by Rose Rushe
PAT Talbot is a veteran producer. For his show ‘God Bless the Child’ which is touring to houses north and south, Talbot adapted original text for the stage and is director. The work is a coming together of short stories by Frank O’Connor, a satisfactory drama out of “three of his funniest stories, ‘My Oedipus Complex’, ‘The Genius’ and ‘First Confession’.”
O’Connor’s words are respected wholly and used throughout.
From rehearsal with actor Des Keogh for another show, the dramaturg tells Arts page that “I did ‘Guests of the Nation’, another Frank O’Connor story, in the Everyman when I was director there 2007 and 2008. It went extremely well. I’ve always had it in my mind to do something similar and not until the last year was this possible.
“I had the concept of converging three short stories, had this Eureka! moment of fusing these three and creating a single play”.
Finding a common single piece of action was pivotal and thus, ‘Bless the Child’ is rooted in the classroom. It’s a familiar place that was fulcrum to the tenets of “early 20th century Roman Catholic Ireland”, but from which Talbot, ourselves and O’Connor’s readers can extrapolate universalities. Hence success.
On the challenge of taking a multiple of another’s stories and shaping a sensible dramatic whole, Pat Talbot insists that “theatrically, [God Bless the Child] is quite efficient in terms of being a play for theatre. These stories are told in the first person narrative and this transposes quite directly in terms of the actors’ characters addressing the audience”.
His actors are the finest, Ciarán Bermingham, Shane Casey and Gary Murphy “who primarily play the three primary school boys and also supporting characters. Their stories are told in very theatrical ways – it’s really enjoyable”.
www.limetreetheatre.ie for Friday 24, Saturday 25 at 8pm for this re-invention of classics.
