Emerald Isle

Series
Work In Progress
Original Broadcast Date
1988
Cast
Fionnula Flanagan, Larry Block, Joe Frank
Format
Improv Actors, Scripted Actors, Serious Monologue, Absurd Monologue, Singing, 60 minutes
Preceded by:	Five Part Dissonance
Followed by:	Home
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Oh Emerald Isle, surrounded by the raging sea.

Emerald Isle is a program Joe Frank produced as part of the series Work In Progress. It was originally broadcast in 1988.

Synopsis

• Sound of rain.
• monologue by Joe: a meditation on Ireland, Dublin.
• monologue by an actress with an Irish accent in the second person: She has found racy magazines in her dormer's room.
• She accidentally read his journal, found it was about her.
• She admits to having feelings for him. She sings Misty, is greeted with applause and thanks the band, starts on "That Old Black Magic" in a monotonic whisper.
• Joe: A magician sets his audience on fire; a volunteer is sawed in two and dies horribly; a magician is pulled into a hat by a disembodied hand.
• Ode to woman: high school cheerleader, business woman, nurse, homemaker, secretary, stewardess, prostitute, torch singer.
• Actors: the Irish singer calls her Agent to complain about her hotel, they argue. Joe delivers a second person monologue: you explore a run down hotel; a mental patient obsessively opens and closes a trunk; bathroom graffiti.
• The story of a maid; she knows the secrets of the inhabitants of the house she cleans.
• When she discovers that the family is planning to fire her, she leaves and becomes a blues singer.
• The Irish singer and her agent continue to argue.
• Joe monologue: one side of a stock conversation to accompany an illicit affair.
• The Irish singer talks about comforting men.
• Edie Brickell song, "Nothing."

Music

This is an incomplete record of the music in this program. If you can add more information, please do.

• Fionnula Flanagan sings over "Misty"
• "Misty" - Teddy Booth | YouTube [13:41]
• Fionnula Flanagan sings "That Old Black Magic" over unknown instrumental music [20:00]

• "The Kiss" - Harold Budd (from The White Arcades, 1988) | YouTube [22:45]
• "Brussels" - Jon Hassell (from The Surgeon Of The Nightsky Restores Dead Things By The Power Of Sound, 1987) | YouTube [35:11]
• "Danny's All-Star Joint" - Rickie Lee Jones (from Rickie Lee Jones, 1979) | YouTube [47:47]
• "Nothing" - Edie Brickell & New Bohemians (from Shooting Rubberbands At The Stars, 1988) | YouTube [55:28]

Shared material

• Clement At Christmas
• Live At Market Street

Additional credits

The original broadcast credits state: "With Fionnula Flanagan, Larry Block, and Joe Frank. Recorded by Jeff Sykes and Bob Carlson, and mixed by Jeff Sykes. Special thanks to David Rapkin and Sheila Bjornlie."