AN INTERVIEW with CONOR Mcpherson

AN ENGLISH TOURING THEATRE, NUFFIELD SOUTHAMPTON THEATRES AND THEATR CLWYD CO-PRODUCTION SUPPORTED BY A GRANT FROM THE ROYAL THEATRICAL SUPPORT TRUST Spring 2018 Touring to: Southampton, Keswick, Malvern, Bristol, Ipswich, Cambridge, Oxford, Mold ett.org.uk ett.org.uk WELCOME It’s been 20 years since The Weir by Conor McPherson captured and moved audiences at the Royal Court Theatre in 1997. The play went on to win the Laurence Olivier Award for Best New Play in 1999 and has established itself as a modern classic. Taking place over one evening, the locals of a rural Irish pub share stories of folklore, fairy tales and ghosts, but as the night draws in and the lines between fact and fiction blur, the lid lifts on deeper themes of loneliness, regret and the human condition. For all the advances in communication, the desire to connect and build bridges through oral story-telling still runs deep in cultures across the world. One of the greatest pieces of theatrical story-telling, we’re proud to share this moving and seminal play, 20 years after its debut, with new audiences throughout the UK. You can keep up to date with the tour @ETTtweet #TheWeir. We hope you enjoy the show. Richard Twyman Adele Thomas Artistic Director, Director, English Touring Theatre The Weir The Weir is a co-production with Mercury Theatre Colchester and will tour to The Lowry, Salford (23 - 27 Jan), Chichester Festival Theatre (30 Jan - 3 Feb), Theatr Clwyd, Mold (13 - 17 Feb), King’s Theatre, Edinburgh (20 - 24 Feb), Richmond Theatre (27 Feb - 3 Mar) and Cambridge Arts Theatre (6 - 10 March). /English Touring Theatre @ETTtweet 1 transfer to the public house. The pub as a focal point in the community allowed people to gather not only to share a drink but to share their lives. A visit to a pub brings people up to speed with the latest IRISH STORYTELLING comings and goings; to connect and reconnect with those they recognize and know as ‘their own.’ by Kelly Fitzgerald At the centre of a gathering is the artistry of the storyteller while at the same time the creative process at work is community created and community based. This world is fluid and a traveller from outside the community rejuvenates the interest in listening to stories, as they bring new narratives as ‘A long, long time ago; if I were alive then, I wouldn’t be alive now, well as the news from the outside world with them. There could be news on how the crops are faring which might precede a tale of the fairies, to be followed with news of a death of a young mother in a if I were alive now and at that time, I would have a new story or neighbouring village. an old story, or I might have no story at all…’ We continue to turn ourselves into ‘story’ by what we choose to share, what we decide to exclude Traditional Irish opening to a folktale. as we present ourselves in narrative form. Are we the heroes of our tales? The importance of the everyday is demonstrated when the ordinary can serve as a kernel to pathos and humour. As the darkness of winter sets in, the long evenings are shortened by tales told of heroes, wonder, Throughout our day we adapt and shift the shared narrative depending on the audience in front and the otherworld. A belief in the supernatural is a prominent feature in much of the Irish story- of us. And throughout we are constantly making and re-making ourselves. telling tradition. Story-telling as a vehicle of expression and imagination has kept the supernatural in Irish tradition alive. This enchanted dimension adds much to the complexity of the landscape. Storyteller, audience, history and traditions unite the community. The storytellers’ creative skills In order for the imagination to be projected onto the landscape a gifted storyteller is required. adapt to an individual style while considering the audience’s expectations and this is woven together to breath life into the story. As if by magic, Fionn Mac Cumhaill, a mythical hunter-warrior in Irish Bearers of these traditions were recognised in the community. A gifted performer has a way of tradition, would be summoned, speaking of his latest triumphs, making the audience breathless as communicating a hero’s feats of valour so that the audience feels as if they are in the centre of the they wait for a break in order to exhale. narrative. The widow’s son, unknown with little prospects, would be celebrated as the one who slayed the dragon and saved the princess, whom he duly married. Stories of tricksters pulling the wool over Sean O Conaill’s book: Stories and traditions from Iveragh, Dublin, 1981 disreputable landlords’ eyes and the like had a deeper relevance which offered the audience an An old woman’s reflections, Oxford, 1962 escape route, if ever so briefly, from the real circumstances in their lives. Repertoires of great artists were not stagnant; they would develop and multiply. Stories were seen as tangible objects to be Kelly Fitzgerald is an Assistant Professor in the School of Irish, Celtic Studies and Folklore, collected, cherished and protected, belonging to an individual teller in the community. The narrative University College Dublin would be recognised as their tale. Stories are not merely created for their entertainment value as they embody core human thoughts and emotions. They play an important role in the lives of those that engage with ghosts, fairies and other revenants and these phenomena act as a way to navigate, negotiate and rationalise the unanswerable and incomprehensible questions of the world. Coded messages are frequently used to convey sentiments that people may feel are too difficult to share otherwise thus allowing for communication of the unspoken. As the tales find expression today, these coded messages are ways to comment on issues relating to identity whether of the individual or of the community. This includes subjects such as sexuality, fear of changing communities, and the status quo either to support it or in subversion of it. The renowned Irish storyteller Seán Ó Conaill (d.1931) remarked in his lifetime ‘When the long nights would come long ago, the people of this and another village would gather together every night sitting beside the fire or wherever they could find room in the house. Many a device they would resort to in order to shorten the night. The man who had the long tale, or the man who had the shorter tales, used to be telling them. If a man had been on a journey or was working afar perhaps many a tale they had when they would return, everyone with his own story, so that you would not notice the night passing. Often the cock would crow before you would think of going home. I used to watch out for anyone with a story, and when a beggar would come and one of them would stop in the village, we used to go to the house they stayed listening to them telling stories, and trying to pick them up from them. I had only to hear a story once to have it.’ Such gatherings in a neighbour’s house, otherwise known as a ‘rambling house’ where neighbours felt welcome to visit, would later 2 3 If anything, his plays start not with words, but an image: “a picture of some people in a room. That’s it. If you just get that, then you can go – but if you don’t have that fascination with that little flash AN INTERVIEW WITH photograph that goes off in your head there’s no play, there’s no energy, there’s nothing in it.” Theatre itself came to him in a flash, at university, having not much encountered it before. With CONOR McPHERSON a group of friends he began writing and directing his own plays, but while some of them have By Maddy Costa continued in theatre – notably the actor Peter McDonald, who performed in another revival of The Weir in London in 2013 – most have moved on. “It’s only the mad ones who keep going,” McPherson laughs. The attraction for him was: “Just compulsion. I was in the grip of it and didn’t think twice about it.” The Weir emerged from that early compulsion, and the simplicity of its central driving image is impeccable. It’s a play that could be performed on an almost bare stage if need be: the characters It sounds like the set-up for a joke: four men gather in a bar in tell you everything you need to know about the isolation of the pub, its dilapidation, their lives beyond Ireland to drink away their solitude – and then a woman walks in. it, the ways in which the modern world is passing them by. What counts are the stories the characters Except this is the start of Conor McPherson’s breakthrough hit The tell each other – and the ways in which the relationship between the lonely men and the single woman Weir, and although there are plenty of laughs along the way, when the gently shift, unfolding layers of care. punchline comes it goes right to the heart. The Weir set the pattern for a lot of McPherson plays that followed, by depicting a doggedly masculine McPherson was only 25 when he wrote the play two decades ago, world being in some way disrupted by a feminine presence. Its characters live in “a man bubble where and marvels that it has been so successful, travelling the world the women’s toilet doesn’t work – and why should it, there’s no women there.

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