Photo: Marc Marnie
EXPERIENCES of emigration, and optimistic ones at that, were core to writer/ director Orla Murphy’s creation, ‘Remember to Breathe’.
This new play comes to Belltable for one night, Saturday 24, 8pm. Launched to acclaim and awards, ‘Remember to Breathe’ emerged from a year-long development programme for directors held in Tipperary, mentored by Jim Culleton of Fishamble: The New Play Company.
The title is also the first line to the show issued by a driven swimming coach Doreen (Julie Sharkey).
This phrase has resonance through other challenges: surviving guilt, dealing with the aftermath of recession and emigration, the insecurity of the immigrant in a new continent – in this instance, landing in New Zealand at a time of unprecedented devastation.
Surviving the earthquake and its deadly latent tremors is parallel line to Ireland’s economy spiralling down and consequent individual loss.
From the Glen of Aherlow originally, this playwright speaks of being of that generation where the expectation was that you went overseas to get a job and “I thought it was a great thing”.
Over and back for years to Ireland, an opportunity came to Orla Murphy and her husband to move to Manhattan “in 2010 in the middle of the crash. Emigrating then was a different feeling as I was older”.
Interesting contracts came to her (she has a strong background in film) and her husband returned to Ireland to resume teaching. Later, she followed.
“I came home and it was freezing cold. Remember those frozen winters? The country was so bloody depressed and I saw the aftershock thing [the bank bailout and consequences]. Sometimes the cure is worse than the disease”.
So real-life states of mind inform the narrative to ‘Remember to Breathe’. Maeve (Liz Fitzgibbon) and her husband take up life in New Zealand, arriving for the aftershocks subsequent to the Christ Church earthquake that were worse than the quake itself.
As the unemployed Maeve learns to swim, there are intersections of time and country and thoughts, with the director avoiding a naturalistic setting.
The immersive arena of a pool is cue for 63 lighting changes, another 48 for sound as Maeve works through the complexity of guilt concerning her loving father Johnny (Raymond Keane). She left him to the crushed family firm back in Ireland that she as architect, he as builder and her husband as engineer had developed.
Remembering to breathe is a metaphor for all sorts of after shock and pulling through, moment by small moment.
Book for Belltable at venue manager www.limetreetheatre.ie and new number 061-953400.
