by Rose Rushe
ON ITS whistle stop tour of 20 venues north and south, Rise Productions brings Irish Times Theatre Award winner for Best New Play to Limerick on Saturday May 9. ‘The Games People Play’ is the concept of Rise founder Aonghus Óg McAnally, part two of a trilogy that operates apart and together to “chart the Ireland of the last seven years, from boom to bust”.
It’s a policy of this theatre outfit “to make shows to bring to as wide an audience as is possible”. Hence the arduous touring, boosted by his belief that “there is a real hunger in audiences outside Dublin for new Irish writing”.
The seed of each play is McAnally’s and he brings his ideas to the gifted Gavin Kostick for execution. He’s the playwright behind last year’s ‘Fight Night’ which also came to Limerick. Bryan Burroughs, who wowed us with ‘Beowulf’, directs.
Another strand to ‘The Games People Play’ is taking the names of the 30-something couple caught in mortgage debt, Niamh and Oisín, from Celtic mythology.
“It was a conscious move on our part. They are most iconic lovers so that cuts out background – we buy into them straight away. I’ve created them as Everyman”.
Out rolls a 75-minute play that observes the unity of character, place and time intensely, with Niamh and Oisín going hard at a row on the eve of their son’s birthday. Lorna Quinn, who travelled with The Gate’s hit ‘Pride and Prejudice’ as Elizabeth to the Orient, is wife, Aonghus Óg McAnally her partner in war and when reward was more evident, peace.
After shows around the country, people have asked if Kostick was bugging their homes, so acute is this observation of a marriage under pressure.
Book for No. 69 O’Connell Street through www.limetreetheatre.ie
