TAKE an alternative venue, a room up three flights at an old Georgian, No. 74 O’Connell Street. Take a determined actress, Michelle O’Flanagan (Quarry, Torch Players) who first attempted “a script that is extremely difficult at times” a year before, says writer and director John A Murphy.
Take a show that was first staged in Andrews Lane, Dublin more than a decade go with the exceptional Joan Sheehy. It was produced by Cork’s Blood in the Alley.
Take another theatre company, Murphy’s own Bottom Dog, which is broke. And the show that we invoke, the connecting point to these challenges? ‘Smallone’.
“It eventually played in Paris at an Irish cultural festival. I didn’t go, I couldn’t afford it at the time, or I thought I couldn’t,” Murphy recalls ruefully, annoyed with his prudence.
Smallone’s Limerick premier opens on Wednesday May 10, 8pm to an invited audience only, thereafter booking openly on 085-2085737 into Saturday May 13.
“It is about a woman on her own whom we might call odd, different. She is on her own path which is opposite or sometimes parallel with the main road…that person who is just ‘off’ or seen as eccentric or nuts. What makes a person like that?”
John A Murphy is one to ruminate about life, to rummage in and around the flotsam of humanity. He is compassionate and empathic, sometimes angry.
Of this character ‘Smallone’, “the word ‘isolating’ comes to the fore. How do you get to the point of going on your own from the world?
“We get glimpses of the past and present. Sometimes she seems older than she is, other times she’s a little kid”.
Theatrical points: “It is written in a very odd language that’s quite fragmented, hops around a bit.
“For a while you [the audience]have to commit to bearing with what she is saying. Sound wise, voices come through, interjections that are Smallone’s own.
“There are very painful moments that at least partly explain how she is”.
Pius McGrath is on sound and lighting for the 80 minutes at this “bare bones of a venue” lit by LED. Secure one of 30 seats nightly in advance.
