Tag Archives: Interview

A Conversation With Stuart Roche

 

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This week playwright Stuart Roche, writer of Revenant (for which he received a Stewart Parker award nomination) and Tracer, brings his latest play to the New Theatre. Telling the story of an ex-marine re-adjusting to life as a civilian in a small town in Nebraska, Snake Eaters is directed by Caroline Fitzgerald and produced by Anthony Fox.  I caught up with Stuart to find out more.

Talking about what has influenced his writing overall, Stuart speaks of his admiration for writers such as David Mamet, Annie Baker, Patrick Marber and John Arden, speaking of how Marber’s work is brilliant because it is “really pared down.” This influence shines through in Roche’s work, which has a striking simplicity, with the emotion and key story taking pride of place in his writing.  The international influence on Roche’s work is also evident. Stuart cites a general exposure to American television, books and media along with time spent in America in helping him to create an authentic American voice for his characters.  He mentions finding it hard trying to “un-Irish” some of his phrases in his work, though goes on to tell us that some American ex-soldiers came to rehearsals and have commented on the natural, authentic tone of the piece.

I ask Stuart why he chose to write this play now, and am treated to a fascinating tale of the only American soldier captured by the Taliban, Robert “Bowe” Berghdal, who was held captive from 2009 to 2014. Roche began researching this story, but soon realised he “wasn’t sure if [he] wanted to write about a real person” and so instead turned his research in other directions. Stuart tells us that as soon as he started reading up on statistics regarding violent crime in America, particularly those that showed the likelihood of veterans engaging in such crimes, despite not having a criminal past; he knew that that was what he wanted to write about.

The War on Terror, with its causes and the consequences, is something that has been represented and commented on in theatre since the start of this century, with such productions as Guantanamo, directed by Victoria Brittain & Gillian Slovo (2004) garnering great critical and popular acclaim.  As Jasper Rees put it in his article Theatre Leads the Way on the War on Terror for The Telegraph, “Theatre has put the war on terror on stage not only because it can but because it must. It is the closest we have to a moral medium.”  The after-effect on people involved in conflict is an important topic to write on; there are huge implications that come with being a soldier in combat, implications and effects that can last long after returning home. As Stuart himself said, “You can’t send people to a country to experience and commit atrocities and expect them to come back unaffected.”

As they face into the last week of rehearsals, I ask Stuart how it has been to hand over his work so completely (this is the first of his plays that he hasn’t either directed or acted in). “There was never a fear of handing it over,” Stuart says, “Caroline’s a great director.” He has high hopes for the production and is happy with how rehearsals are going.  He speaks of how it is coming to life before his eyes; “[At] times I’m watching and I forgot I’m the person who wrote this!”

What does Stuart hope the audience will take away from this play? “Hope,” he replies simply, before then elaborating; “It’s its own world, it takes you on a journey and hopefully affects you watching it…I hope people argue about it, I hope they engage enough with the subject to argue about it. But most of all, hope.”

 

Snake Eaters previews in The New Theatre from November 30th before opening on Wednesday, 2nd December and runs until 19th December.

A Conversation With Kate Heffernan

Writer Kate Heffernan talks about her work, her thoughts on Irish theatre and advice for people considering a similar career.

Photo by Senija Topcic

Photo by Senija Topcic

Tell us a little about what you do.

I am a writer – a ‘yes but no but yes but’ writer – contrarily uncomfortable calling myself either theatremaker or playwright, but comfortable with the makerly meaning of the word wright. When not agonising over definitions, I write texts for performance. I also do lots of other work to supplement this questionable lifestyle choice, such as graphic design, bespoke show programmes, writing and editing and producing support.

How did you find your way into your field? Was it something you always had an interest in?

I haven’t always been a writer. I’ve worked in lots of different capacities over the past twelve years, from running a box office for an arts festival on an island at the other end of the world, to stage-managing a site-specific dance performance in hotels across this island, to my most recent role as Assistant Producer at Project Arts Centre. My first job in theatre coincided with the opening of Dunamaise Arts Centre in my hometown when I was 16, and I worked as stage-manager for a production by Shake the Speare, a brilliant young ensemble led by Cabrini Cahill. My interest started right there, and I then just said yes to every job that came my way – tearing tickets and unloading sets and putting season brochures in envelopes and hanging lamps while reading English at college lined my pockets, informed by thinking as a writer, and the vast range of performance I absorbed at the same time fuelled my imagination.

You just finished a year as Artist in Residence at the Dunamaise Arts Centre Portlaoise with Maisie Lee, could you tell us a little about that?

Home was a project by, for and about the people of Laois. We encouraged people from all walks of life to get in touch, to make contact, to share their ideas. We spent the first half of the year meeting with groups and individuals of all ages and from a variety of backgrounds from all over the county, discussing and workshopping ideas of ‘home’. We became very interested in exploring radio as a medium that could reach people in their own homes. The residency culminated in Hometruths, a series of six fictional texts for radio, written by me and directed by Maisie, based on all of the ideas collected throughout the year. Recorded for broadcast at Dunamaise and various locations throughout Laois, five of the pieces were performed by a local cast. Hometruths was broadcast live from Dunamaise by Midlands 103 last December.

You had a successful run at the 2013 Dublin Fringe Festival with your play “In Dog Years I’m Dead” for which you won the Steward Parker Award. Could you tell us a little about your experience of writing it and having it in the fringe?

That was a whirlwind. One second Maisie and actor Marie Ruane and I are chatting semi-absently about shared anxieties surrounding turning 30, the next second we’ve made a play about it with the collaboration of actor Rob Bannon, its on in the Dublin Fringe Festival and its selling out, its revived for a month-long run at Bewleys Café Theatre and its winning the Stewart Parker Award. Or at least it felt like two seconds. That was about 18 months in reality, a period in which I took a terrifying leap from being a secret writer to a public writer, with the unwavering support of the brilliant Maisie Lee, and also the incredibly enabling encouragement of Róise Goan, then director of the Dublin Fringe Festival. All of it feels a bit whirlwindy, apart from one moment at the top of our very first preview, Maisie and I glancing uneasily at each other as we stood behind our very first audience, uncertain about what way it would go. That first moment when you feel an audience connect with what you’ve tried to achieve is overwhelming, that energy in the room, whether it’s a laugh, a gasp, or a still silence. That’s the feeling that makes time slow down. And the drug that will keep me coming back for more.

What has your favourite theatre moment of the last 12 months been?

I’ve wrestled with this, and have decided there are just too many to reduce it to one! I was struck by the beauty of L’apres-midi d’un Foehn by Compagnie Non Nova (at the Ark as part of Dublin Dance Festival), in which Jean-Louis Ouvrard transforms plastic bags into a troupe of prima ballerinas. The simplicity of its artistry will stay with me, a simplicity that in my own work always seems just out of reach. The ethereal vocals of Inuk throat singer Tanya Tagaq and Sonya Kelly’s smart slant on immigration, love and a lamentation for avocados in How to Keep and Alien (both as part of Tiger Dublin Fringe), the hypnotic words and fractured world of Chris Goode’s Men in the Cities at the Traverse during Edinburgh Fringe, the irresistible joy of Fabulous Beast’s Rian at Dunamaise for Culture Night. Two design moments will stay with me: a stunning singular second in The Company’s The Rest Is Action, when Rob McDermott as Cassandra, begins to have visions of the future (at Project Arts Centre as part of Tiger Dublin Fringe); and the opening sequence of Schaubühne’s Hamlet, a simple diffuse water hose adding a layer of tension to the farcical burial of Hamlet’s father, and just one of many engrossing sequences during that incredible production (at BGET as part of Dublin Theatre Festival). The Dublin Theatre Festival offered so many moments: the weird growing-up-in-a-small-town vibes of Jonathan Capdevielle’s Adishatz/Adieu, the letter-perfect choreography of BERLIN’s Perhaps All the Dragons, and Pan Pan’s often off the wall, always coherent, unwaveringly engaging (and sometimes tutu’d) production of The Seagull and Other Birds.
Good grief, I’m fierce longwinded.

What do you think of the current state of Irish theatre?

Lots of brilliant things, lots of less brilliant things but – with improved strategy, policy, vision, ambition and rigour at every level – lots of space and possibility for more brilliant things

If you had to pick one change to make to Irish theatre, what would it be?

Less polarity in our thinking, in our language, in our preoccupations: less of centre versus periphery, funded versus unfunded, pre-2008 versus post-2008, new work versus new writing, playwright versus theatremaker (Oh give it a rest, Kate!), self-produced versus every-other-kind-of-produced, emerging versus established, traditional versus contemporary, absolutely incredible versus total shit! And so on, ad infinitum. And by saying less, I imply more: more informed, rounded and active engagement with everything that’s happening by everyone involved. Is that a bit airy-fairy?

What advice would you give to a person considering pursing a similar career to yours?

Don’t be too hung up on gut. I’m not sure I ever had one to follow. Some decisions are hard, some are easy, very few singular decisions will alter the entire course of your life, make the decision that’s right for now, and things will slowly slot into place. Don’t beat yourself up for not being in the place you thought you’d be if indeed you ever thought about such a place. Read a lot, see lots of different types of work, but don’t passively consume it or lazily dismiss it. Think about the artists’ intentions not as a critic might but as a fellow maker does, think carefully about your responses – articulate them. Try and keep a notebook, but don’t worry if it’s not for you, plenty of writers don’t. Find someone who you can share your work with, a reader whose opinion you trust, but not someone who is either too critical or holds such a lofty position in your life that it is crippling rather than enabling. Read Stephen King’s On Writing. Read The Paris Review interviews and keep your favourites close to you during the bad times. Make things – always make things. I had a blast reading English but it stopped me dead in my tracks as a writer, turning me from maker into self-doubting critic, and it took (is taking) years to come back around from that. Don’t stay away from studying literature, but keep creating, being careful not to let your literary analysis skills overcome your skills as a maker. Take all advice with a large flake of Irish Atlantic Sea Salt.

Thanks to Kate Heffernan for sharing her thoughts.

A Conversation With Karen Fricker

Karen Fricker, theatre academic and critic talks about her career, her views on current events and the future of theatre.

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Tell us a little about what you do.
I am an assistant professor of Dramatic Arts at Brock University in Ontario, Canada. The focus of my research is on the ways in which globalization is affecting contemporary theatre and performance. Before I became an academic I worked as a theatre critic and arts magazine editor, and maintain a keen interest in theatre criticism and how it’s changing in the digital age.

 

How did you find your way into your field? Was it something you always had an interest in?
My mom sent me and my sister to a summertime drama programme at our local university when I was 12 and I have been hooked ever since.I studied English and Drama at university and didn’t find my way to criticism until after graduation, as I slowly realized that what I most loved about theatre – going to seeing shows and thinking and talking about then afterwards – could be something you do for a living.

 

What are your thoughts on the role of the critic in today’s society? How do you see it changing?
The received wisdom about criticism today is that thanks to the internet, everyone’s a critic. In fact everyone has always been a critic, inasmuch as the capacity to respond to the arts thoughtfully is part of what makes us human. But the rise of digital technologies means that pretty much anyone with a computer and internet access can broadcast their viewpoints. At the same time, and for related reasons, the number of paying jobs for professional critics is in decline, and some media outlets now privilege consumer/citizen reviews over expert ones. This is perceived by many with stakes in professional criticism as a situation of dire crisis. I prefer to see it as one of transition – expert voices will never be silenced. But just how they’re going to make themselves heard above the cacophony of online conversation is something that’s still playing itself out. It’s an exciting time.

 

What has your favourite theatre moment of the last 12 months been?
Ooh, I love that question. The most beautiful and moving performance I saw in 2014 was the contemporary circus piece Acrobates by the French company Le Montfort. I wrote about it extensively on my blog (www.karenfricker.wordpress.com) so I’ll not go on about it here — but I will say that contemporary circus is extremely vibrant at the moment and that maybe if Ireland gets really lucky, Willie White will program Acrobates in the Dublin Theatre Festival. That’s a hint, Willie.

 

What do you think of the current state of Irish theatre?
From 1997-2007 I lived in Dublin and was in the thick of things in the Irish performing arts, but now I only make it back twice a year so it’s hard for me to comment comprehensively. If I can say what work I most regret having missed in the years since I left it’s that of Anu Productions — their immersive Monto Cycle has been acknowledged as a major achievement. I am very sorry I never got a chance to see those productions.

 

If you had to pick one change to make to Irish theatre, what would it be?
Improved government funding.

 

You have worked a lot with young people, as an assistant professor in Brock University and on projects such as NAYD’s annual Young Critics programme. What are your thoughts on the future of theatre having worked with some of the practitioners, critics, academics and audiences of the present and future?
Working with young people is a great privilege, because through their eyes I see theatre as a space of limitless possibility and creativity. It’s impossible to get jaded! At the moment I am particularly interested to see what the next big thing after the post-dramatic (others may already know – please tell me!) and how digital criticism is going to continue to change my particular area of focus.

 

What advice would you give to a person considering pursing a similar career to yours?
Total, utter cliché but – follow your gut, follow your passion. If you feel like there’s something that needs to be said or done and you can’t figure out why no one is saying or doing it, that’s your cue. Do it yourself, say it yourself.

 

Thanks to Karen Fricker for sharing her thoughts.