At the interval of ‘Marble’, the Marina Carr play currently premiering at The Abbey, the woman next to me couldn’t take it anymore. She’d escaped to the foyer, read the last page of the play, and then made the decision that she wouldn’t waste anymore of her short life on this nonsense. In a way, that’s exactly how the female characters in Carr’s play feel.
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The Lyric Theatre and An Grianan Theatre presents the Northern Ireland premiere of The Home Place by Brian Friel.
It is the summer of 1878, a time of unrest and the early days of the Home Rule movement. The play is set at The Lodge in Ballybeg, the Donegal home of the Gores, a planter family.
The atmosphere in the Bewley’s Theatre Café feels very different post-performance, and yet it still retains its bohemian artsy vibe. As I walk in, I suddenly feel as though I am in Paris, in a small café on the left bank. Technicians buzz around, striking the minimal set, opening the shutters and letting the dust fly out onto the street for the street cleaners to handle. A few stray elderly ladies totter out into the open once again and the clanking of dinner plates suggests a satisfactory lunch. It is about 2.15 p.m. and Simon Toal, who I may have accidentally called Peter while organising this interview- shame on me, has just completed another performance of ‘The Friends of Jack Kairo’, the run of which will finish on the 14th February. I have come to talk to him about what happens next but it seems like he might need a moment, the sweat still trickling down his brow.
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Tom Stoppard’s The Real Thing is about love, passion, honesty and articulacy, or rather, inarticulacy. Our protagonist Henry is a playwright, involved with an actress, Annie and likes to think of himself as highly intellectual, believing his art as a writer is sacred and that language should be treasured. This role is executed superbly by Stephen Brennan, whose comic timing makes this play highly witty, and helps the audience digest the wordy nature of the play. Henry may have all the words, but he is unable to put them together when he wants to express to Annie what she means to him. We see Annie getting increasingly frustrated by his lack of words for her which down spirals in attempts to make him jealous.
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I once read part of a book on experimental theatre, but it was very boring so I stopped. Prior to seeing the show, I feared Brian Martin’s new play Joker Choker, on in week four of this term in the Players theatre, might be experimental. The line between the Real and the Unreal might become blurred before our eyes—the possibilities inherent in fiction might even be exploited.
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February 2009 – The Abbey Theatre Literary Department is to present two new exciting new writing initiatives in 2009.
