Emerald Isle

Emerald Isle[1]

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

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.

• "Misty" - unknown instrumental version [13:41]
• "That Old Black Magic" - unknown instrumental version [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."