Catching up with the boys & girls in Dublin

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It's early afternoon here with light streaming in the shiny apartment (interspersed with brief, violent showers), and actors getting ready…vocal exercises, keys tapping on the computer, a leisurely breakfast and signing many dozen postcards (look for them sometime next week).

And tonight is our last performance. How did that happen? I ask that question each year, and the answer is: how the heck do I know?

With the show running well by Tuesday, I stepped out the rest of the nights to see some of the other offerings; I’ve done that the other years (except last year, when “Outlook” was clearly a work in progress, and I needed to see it on its feet…stay tuned for the next version of it in a reading in Philadelphia in August).

But this year I felt I could leave “That’s Her Way” in the capable hands of J., Danielle & David, and see what else was on. I’ve managed to make it to seven other shows, and today am stopping by a rehearsal for a show I won’t be able to see next week, and one more show this evening, and then the final performance of ours. And then I’m having a drink.

Brian

Wednesday night actually began sharing a meal at The Larder just off Temple Bar with festival founder Brian Merriman; over steak and lamb burger, we talked about the festival, our lives, and everything that had gone on, by, and over our heads since the last time we had a good sitdown, in a little coffee shop in Ballsbridge last May.

It’s funny how you can get to be great friends with someone that you only see in person every few years, but when you finally sit down to a meal, the conversation continues as if you’d just left off. We have a lot of the same thoughts on what an artist’s role is, and how you get stuff done, and why we should do the crazy things we are doing, and how a true reward is generally not about cash, but satisfaction.

And we both love Downton Abbey, and agree that Lady Edith is the Crawley with the most potential to be someone who actually effects change in the world around her.

Menno

After a coffee, we ran over the Liffey to Pantibar, where we got to see “The Undutchable” by Menno, a solo show by the Dutch writer/performer that follows his journey from being a little Dutch boy, who did not stick a finger in the dike, to London, where his search for love (or a good shag) leads him into some pretty strange places, and sometimes on his own. An absolutely engaging performer, Menno’s wide-eyed, almost innocent style is built on a bedrock of great intelligence, and also compassion. He calls it as he sees it, but with wisdom and style. He’s slight and small, but maintains a powerful presence; and he looks like a Renaissance prince.

We’ve run into each other over the course of the festival, and discussed where our work comes from, and how sometimes dreams inspire what we do…he told me about a project he’s been working on that was inspired by a dream he had about the devil…and it’s become a film and a series of talks, and an exploration of the insistence that so many have on connecting being gay with the devil…his research has led him to Jungian experts, and the cultural resonance of the Devil in his own culture and his adopted one.

The conversations you have on the streets of Dublin on the way to the party after…

I managed to make it to the show that runs after ours at The Teachers Club after Menno's show (I am pretty sure I’ve increased the pace of my walking by a good clip here, and that’s saying a lot for a New Yorker). I also had a phone interview scheduled for a radio show, and the interviewer had requested I find  a quiet place to talk, and do a phoner (on my tiny Tesco phone).

So I booked back to our place (as I think of the Teacher’s Club), and in search of a room where I wouldn’t be disturbed, locked myself in the loo on the third floor. It turned out to be just right for our interview, and I was on the RTE. From a bathroom in the Teacher’s Club.

Eva

Then back downstairs in time for the curtain of the 9:30 show, “I Run, I Sing, I Swim, I Dive,” a solo show about Eva Gore Booth, an amazing woman who’s been pretty much pinkwashed out of Irish (and British) history, where she made a difference in such diverse events as organizing labor (and ruining her lungs for life when she went to work in a mine), founding one of the first lesbian magazines, and helping defend the leaders of the 1916 Irish Rebellion, including her sister, Countess Constance Markewicz, and Sir Roger Casement, who was executed, it would seem, almost as much for being gay as for being an organizer of the rebellion. Gore Booth and her lifelong partner, Esther Roper, supported and loved each other for over 30 years.

I first came across the story here at the festival in 2008, when Carolyn Gage’s “The Countess and the Lesbians” was produced to great attention and notoriety. Carolyn had been at the festival the year before, and her own research, and Brian’s urging led her to write the play, which we read in New York City at TOSOS, and which still needs a production in NY by a smart company with some talented women.

Annette Flanagan gave an outstanding performance in this one, literally popping out of a mine cart at the start of the play, and finally shouting down God by the end; working different areas of the stage to interact with her lover, her sister, and the doomed Sir Roger. Alan Flanagan wrote it, and Cillian O’ Donnachadha directed; I’d like to see it again, like to see where they go with it, and what changes they feel should be made. (I always have my own ideas about that, but I don’t offer unless asked).

On Thursday, it was another dual-identity day for me, as I worked on the other non-Ireland projects that are still due even if I’m several time zones away and in another frame of mind.  I pounded away on the other task, and got enough done that I felt like I could walk away for the evening to see two more shows in good conscience.

Then it was up to the Powerscourt Townhouse Centre, which is a mall in a grand Georgian house built in the 18^th century. Just like the ones you have in your town.

Shout!

Up on the top floor, where once perhaps they stored their goods, or where the servants slept, is a theatre, and why not? Walking on those old, wide, floorboards, and looking up at the roof that’s kept out the rain since the 1700s, I took a seat for “SHOUT: the Mod Musical.” The space reminded me a bit of The Duplex in Manhattan, which may be the only time that venue has been compared to a Georgian mansion.

And I was swept away by a confection built around girl Britpop from Swinging London, ca. 1962-70. It was right up my alley and I adored it. Five women powered through an almost all-sung revue of great hits from the likes of Dusty Springfield, Lulu, Petula Clark, Shirley Bassey et al. They sang it straight up, with no American Idol pyrotechnics and let the songs show through. Simple, snappy choreography, and interspersed bits with both an unseen narrator and an advice columnist depicted the traditional, expected role of women coming into the ‘60s, and how the girls realized that wasn’t exactly what they needed, or wanted to be, going into the ‘70s.

It was one of the best things I’ve seen on either side of the ocean recently, and I resolved to look it up online later and discovered that it had made its debut in NYC at The Duplex (!) and later in NYMF, and then moved Off-Broadway in 2006 (and I really must not have been paying attention, because I just don’t remember it. What was I doing in 2006?) And the reviews were awful! Though it looks as though they attempted to Americanize the show for New York, adding an American character and some US hits of the time.

I’m glad I sure the pure Britpop version, because that’s what made it work. They didn’t have to pander to me, and I expect they really didn’t have to do it for a NYC audience. But the show’s been running in productions all around the world ever since, so in this case in was NYC’s loss.

Squaddie

I stayed put at the Powerscourt for a very different second show, “Strip Search,” which drew a very different crowd as well. The show was notorious for its structure: in which a male stripper does his routine while stripping down emotionally as well.  British actor Damola Onadeko has both an amazing craft as an actor, and an amazing body. (NB: the management at the Powerscourt removed some of the posters for this show, which showed Damola’s uncovered shoulders and arms, while leaving up the “Shout” posters).

The piece is one that resonates for an American (not surprisingly). Squaddie (British slang for an enlisted man in the army) grows up rough in Wales, with little education, learns to sell his body and throws his money away gambling, gets sent to Borstal (aka juvie), builds his body and acquires a sidekick in Christian a little Irish boy. He enlists in the Army for lack of a better opportunity, and gets sent to Iraq again and again and again, where he sees, and commits, brutal, violent acts.

When he gets out…there’s still no place for him, and even less for Christian, whose injuries are serious, but who gets little support from the government that sent him to fight. (Does any of this sound familiar to American veterans?)

Squaddie falls into stripping, where he’s becoming a star, and Christian sinks further into addiction and depression. And as each piece of clothing goes away, Squaddie delves deeper into himself. And the last number is a cheeky (pun-intended) bit in which he literally wraps himself in the flag and uses it to wipe his butt.

Thank you for your service, indeed.

I had a two-show day on Friday as well, and a good long hang at the Front Lounge after (complete with a decent Manhattan), but the clock tells me it’s time to head out again…so I will continue tonight or tomorrow, or at least before we leave.

Because I have promises to keep and kilometres to go before I sleep.