October 1999

Brooklyn Academy of Music 1999 Next Wave Festival BAMcinematek Brooklyn Philharmonic 651 ARTS

Jennifer Bartlett, House: Large Grid, 1998

BAM Next Wave Festival sponsored by

PHILIP MORRIS ~lA6(Blll COMPANIES INC. Brooklyn Academy of Music Bruce C. Ratner Chairman of the Board

Karen Brooks Hopkins Joseph V. Melillo President Executive Producer

presents The Wh iteheaded Boy

Running time: a well-made play in three acts approximately 2 1/2 by Lennox Robinson hours. There will be adapted by Barabbas...the company one intermission. BAM Harvey Lichtenstein Theater October 6-9, 1999, at 7:30 October 10, 1999, at 3:00

Directed by Gerard Stembridge

Cast Mrs. Geoghegan Raymond Keane her children George Mikel Murfi Peter Raymond Keane Kate Veronica Coburn Jane Mikel Murfi Baby Mikel Murfi Donough Brosnan, engaged to Jane Veronica Coburn John Duffy, Postmaster & Chairman R.D.C Raymond Keane Delia, his daughter, engaged to Denis Veronica Coburn Hannah, a servant Veronica Coburn .Aunt Ellen Veronica Coburn

and Louis Lovett as The Whiteheaded Boy

British Airways is the official airline for this presentation. The actors in The Whiteheaded Boy are appearing with the permission of Actors' Equity Association.

17 Producer Enid Reid Whyte Production Designer Sean Hillen Lighting Designer Paul Keogan Costume Designer Kathy Kavanagh Production Stage Manager Miriam Duffy Stage Manager Eimer Murphy Lighting Deputy Eamon Fox American Stage Manager Kim Beringer

Publicity in Ireland Mary Folan Photography Kevin McFeely

U.S. Tour Representation by David Eden Productions, Ltd.

Barabbas...the company 7 South Great Georges Street Dublin 2, Ireland Tel: +353 1 671 2013 Fax: +353 1 6704275 E-mail: [email protected]

Company Registered Number 218757 Charity Registered Number 12497

Artistic Director Raymond Keane Company Manager Enid Reid Whyte Administrative Assistant Amy O'Hanlon Publicist Mary Folan

Banking A.I.B., Clonskeagh

Legal Advisor Philip Lee, Lee McEvoy

Barabbas... the company is grant aided by The Arts Council of Ireland; The Cultural Relations Committee of The Department of Foreign Affairs, Ireland; The Dublin Council. Funding received from The British Council and Arts for Health's Sake. photo; Kevin McFeely

18 Director's Note Many years ago at an amateur drama festival, I watched our adjudicator comment on one of the great realist dramas, Long Day's Journey into Night. He pointed accusingly at a door on the set and said chidingly, "I wonder if they had locks like that in those days-I don't think so." Realist drama can be a paradise for the pedant. Willy Loman's final scene in Death of a Salesman might be extraordinarily moving-but those shoes just weren't right for that period; a great kitchen-sink drama can be blighted by the question mark hanging over the Fairy Liquid bottle sitting on that sink. Sometimes, too, that quest for perfection in surface detail results in the production being strangled by this pedantry, and, in the case of great plays of the past, reduces them merely to objects of nostalgic interest. So sometimes it's worth exploring such plays differently, getting to the heart of what was on the author's mind.

In the case of The Whiteheaded Boy, it is clear that Robinson is fascinated and greatly amused by the fictions that people agree upon; how their personal desires drive them to refute reality or to twist it into something "acceptable." His generous comic vision allows us to laugh at the foolishness of his characters but not to forget that such a world has not yet passed. This world remains a world where truth is a dangerous thing, where influence is preferred to ability, and where what the neighbors say is far more significant than someone's wish to be honest. He is also concerned with the question of what is real and what only has the appearance of reality-and he looks at it all with a sardonic twinkle in his eye.

We hope, in this production, to have stayed true to not only his ideas, but also to the way he wanted to express them. -Gerard Stembridge

The Playwright Lennox Robinson was born in Douglas, Cork, Ireland, on the fourth of October, 1886. The son of a stockbroker who became a Protestant minister in 1892, Robinson received little formal education. He read extensively and was tutored at home, leaving him free to develop his literary skills by edit­ ing a family magazine with his brothers and sisters. His first play, The Clancy Name, based on a story by his sister, was inspired by an Abbey Theatre tour to Cork in 1907. He said in his autobiography, "It came on me in a flash, as a revelation, that play material could be found outside one's own door, at one's own fireside." He submitted the play to the Abbey, where it was staged with great success. This was the start of a lifelong association with the Abbey, where he was manager and director of plays from 1910-14. After this parting from the Abbey, he became involved with the Carnegie Trust in setting up a library system in Ireland. From 1915-24, he was organizing librarian for the Limerick-Kerry district. During four of those years, he stayed in the house of the O'Brien family in Cahirmoyle. This was where he had his opportunity to get to know Irish rural life, and this was where he wrote The Whiteheaded Boy-using Mrs. Mabel O'Brien as the model for the play's Aunt Ellen.

The Play The Whiteheaded Boy was produced at the Abbey in December 1916 and was followed by a production which secured Robinson's place as a rising new playwright. He returned to the Abbey in 1919 as manager and 19 director of productions and in 1923 was made a member of the Board of Directors. In 1949, he was made an honorary doctor of literature by Trinity College Dublin; in 1951, his official history of the Abbey was published, and in 1953 he was appointed patron of the newly founded All-Ireland Drama Council. He died on the fourteenth of October 1958 and is buried in St. Patrick's Cathedral.

The "well-made play" is an English translation of the French phrase une piece bien faite, used in the early nineteenth century to describe plays that depended on a well-crafted plot. The protagonists meet with complications that build toward a climax followed by a denouement. The style went out of fashion, and the term became a pejorative one by the late nineteenth century, when naturalism, with its focus on characterization, was ushered into the theater world. The style never went away completely, however, and along with its early exponents-Scribe, Sarbou, and Feydeau-the well­ made play has lived on into the twentieth century in the works of many playwrights, including Noel Coward and Lillian Hellman and in The Whiteheaded Boy by Lennox Robinson.

The Company Barabbas...the company was founded by Veronica Coburn, Raymond Keane, and Mikel Murfi in 1993, and launched in a three-play festival at Project Arts Centre in 1994. Barabbas, known for company-devised and scripted work, are dedicated to Irish theater that is physical and dynamic, theater that has roots in the traditions of the European continent but has gone on to explore distinctly Irish gesture, and Irish aural and visual culture. Committed to their vision of Irish physical theater and clowning, members of Barabbas individually and collectively have conducted workshops for many of Ireland's theater companies, theater schools, youth theaters, and abroad in London, Wales, and Denmark. Barabbas' innovation, excitement, and high production standards have brought the company an Entertainment Award in the 1997 Pan-Celtic Film and Television Awards; three nominations in the 1998 ESB Irish Times Theatre Awards, including best production for The Whiteheaded Boy; and The 1998 Kilkenny Beer Cream of Irish Theatre Award for its contribution to Irish theater.

Barabbas' The Whiteheaded Boy was first produced in Project@the mint, Dublin, in September 1997 in association with Project Arts Centre and is reproduced with the kind permission of The Lennox Robinson Foundation, National Theatre Society, Ltd. 20 1993 Come Down from the Mountain John Clown, John Clown (Sligo)

1994 Festival of Barabbas Come Down from the Mountain John Clown, John Clown; Macbeth; and Half Eight Mass of a Tuesday (Dublin)

The Twenty-fourth of February (a collaboration with Brian Hand for EVtA) (Limerick)

1995 Macbeth (Limerick, Galway, Waterford, Sligo, Dublin)

Sick Dying Dead Buried Out (in association with Project Arts Centre) (Dublin)

1996 Half Eight Mass of a Tuesday (Dublin, Galway, Limerick, Cork, Arhus, Denmark, Marseilles, France)

Clown TV (a Temple Bar Properties Commission for the E.U. Presidency)

Strokehauling (a Project Arts Centre Commission for the 1996 Dublin Theatre Festival) (Dublin)

Barabbas (with Temple Films) Tei/effs na Gaeilge television series * Entertainment Award, 1997 Pan-Celtic Film & Television Festival

1997 Strokehauling (London) A Uving Clown Exhibit (a St. Patrick's Festival commission) Out the Back Door (in association with The Ark, a cultural center for children) The Whiteheaded Boy (Dublin)

1998 The Whiteheaded Boy (Ireland: Waterford, Cork, Limerick, Galway, Kilkenny, Longford, Sligo, Monaghan, Dublin Northern Ireland: Coleraine, Belfast, Derry Wales: Aberystwyth, Cardigan, Brecon, Swansea : London)

1999 Hupnouse (Dublin, Tallaght) The Whiteheaded Boy (Dublin, Belfast, United States)

Planned for 2000 Brilliant Days Blue (a co-production with the Abbey, Ireland's National Theater)

20A Barabbas wish to Les Woznic of Photographics Fiach MacConghail1 and all at the thank our presenters Bewleys Ireland Project Arts Centre in the United States Irish Distillers Tony O'Dalaigh and Fergus and the following for Martin Fahy and Stephen Molloy Linehan, Dublin Theatre Festival their support in at the Abbey Theatre Michael Maloney, Embassy of Ireland: Joy Gleeson, The Gate Theatre Ireland, Washington, D.C. Philip McGuire at The Pen Shop Jerry James Betty Grant, Temple Bar Opticians Tom Lloyd and all at Valerie Bistany Adirondack Scenic, Inc. Donal Beecher Cultural Relations Committee of Madeline Boughton the Department of Ciaran Gray Foreign Affairs, Ireland Eithne Hand Fiona Nolan Mal Whyte Carmel O'Doherty Charlie O'Neill Ronan Smith Harold Fish, British Council Ireland Jack Gilligan, Dublin Corporation Phelim Donlon, Arts Council Jane Daly, Arts Council Pat Moylan, Andrews Lane Theatre Gerry Synnott, Olympia Theatre John Sutton and all at Public Communications Centre

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Veronica Coburn (Performer) is a founding Buzzin'to Bits in Project@the Mint. She has member of Barabbas ..the company. She also acted as artistic director for the 1998 devised and performed in Barabbas' inaugural National Festival of Youth Theatres in season and in Out the Back Door at The Ark r Monaghan, which resulted in a hundred-strong in 1997. She devised and directed Sick Dying performance, Hey Pelops. Dead Buried Out with the company in 1995 and in 1996 directed the revival of Half Eight Miriam Duffy's (Production Stage Manager) Mass of a Tuesday. Over the years, she has previous work includes Sinbad and Aladdin at performed at the Abbey, the Peacock, with the Gaiety; Annie, Run for Your Wife, and The Rough Magic, Horizon, Copol, Pigsback, Witches at the Olympia; Live Like Pigs at the Theatre of Fire, and in many television Samuel Beckett Centre; Farawayan for Calypso; productions. She was assistant director to Words not Words for Temenos; United Colours Gerard Stembridge on his play Lovechild at the of Domino for Dublin Youth Theatre; Strange Project and on Comedy of Errors at the Abbey. Days, Body Travel Time, Deseo, and Made to Ms. Coburn is chairperson of Dublin Youth Measure for Dance Theatre of Ireland; and Theatre and for them directed Mark O'Rowe's Jours Estrange for Dance Theatre of Ireland/Les

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Cornets Bagouets. With Barabbas, she has also with Grapevine, Wet Paint, Copol, Horizon, stage managed Half Eight Mass of a Tuesday, Macnas, Passion Machine, The Crack '90's, Out the Back Door, and Hupnouse. No Dance Performers, the Oscar Mime Co., Throwin' Shapes, the Abbey, and the Gaiety. Sean Hillen (Designer) was born in Newry, Before joining Barabbas, Mr. Keane worked for Northern Ireland, in 1961. He studied at the several years in television as a writer/actor/pup­ Belfast College of Art, the London College of peteer on programs including Pajo's Junkbox, Printing Media, and the Slade School of Fine The Whole Shebang, Pajo and the Salty Frog, Art. He is known in Ireland and the U.K. for Pajo and the Salty Frog in Space, Scratch the invented worlds in his paper collage and Saturday, J.M. T.v., Nighthawks, The photomontage work, from LondoNewry to the Basement, and Fair City. He is a writer on more recent IRLANTIS series, and his work is Irish television's current pre-school series The held in collections including the Imperial War Morbegs. In film, he has appeared in The Boy Museum London, the Irish State collection, the from Mercury, Sweety Barrett, and St. Patrick. BBC, and Microsoft. He has executed commis­ sions including title graphics for BBC-TV and Paul Keogan (Lighting Designer) was born in website and other designs for Guinness and Dublin. He studied drama at Trinity College Telecom Eireann, as well as stage design for Dublin and Glasgow University. Mr. Keogan Dublin Youth Theatre and Alternative Miss was production manager for Project Arts Centre Ireland. Most recently, he has been creating 1994-96. Many of his lighting designs to date work on a Macintosh computer, as in this have been for such dance companies as ICON­ design for The Whiteheaded Boy. He is delighted TACT, MANDANCE, Dagda, Dance Theatre of to be technical designer on Brilliant Days Blue, Ireland, Irish Modern Dance Theatre, and Barabbas' year 2000 co-production with the CoisCeim Dance Theatre. Opera designs Abbey Theatre. include That Dublin Mood and The Rake's Progress (Opera Theatre Company); La traviata Kathy Kavanagh (Costume Designer) studied (Co-Opera); and La boheme, L'elisir d'amore, textiles and craft design in N.C.A.D., Dublin. The Marriage of Figaro, and The Gypsy Baron She has designed and made costumes for a for Opera Ireland. Theater designs include number of companies, including Dublin Dance Beckett's Company for Throwin' Shapes; Down Theatre, Horizon-Project, Storytellers Theatre onto Blue and Danti Dan for Rough Magic; The Company, Amharclann de hide, Dublin Youth Silver Tassie for the Almeida Theatre; The Gay Theatre, and the Beckett Festival at the Gate. Detective for Project; and Electroshock for In costuming for Barabbas, she has designed Bedrock. More recently, he designed Mrs. and constructed Sick Dying Dead Buried Out, Sweeney for Rough Magic; Strange Days for Strokehauling, Out the Back Door, and Dance Theatre of Ireland, Dance Fest '97; Hupnouse, and constructed Half Eight Mass of Three Piece Suite for Daghda; The Duchess of a Tuesday. Some of her favorite work is for Malfi and The Spanish Tragedy for Loose street theater and clowns. She was proud to Canon; Seasons for CoisCeim; Melonfarmer; design costumes for "The Diceman," a staple The Electrocution of Children; Amazing Grace; performer in Irish Street Theatre, for many and Living Quarters and Making History years. Ms. Kavanagh and her partner, Thyes, (Peacock) for the 1999 Brian Friel Festival. now run Showtime, a company specializing in Previous shows for Barabbas include Half Eight costume design and themed settings for Mass of a Tuesday (1994), Macbeth, Sick promotions, functions, and nightclubs. Dying Dead Buried Out, and Come Down from the Mountain John Clown, John Clown. Raymond Keane (Performer) is a founding member of Barabbas...the company and has Louis Lovett (Performer) trained at Down to devised and appeared in all their work to date Earth Academy. His most recent stage work except Strokehauling and Hupnouse, which he was in Diamonds in the Soil for Macnas and as directed. As a freelance actor, he has worked Eddie in Fool for Love (Brasstacks Thea. Co.) in 20C Andrews Lane Studio. Previous roles include Measure for Measure, Twelfth Night, Henry VIII, Simon Bliss in Hay Fever; Wendell in Ryder in Othello (Dublin Shakespeare Society), Romeo the 1996 Festival, which subse­ and Juliet (SFX), and, at the Abbey, Comedy of quently toured England; and roles as the gods Errors. He has also written and directed for the­ Jupiter and Pluto in Ovid's Metamorphosis with ater: Lovechild (Project Arts Centre), The Gay Clod Ensemble at , Detective (Project Arts Centre and transferred to London. He has also appeared in three produc­ Tricycle Theatre, London), and Ceausescu's Ear tions with Nico Brown at the Ark and co-direct­ (Peacock). He has served as artistic director of ed a fourth. He plays saxophone, tin whistle, Dublin Youth Theatre, and for them directed percussion, and is a baritone singer. Mr. Lovett Pericles. He has written, directed, and presented has a first-class honors degree in classics from extensively for Irish radio and television. In fea­ University College Cork. tu re fil m, Mr. Stem bridge wrote and directed Guiltrip and All about Adam (currently in post Mikel Murfi (Performer) is from Sligo. He is a production) and wrote Ordi.'7ary Decent Criminal founding member of Barabbas ..the company and the upcoming film Nora (with Pat Murphy). and has devised and played in all their shows He has long-standing relationships with the to date. He trained at Ecole Jacques Lecoq, members of Barabbas. He directed them on tele­ Paris, and returned there in 1995-96 to take vision in Nothing to It and Mr. Keane on The the third-year pedagogical degree. He recently Failte Road Cafe. Ms. Coburn was assistant directed Diamonds in the Soil for Macnas. In director on Lovechild (Project) and Comedy of other theater, he has worked with Druid, Errors (Abbey). Mr. Murfi played Dromio in the Passion Machine, Pigsback, Rough Magic, and latter production and also appeared in the film the Abbey. Films include The Commitments, Guiltrip. All three collaborated with Mr. Guiltrip, The Butcher Boy, Sweety Barrett, Stembridge to create Melting Penguins for Love and Rage, The Last September, and The Passion Machine Theatre Company's Songs of Three Joes. Writing and performing work for the Reaper season. Irish television includes Nothing to It, Nighthawks, Ten Minute Tales, and Den 2. Enid Reid Whyte (Producer) has been with Barabbas ..the company since 1995 and is the Eimer Murphy's (Stage Manager) theater work company manager. For Barabbas, she has also began with Tom O'Brien's 1995 play Monday produced Sick Dying Dead Buried Out, Half Night in a Country Town at the Crypt. Since Eight Mass of a Tuesday, Strokehauling, Clown then, she has worked on many of lomha TV, A Living Clown Exhibit, Hupnouse, and co­ Illdanach's productions, including Hungry for produced Out the Back Door. An American Love (1996) and Scenes from a Haemorrhage from Philadelphia, she has a bachelor's degree (1996). She has worked as ASM on the 1996, in theater arts from Pennsylvania State 1997, and 1998 Gaiety pantos; in Rosie and University and has worked in most areas of Starwars and Farawayan (Calypso); JFK, a theater, including acting, improvisational comedy, Musical Drama; Lughnasa's Prroduction of Eric directing, and teaching. In Philadelphia, she Bogosian's Suburbia; and Me and My Girl at also worked in theater administration for Plays the Olympia. She previously worked with and Players, Society Hill Playhouse, Barabbas on Half Eight Mass of a Tuesday, Philadelphia Theatre Company, and the Hupnouse, and in the art department for Annenberg Center for Communication Arts and Barabbas, the television series. Sciences at the University of Pennsylvania. In Dublin, she directed Romantic Friction for the Gerard Stembridge (Director) is on the board of Read Co. (awarded a Fringe First in the 1998 Barabbas..the company and directed Macbeth Edinburgh Fringe Festival), which transferred to for them in 1994-95. In other theater, he has the Tristran Bates Theatre, Actors' Centre, directed Henry IV parts one and two, Richard III, London, in May this year.

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