Brendan Behan (1923-1964) was born in the Holles Street Hospital in Dublin. Before his becoming a writer he had many different jobs, the most well-known of these being his career as a house-painter.  At the age of sixteen he was arrested in Liverpool, England while carrying explosives for the I.R.A. and sentenced to go to “Borstal” (a boys prison) for eighteen months, an experience that would form the basis of his novel “Borstal Boy”. After his release he re-joined the Irish Republican Army and was again arrested, receiving a fourteen year sentence for shooting at a policeman. He served only four years.

”The Hostage” was a collaboration between an intuitive dramatist, Brendan Behan, and an inspired director, Joan Littlewood. In England and on Broadway, it was as much a public event as a work of theater, and, through the concerted efforts of the playwright, it also became a public spectacle.  Soon after its Broadway opening on one of the evenings that the author interrupted the action and became an uninvited member of his own cast. His appearance on stage was both an enrichment and an intrusion. With Behan in the play, ”The Hostage” was almost dangerously alive.

I REMEMBER IN SEPTEMBER

I remember in September,
When the final stumps were drawn,
And the shouts of crowds now silent
And the boys to tea were gone.
Let us, oh Lord above us,
Still remember simple things,
When all are dead who love us,
Oh the Captains and the Kings,
When all are dead who love us,
Oh the Captains and the Kings.
Far away in dear old Cyprus,
Or in Kenya’s dusty land,
Where all bear the white man’s burden
In many a strange land.
As we look across our shoulder
In West Belfast the school bell rings,
And we sigh for dear old England,
And the Captains and the Kings.
I wandered in a nightmare
All around Great Windsor Park,
And what did you think I found there
As I stumbled in the dark?
It was an apple half-bitten,
And sweetest of all things,
Five baby teeth had written
Of the Captains and the Kings.

OPEN THE WINDOW SOFTLY

Open the door softly,
Shut it-keep out the draught,
For years and years, I’ve shed millions of tears,
And never but once have I laughed.
It was the time the holy picture fell,
And knocked me old Granny cold,
While she knitted and sang an old Irish song,
It was by traitors poor old Ulster was sold.
So open the window softly,
For Jaysus’ sake, hang an old latch,
Come in and lie down, and afterwards
You can ask me what’s the catch.
Before these foreign-born bastards, dear,
See you don’t let yourself down,
We’ll be the Lion and Unicorn,
My Rose unto your Crown.

ON THE EIGHTEENTH DAY OF NOVEMBER…

Just outside the town of Macroom.
The tans in their big Crossley tenders,
Came roaring along to their doom.
But the boys of the column were waiting
With hand grenades primed on the spot,
And the Irish Republican Army
Made shit of the whole mucking lot.

THE LAUGHING BOY

It was on an August morning, all in the moring hours,
I went to take the warming air all in the month of flowers,
And there I saw a maiden and heard her mournful cry,
Oh, what will mend my broken heart, I’ve lost my Laughing Boy.
So strong, so wide, so brave he was, I’ll mourn his loss too sore
When thinking that we’ll hear the laugh or springing step no more.
Ah, curse the time, and sad the loss my heart to crucify,
Than an Irish son, with a rebel gun, shot down my Laughing Boy.
Oh, had he died by Pearse’s side, or in the G.P.O.,
Killed by an English bullet from the rifle of the foe,
Or forcibly fed while Ashe lay dead in the dungeons of Mountjoy,
I’d have cried with pride at the way he died, my own dear Laughing Boy.
My princely love, can ageless love do more than tell to you
Go raibh mile maith Agath, for all you tried to do,
For all you did and would have done, my enemies to destroy,
I’ll prize your name and guard your fame, my own dear Laughing Boy.

In “The hostage”, Brendan Behan deals with the Irish people’s struggle for freedom. This new Irish mythology seemed to me to be very closely related to ours. The questions about God, about existence, about loneliness, love and hate retain their fundamental significance in the human struggle for life and liberty. That applies to Northern Ireland just as much as to Greece. When in 1961 I put “The hostage” to music, I didn’t want to compose typical Greek folk music; I wanted at least the musical form to correspond to the special atmosphere of the work.