The Hostage (play)

The Hostage depicts the events leading up to the planned execution of an 18-year-old IRA member in a Belfast jail, accused of killing a Royal Ulster Constabulary policeman.

The action of the play is set in a very odd house of ill-repute on Nelson Street, Dublin, owned by a former IRA commandant.

The hostage of the title is Leslie Williams, a young and innocent Cockney British Army soldier taken hostage at the border with Northern Ireland and held in the brothel, brought among the vibrant but desperately unorthodox combination of prostitutes, revolutionaries and general low characters inhabiting the place.

In their comic representations, they express Behan's dislike for different aspects of Nationalist, Catholic, Republican Ireland's vision of itself by the late 1950s.

Pat, the caretaker of a lodging-house Monsewer, the owner of the house Rio Rita, a homosexual navvy Princess Grace, his coloured boy-friend Mr. Mulleady, a decaying Civil Servant Leslie Williams, a British Soldier IRA Officer, a fanatical patriot Volunteer, Feargus O'Connor, a ticket-collector Russian Sailor

Meg Dillon, Pat's consort Miss Gilchrist, a social worker Colette, a whore Ropeen, an old whore Teresa, the skivvy, a country girl Kate, the pianist The principal themes of the play are innocence set against the political motives and ambitions of others; and the arbitrary power of authority.