Sitting in the foyer of The Abbey Theatre moments before my interview with Wayne Jordan, the director of La Dispute, the show currently beginning its run at The Peacock, I suddenly realise I know nothing about him- this should be interesting. When I finally do meet him however, I find that despite my ignorance, I must have had expectations, because he defies all of them. Bounding through the entrance wearing a distinctly blue tracksuit, he is definitely the most excitable director I have ever met, rushing over to greet me, the ignorant stranger, with a hug.

For a young director about to debut at our country’s national theatre, he seems remarkably sure of himself. When I ask if he’s starting to feel the pressure, he responds, ‘nervousness wouldn’t be my primary feeling at the moment’. After all, he reminds me, he has been working there since 2006 as a trainee- their word, or resident assistant director- his preferred title. Without that experience he says, and without the help and support of his colleagues and friends there, he would not be directing La Dispute now. In 2002, he was just another Trinity graduate and scholar, of the drama department, with a dream of directing. There is hope for the rest of us then.

La Dispute, for those of us who are not in the know, is a French comedy written by Pierre Marivaux, the man often described as the forgotten playwright. The basic premise: An aristocrat releases four human guinea pigs into a sinister ‘Garden of Eden’ to consider the age old question: who is more faithful in love, man or woman? Conclusions are arrived at but Jordan will not disclose any information- ‘Let’s just say it doesn’t quite work out the way you think’. Four orphans (2 boys and 2 girls) have been raised in isolation, from the world and from each other as a kind of strange social and scientific experiment. Responding to their first loves and lusts and lies, they have to grow up all too quickly, a painful process by all accounts. I say ‘it sounds complicated’, he replies ‘only so much as life is complicated.’

La Dispute is a glittering journey into the dark but prophetically modern imagination of Marivaux who, Jordan tells me, wished to expose ‘the artifice of love’. The French comedic playwright decided love was a farce when he apparently caught a young love interest preening herself for their later encounter. He was disgusted by the revelation, unlike Jordan who thinks that it’s common place nowadays for men and women both to stare at themselves in the mirror for a while before a date. He does it himself.

A playwright not much written about, Marivaux had a relative popularity in France, considered fashionable for a while, and has enjoyed some recent revivals in the United States. He remains little known in Ireland, and until recently could not have counted Wayne Jordan as one of his fans: ‘I never knew Marivaux so I couldn’t forget him’. Thus, while he cannot claim any responsibility for rediscovering the eighteenth century playwright, he has been spending a lot of time directing his work, this being his second Marivaux interpretation of late- only last month he directed Marivaux’s 1723 romantic comedy The Double Inconstancy, renamed Everybody Loves Sylvia with his theatre company Randolf SD at The Project’s Cube Theatre, moving directly on to his project at The Abbey.

Is he finding it difficult to separated the two shows? It seems not- ‘They’re very different plays with completely different tones’, he says, ‘this one being much more concise and distilled. ‘A later play, Marivaux seems like a very different playwright at this time of his life’. Having personally translated the first play from scratch with very little knowledge of French and a dictionary by his side, Jordan feels less personally familiar with the original script in this production, which is a shame, but he is delighted to be working with a group of extremely talented actors, designers and technicians.

One thing you can’t deny about Wayne Jordan is that he is remarkably fearless, a quality that can only be a positive influence on his theatrical endeavours. He is willing to go the extra mile and enter risky territory for the sake of innovation- a necessary quality for a young Irish director. Let’s hope the few closeted Marivaux fans who made their way out of the woodwork for Everybody loves Sylvia do so once again. If you are such a person, you can catch La Dispute starting Wednesday 14 January at The Peacock.