Aristocrats

Act One

As the play opens, local man Willie is in the middle of setting up a baby monitor in the hallway of Ballybeg Hall. When it is turned on, we hear Judith attending to her father, who has dementia and is confined to his bed. Tom, an American academic sits in the study making notes on several books. Willie is thrilled to suddenly hear Father’s voice through the monitor, telling Tom that he was an imposing, masterful man before suffering a life-changing stroke. Casimir enters, carrying chairs to arrange on the lawn. He arrived home from Hamburg the previous evening and immediately appears eccentric and excitable. He fails to recognize Willie, even though they grew up together. He is thrilled to listen to his sister, Claire, playing piano offstage and they play a game where he guesses the piece of music she is playing. Casimir begins to recount stories about his family and his father’s connections to well-known people of nobility but he suddenly stops, believing himself to be