“Juno and the Paycock” by Sean O'CaseyACT IThe living room of a two-room tenancy occupied by the Boyle family in a tenement house in Dublin. Left, a doorleading to another part of the house; left of door a window looking into the street; at back a dresser; farther to rightat back, a window looking into the back of the house. Between the window and the dresser is a picture of the Virgin;below the picture, on a bracket, is a crimson bowl in which a floating votive light is burning. Farther to the right is asmall bed partly concealed by cretonne hangings strung on a twine. To the right is the fireplace; near the fire place isa door leading to the other room. Beside the fireplace is a box containing coal. On the mantelshelf is an alarm clocklying on its face. In a corner near the window looking into the back is a galvanized bath. A table and some chairs. Onthe table are breakfast things for one. A teapot is on the hob and a frying-pan stands inside the fender. There are afew books on the dresser and one on the table. Leaning against the dresser is a long-handled shovel—the kindinvariably used by labourers when turning concrete or mixing mortar. Johnny Boyle is sitting crouched beside the fire.Mary with her jumper[1]off—it is lying on the back of a chair—is arranging her hair before a tiny mirror perched onthe table. Beside the mirror is stretched out the morning paper, which she looks at when she isn’t gazing into themirror. She is a well-made and good-looking girl of twenty-two. Two forces are working in her mind—one, throughthe circumstances of her life, pulling her back; the other, through the influence of books she has read, pushing herforward. The opposing forces are apparent in her speech and her manners, both of which are degraded by herenvironment, and improved by her acquaintance—slight though it be—with literature. The time is early forenoon.Mary:(looking at the paper).On a little by-road, out beyant Finglas,[2], he was found.[Mrs. Boyleenters by the door on right; she has been shopping and carries a small parcel in her hand. She is forty-five years of age, and twenty years ago she must have been a pretty woman; but her face has now assumed that lookwhich ultimately settles down upon the faces of the women of the working-class; a look of listless monotony andharassed anxiety, blending with an expression of mechanical resistance. Were circumstances favourable, she wouldprobably be a handsome, active and clever woman.]Mrs. Boyle:Isn’t he come in yet?Mary:No, mother.Mrs. Boyle:Oh, he’ll come in when he likes; struttin’ about the town like a paycock with Joxer, I suppose. I hear allabout Mrs. Tancred’s son is in this mornin’s paper.Mary:The full details are in it this mornin’; seven wounds he had — one entherin’ the neck, with an exit woundbeneath the left shoulder-blade; another in the left breast penethratin’ the heart, an’…Johnny:(springing up from the fire).Oh, quit that readin’ for God’s sake! Are yous losin’ all your feelin’s? It’ll soon
