Studying Irish Theatre Like No One's Business: A Multitude of Talkbacks, Interviews, and Workshops

What follows are Ani Nina Oganyan's reflections on and pictures of some of the various artist workshops and talkbacks that we had throughout the course of the program.  

A reading of Mark O’Rowe, Howie and the Rookie with Bern Deegan (below, pictured).

I found this to be one of the more challenging plays to read. However, Deegan’s reading of specific scenes helped to understand the tone and dialect of the characters. At the end of our program I learned Deegan is not only an actor, but well involved in all facets of the theatre as we attended Dubliner’s Dilemma, a one man show he produced.

Our first weekend in Ireland we traveled to the city of Cork for its Midsummer Festival. Dargent was the designer for one of the performances we attended; Michael Keegan-Dolan’s Rian, with music by Liam O Maonlai. Dargent presented photos of the set that we would be seeing. The stage floor was painted green, and the cytoplasm was rounded and reflected an array of green. The reason for the rounded cytoplasm was for the audience to feel included and welcome. Simple, yet beautiful.

Myself, Professor Charlotte McIvor, and Diana Vergara with Sabine Dargent, Scenic and Lighting Designer 

In this photo, the girls are having great craic collecting interviews. We found out that the man Avry Schellenbach was interviewing was the owner of Sheila's hostel where we were staying . He and his lads gather at the Shelbourne, which he also owned, every Fridays for a game of cards. The interviews collected were for our acting class with Professor Christine Nicholson. 

At Focus Theatre after seeing Griswold, we participated in a talkback with actors Shane Gately (Taidhg) and Thomas Farrell (Hed) and the playwright Arnold Thomas Fanning. In this photo Diana Vergara continues to interview Farrell, as we rush to the DART. 

Donal O’Kelly (playwright and actor) and Sorcha Fox (actor) brought The Cambria to us, in the Samual Beckett Dance Studio, where our acting class is held. Here, Charlotte leads us in a talkback. In this talkback we learned that the original production included more physical work. A while back due to hurting her foot, Fox was unable to perform. They began to rehears the show in different ways and found that seated facing the audience worked. It was magical to still experience so much physicality, even as the actors just sat throughout the duration of the performance.

THEATREclub’s Shane Byrne and Grace Dyas in a talkback about their work and creation processes.

Workshop on making work in the contemporary Irish Theatre with Brokentalkers, Feidlim Cannon and Gary Keenan.

This was a wonderful experience for many of us because our group has a wide variety of interest pertaining to theatre. Brokentalkers put acting aside and focused on involving everyone with the creation process. They even gave us an assignment, which was for everyone to bring in an item that was important to them and share it with the class. This was a nice icebreaker and wonderful way for us all to learn a bit more about one another. 

Our objects on display, and one of our group exercise performance showings. 

 “The Art of the Irish Clown” with Raymond Keane (Artistic Director, Barabbas)

Our workshop with Keane was incredible. He brought with him to the workshop four beautiful masks and we got to work with embodying several of the emotions that the masks represented.