What’s In a Nickname?
My costumes for the 2000 Production of The Cripple of Inishmaan at Samford University Theatre
Blog 55
“Would you do me a favour, Babbybobby? Would you not call me Cripple Billy any more long?”
Billy in Martin McDonagh’s The Cripple of Inishmaan
I am about to go on a pilgrimage to Ireland in one week! Getting ready for the trip, I have been recalling the Irish plays I have designed throughout my career. One of those was The Cripple of Inishmaan by Martin McDonagh. Since I wrote about the play in my book Theatre Is My Life!, for the July 10 entry, I thought I would use this piece for my blog this week.
I know people named Bug, Killer, Kap, Mo, Barrel, Cookie, Mugs, Rook, and Queenie. My grandmother Dorothy was known as Little Dot and her sister Lillian was Toots. My granddaughter calls me “BeBe” and her other grandmother “Pat-Pat.” Roger is “Rah-Rah.” My mother’s older sister always called her “Stinky,” a name she despised from her childhood.
Names are funny, when you think about it. Our given name or first/second name, or so-called “Christian name” — that many of us have officially conferred upon us at Baptism — is a legal part of our identity. “Barbara,” along with my surname or last name “Sloan,” pinpoints me as a particular person. Sloan, and my maternal connections to surnames like Collins, Bowron, and the paternal Aycock and Musgrove, identify me as part of a family or clan.
But, unless we change them, we have no power over our names at all — and especially not those epithets bestowed on us congenially — or unpleasantly — as nicknames. These monikers substituted for our proper names derive from love, ridicule, intimacy, or attachment, especially in families, classrooms, or places like summer camp. Bug, Killer, Kap, Mo, and Barrel are all camp friends of mine. We call one friend “Marty,” another “B.L.,” and another “Weezie,” and I was sometimes called “Moose” during my time at Winnataska. My son was called “Cuss Cowboy'' one year for a string of expletives he let loose when, at age 10, his horse ran away with him.
In Martin McDonagh’s The Cripple of Inishmaan, Billy Claven has had enough of being called “Cripple.” He is ready for a new image of himself and a new life, yearning to break away from his small, petty, poor hometown of Inishmaan. He auditions for a role in a documentary on the neighboring island, and the lame orphan surprises everyone by his spunk and gamble.
And yet, people have power over us when they know our names, when they dub us Barbara, Babs, BeBe, or Moose. Bobby asks what his friend would rather be called and Billy says, “Well, just Billy.” And when Bobby says okay, Billy extends the understanding by asking him, “And would you rather be called Bobby and not Babbybobby?” But Bobby is fine with his sobriquet: “I do like being called Babbybobby. What’s wrong with it?”
Some nicknames are fun and fine. Others, like “Cripple Billy” are enervating and devitalizing. They drain the person of any energy or vigor they might possibly muster. Don’t remind me of the cripple bit, Billy is saying. My shriveled arm and my bum leg are obvious: let’s not dwell on that. I can take a boat to another island. I can audition for a film. Let’s wipe out the paralyzing label of endearment. “Would you do me a favour, Babbybobby? Would you not call me Cripple Billy any more long?”