DES Keogh is most careful to point out that every word in his show, ‘The Love-Hungry Farmer’ is from John B. Keane’s original text, the novel ‘Letters of a Love-Hungry Farmer’. Keogh pioneered the adaptation a long time back and got this solo show on the road in 2003 at New York’s Irish Repertory Theatre, a year after the playwright died.
Through this actor’s offices, the story of countryman’s John Bosco McLane’s (56) search for love and a sexual encounter with a woman lives on.
He’s back in town for a third time on Friday July 26 and Saturday 27, 8pm, this year at Lime Tree Theatre, South Circular Road.
“I have become very, very attached to this man over the 10 years,” Des Keogh says of the love hungry one. “I was in John B’s play ‘The Matchmaker’ when I read the Letters and it struck me as good for an adaptation for myself. I don’t play John Bosco as a figure of fun, to me he’s a man of dignity. It’s his one ambition to meet a woman and to have a sexual experience with her, that which he has never had”.
Loneliness is the over-riding theme. “Perhaps that explains the appeal [of the play] to Ireland, Australia, Edinburgh, wherever I have brought it”.
He has favourites among McLane’s sorry escapades, one where he takes off to Dublin’s horseshow and meets two women, hitting it off with one of them. Adjourning to a hotel, a knock-knock on the door about a fire in progress is followed by slapstick getaway, Keogh in his underpants on stage.
Has Des Keogh himself as much passion a decade latr for ‘The Love-Hungry Farmer’? There is no doubt:
“I am glad that I do. I’m so delighted that I hit upon it and so sorry that John B did not see it before he died in 2002″.
Keogh’s original New York producer Charlotte Moore is credited as director; stage management and lighting design are by Moyra D’Arcy. Book for Friday 26 and Saturday 27 at www.limetreetheatre.ie
