How would you communicate to your audience the relationship that exists between Shields and Davoren? What is the importance of this relationship?

The character, Seamus, is quite false and this is reflected in his 'religion' and his fickle view of Ireland. When something is not right with Ireland he will say how terrible it is, and other times he would be saying how much he loves his country. His religion is another survival technique, as he doesn't seem to bothered about missing mass and when 'The Auxiliaries' enter and Minnie takes the bombs from them and is arrested, he doesn't pray to the Saints for her safety but that she keeps quiet. These are not the acts of an entirely faithful Christian man.

Donal Davoren is a very deceptive character even to himself. This dishonesty makes the audience question his thoughts and ideas, and helps create the false friendship of Donal and Seamus. He wants to be seen as a very dramatic romantic hero, knowing her can't rise above his own class, so he tries to seem important in his own. This works as he takes Minnie Powell into believing he's a gunman, and we see he almost convinces himself, when he talks to Seamus about fighting for Ireland and how he isn't scared of Death.

The relationship I want Seamus and Donal to have is one were the feelings for each other are mutual. Those feelings will be that of sticking together in tough times, even though they seem to banter and disagree a lot of the time. We can also see Seamus has a tendency to annoy Donal either intentionally or accidentally. This will demonstrate the falsity of there relationship.

When the audience are introduced to the two characters in the first scene, I would like to create a very comical, slapstick element to the scene. The audience will then see them as light hearted and not so serious characters, which will make the audience question the integrity of the character thoughts and ideas. To create this comedy I would use Donal as the victim of Seamus firstly, unintentionally annoying him and breaking his concentration, then second when he is awake, making a joke of Davoren. This will be done through the delivery of his lines as well as the physical element. Seamus would be played brazenly and cheekily. One good example of a line that would be delivered cheekily is:

"It's a bit cold this morning, I think, isn't it?"

This would accompany a physical element also, but the two would work together for a greater comical effect.

Seamus will also show his selfish and self importance nature in this scene, in particularly when he has just woken up. His lines:

"...The way these oul' ones bawl at the body...they'd throw a bomb at you."

Seamus would deliver this line infuriated as though he had just been the innocent victim in and ordeal. This adds to the greater annoyance of Donal and creates a comic effect to the audience as they know he has been called for a while.

I would hope the audience would be shocked at the drastic change in characters, and although they wouldn't question the veracity of Donal and Seamus at the beginning of the play, their attitudes in the final scenes would make the audience think back, and engage with the play by figuring out characters. I feel this would keep the audience entertained in a sense it makes them think, and look at how they interacted with other characters.

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