I Have Spent My Winter on the Ice-cold Sea
Posted by David New on 2/02/2009Often in post-show discussions audience members want to discuss the title of a play. In the case of The Seafarer, Conor McPherson gives us a clue as to why he chose the title by including as a preface to the script the following quote from the medieval poem called The Seafarer:
“He knows not
Who lives most easily on land, how I
Have spent my winter on the ice-cold sea
Wretched and anxious, in the paths of exile
Lacking dear friends, hung round by icicles
While hail flew past in showers.”-From a translation by Richard Hamer
In addition to referencing the poem and locating the character of Sharky as the central figure from the poem, audience members have referenced the John Synge play, Riders to the Sea, which is the story of an Irish woman who loses her husband, her father-in-law and five sons to deaths in the sea. People have also suggested that the title has connotations of how we metaphorically navigate our lives: subject to weather we have no control over, experiencing both smooth sailing and stormy weather, always with the danger of getting lost, or worse to drown in its depths.
February 2nd, 2009 at 8:22 pm
This is interesting. At first, I was unclear about the meaning of the title of the play. I knew the play was set in a coastal town, but now the title adds even greater meaning for me. I appreciate the metaphor: it did indeed feel like Sharky was “lost at sea”; and I know the sense of isolation that he feels.
The title also works to enhance to the parallel of the drunken sailor; Sharky, too, is isolated and an alcoholic.
February 5th, 2009 at 9:47 am
Yes - and the antidote to that sense of being lost and isolated is connection with others - his brother Richard, Ivan, the woman who sent him the CDs. As Sharky bounds up the stairs at the end of the play he seems determined to re-connect with his fellow human beings and the world around him.