A FIRST trip to America was warranted by performing at New York’s ‘United Solo’ festival for actor/ writer Pius McGrath. With a title like ‘The Mid-Knight Cowboy’ to shoulder, you can picture him in the guise of Jon Voight, swinging along to “Everybody’s talkin’ at me” – and having fun with the idea.
In fact, actor-audience dialogue is key to this enormous Broadway festival’s appeal.
“United Solo [one-person shows only] encourages audience feedback and they were more forthcoming than the Irish, staying around afterwards in the bar. They got the humour if not all of the colloquisms, and they got the target”.
Bullseye would be the questionable role of the male in a “post Celtic Tiger Ireland. It’s a commentary on what a man was supposed to be in the time of our fathers – stoic, with integrity – and pitched against post Tiger values, how the male has adjusted to a new role”.
Current mores being? “Those of instant gratification, a sense of do what you can, when you can, nothing being of lasting value”.
McGrath cites the age group of 18 to 40 of having grown up in a boom culture, that sense of surety now exploded. He explores this through playing three generations of one family: Billy the grandfather, albeit cast in his 40s, is set in the 1950s. Billy the kid is played as his child in the 1960s; William the son and grandson, is the present day male.
His partner Tara Doolan in Honest Arts Company edited down “what is a very physical piece… the subject matter can be dense and ‘The Mid-Knight Cowboy’ cuts close to the knuckle. It has to, for a piece like this”.
From Edinburgh Festival 2013 to Broadway, to Friar’s Gate in Kilmallockand now at 69 O’Connell Street, this original work stages for one night only, Tuesday December 10, 8pm
