DEAR IRELAND PART FOUR (ABBEY THEATRE)****

 

By Louise

Link to Part 4: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=agou8cchdsk

Link to all parts: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Owu9uvduEXs&list=PL2z1O2VioKplw05TdCnBSA4lLAyjQp4W5

Available until: 198th September 2020, 10pm

I don’t think we’re Irish, though as some of my siblings are adoptees, we come a little bit from all over the place! We have Scotland, Wales, England, Cyprus, Slovakia, the USA and we’re fairly sure there is also somewhere in Asia on our family tree. It would be lovely if we were Irish too. But we do have one connection to the Abbey Theatre in Ireland – my mum has performed in a play there.

As I’m sure you’ve guessed, there were three previous parts to Dear Ireland. Each part contains a number of short plays, all commissioned, written and filmed during the pandemic. I don’t think any actually take place in the Abbey Theatre, but but the videos have been posted on their youtube channel.

I watched and enjoyed all three previous parts, but I didn’t make any notes about the plays and I rather regret that now. I have watched so many online plays, it is difficult to remember anything except how much I enjoyed them. I know I have enjoyed this series very much, though some of the stories are shocking, sad or both. The plays do not shy away from challenging and distressing concepts. They are brave and they are raw – perhaps all the more so because of the circumstances in which they were written and filmed.

I won’t mention every monologue. That would take a very long time so I’ll just mention a few which stood out for me, but I’m not saying these are the best. It’s possible that if I watched again on a different day with different feelings, different monologues would stand out to me. And of course, if I were a different person, my reactions would be different again.

End Meeting by Darach Mac Con Iomaire shows an actor who believes he’s about to be handed his big break despite the closure of all the theatres. Eoin O Dubhghaill was very likeable and amusing in this role.

There are a number of plays set in lockdown, all showing it from a slightly different angle, but these monologues take you to many other places. To the supermarket, for example, in A Letter to the Manager by Sonya Kelly and performed by Deirdre Donnelley, a very touching, sad, yet also quite uplifting piece which questions whether the latest technological gadget is really what we need most.

Some are not even set in one particular time. In The Three Irishman by Kit de Waal, Peter Gowan’s character takes us through many years as he watches his family grow up in ways he didn’t expect.

With so many stories focusing on the present time which we’re all living through, it was refreshing (if sad) to see a glimpse of a possible future in Flake by Keith James Walker with a lovely performance from Ashleigh Dorrell.

The Temple is Closed, written and performed by Emmet Kirwan almost came as a shock because, in the world of lockdown films, there are few glimpses of the outside world and no conversations which aren’t reported by the main character, but this piece gives some beautiful shots of Dublin and an actual conversation.

The Good Thief by David Ireland features just one character, Abigail McGibbon, talking through her experiences before and during lockdown as so many other characters in these monologues have done, yet the writer and performer paint the other characters so vividly, I can almost believe I did see them onscreen.

Some monologues are happy. Some are sad. Some seem to be heading in one direction, only to surprise you. Sometimes I looked at a character and expected to have little in common with them, only to discover they were one of the ones I emphasised with most deeply.

But the thing I love most of all is the inventiveness of the writers. The brief seems so limited – write a short monologue that can be filmed in lockdown. But the writers have the imagination to take the idea in very different directions and still find a story that works when told in this way. There are also some incredible performances in the way the actors tell the stories and hold your attention and interest. Making you care but keeping you guessing. I enjoyed this very much and I am very happy to hear there is more to come.