Herself:   Have sons.

Himself:   Daughters.

HERSELF TWISTS TOWARDS HIMSELF.

Herself:   Daughters?

Himself:   Daughters, aye. Teach em bou butterflies. Bees.

Herself:   They’ll be missed, bees.

Himself:   But remembered.

Herself:   Not remembered. Mythologised like all abused things.

Himself:   Could’ve given our daughters mythic names. Naturey names.

Herself:   Names like Roan. Willow. Ash.

Himself:   There’ll be ash enough. In the end.

Herself:   In an end we’ll see. We’d have been good parents in better times.

HIMSELF STARES AT HERSELF.

Himself:   You’d be a mighty mother in monstrous times.

Herself:   Burning times.

Himself:   Dying times.

Herself:   Times of silence and noise.

Himself:   Big hard-boy noise.

Herself:   Absolute bitches of words.

Himself:   ‘Catastrophic.’ ‘Unprecedented.’ ‘Unimaginable.’

Herself:   ‘Acidification.’ ‘Biocide.’ ‘Pyrocene.’

Himself:   Biblical stuff.

Herself: Sci-fi crap.

Himself:   What would her first words be?

HERSELF LETS GO OF HIMSELF.

Herself:   Only one daughter?

Himself:   There’d be only time and space for one, if one at all.

Herself:   One’s enough.

Himself:   Nuff to invest in.

Herself:   Better be good first words. They’ll be the first of the last of all words.

Himself:   Best teach her right.

Herself:   No arsehole-words.

Himself:   No ‘mortgages.’

Herself:   No ‘quantitative-easing.’

Himself:   No ‘ethnic-cleansing.’

Herself:   No ‘asset-liquidation.’

Himself:   No ‘algorithmic-governmentality.’

Herself:   No ‘neoliberalism.’

Himself:   No ‘vulture-funds.’

Herself:   No ‘bear markets.’

Himself:   Just actual bears.

Herself:   Actual words.

Himself:   Gorgeous useless truthful words.

HERSELF RISES OFF ARMCHAIR.

Herself:   Then let’s teach her the language of soil and rain.

Himself:   Like ‘Quagga?’

Herself:   Yes! Quagga!

Himself:   And ‘Eucalyptus.’

Herself:   ‘Platypus.’

Himself:   ‘Spermaceti.’

Herself:   ‘Okapi.’

Himself:   ‘Binturong.’

Herself:   ‘Wobbegong.’

Himself:   ‘Rorqual.’

Herself:   ‘Quetzal.’

Himself:   ‘Gorilla.’

Herself:   ‘Sequoia.’

Himself:   All the words.
​
Herself:   The words that matter.

CEASELESS BANGING AT DOOR.

Himself:   But the world’s been wrote off.

Herself:   We’ve rode it into the ground.

Himself:   Some more than others.

Herself:   Oh we’re all complicit. In the screwing over –

Himself / Herself:   –of each other.

Himself: Of everything.

HERSELF SITS AGAIN.

Herself:   Everything that was to be hers.

Himself:   What’ll we do?

Herself:   Have sex.

Himself:   Global-warming orgies.

Herself:   Picture it. Us two. Riding. On the beach. Wave coming.

Himself:   Fires spreading.

Herself:   Birds falling.

Himself:   Fish floating.

Herself:   Us two going at it like beasts.

Himself:   Riding back to our roots.

Herself:   Best way to go out. Bang. Bang.

Himself:   Pop.

Herself:   Middle-fingered F.U. to the apocalypse.

Himself:   Get stuffed, Doomsday!

Herself:   Piss off, Ragnarok!

HIMSELF HOLDS HIS HEAD.

Himself:   Christ Jesus. We’re not even thirty.

Herself:   She wouldn’t reach thirty.

Himself:   Did our parents contend with this. Did theirs?

Herself:   They’d their battles too. Their great wars.

Himself:   But we’ve the war on everything. Must we accept the selfishness of bringing a daughter into a world upping sticks and checking out?

Herself:   Then let’s not.

Himself:   Not have a child?

HERSELF STANDS, LIFTNG HIMSELF FROM ARMCHAIR.

Herself:   Not let this stop us.

AUDIO OF RAIN TURNS TO THUNDER. BANGING AT DOOR INTENSIFTING.

Himself:   Ok.

Herself:    Yes?

Himself:   Let’s have a child.

HERSELF PLACES HER FOREHEAD AGAINST THAT OF HIMSELF, CRYING ANGRILY, DEFIANTLY.

Herself:   Our wild child.

Himself:   Our climate queen.

Herself:   Our ecocide empress.

Himself:   Our living breathing daughter.

Herself:   Our daughter who’ll live and breathe.

Himself:   Who’ll outlive this.

Herself:   Outlive everything.

LIGHTS OUT. AUDIO OF STORM AND BANGING PEAKING, FADING.



Ryan is a twenty five year old artist and writer, who graduated from University College Dublin in 2017 with a Masters in Creative Writing. He is originally from Gorey in Wexford. He had formerly been teaching English before the virus, and he is hoping to pursue a career as a novelist, artist, and environmental activist. Most of his creative work explores issues of climate change, biodiversity loss, sexuality, mythology and spirituality. Some of his artwork is featured on his instagram account @ryan.murphy73550.

Read more #TinyPlayChallenge responses