AN innately Irish show, ‘A Successful TD’ is a joint project between actors Jon Kenny, Mary McEvoy (Glenroe) and director Michael Scott. After a successful Spring run in The Gaeity, Cork Opera House, Galway’s Townhall and Waterford’s Royal Theatre, ‘A Successful TD’ stops at Lime Tree Theatre this Friday, September 22 and Saturday 23, 8pm.
“We decided to adapt two books by John B Keane, ‘Letters from a Successful TD’ and ‘Letters of an Irish Minister of State’ and make them into a stage work,” the amiable Kenny says. Only at end of interview does he get around to admitting the success of this ‘Successful TD’ thus far, with future tours from Manchester to Belfast booked.
Riotously funny, piercingly right, it is a punch against gombeen politics – and something darker in its handling of how power corrupts. ‘Tis pure John B who excelled as iconoclast in the comedic way.
Kenny’s longtime collaborator from ‘The Matchmaker’, Mary McEvoy chimes in: “We literally pulled the play out of the books. We took Keane’s dialogue as much as it could be made to fit as was.”
It is this truth to Keane’s observations and beautiful use of language that fires the many laughs in a storyline set over four years, bookended by elections.
Of Kenny’s character Tull McAdoo, a Minister for State in love up for re-election, the actor observes that “outside of that persona, he is a man for all that who is hugely vulnerable and very small. A man like him without power.. what is he going to be? Who is he without it?”
They muse on the troubled world stage, referencing leaders such as Erdogan in Turkey, Maduro in Venezuela leading by “a frightful populism”.
Kenny and McEvoy “play about 20 characters”, the principals being Tull and wife Betty, their ruthless daughter Kate and dude of a son, Mike McAdoo, Mike wears a poncho, grows his hair and “after six years in university does not have a full stop to his name”.
Meet “Duxie and Walter, two party faithfuls who are passionate about the party. They basically want to manage Tull’s campaign, keep everyone onside in the party. They are like the Greek chorus driving the story along with ‘the Party is the Party’.” Family life?
“They function in their own dysfunctional way..She’s a hypochondriac, partly to revel in the attention, partly because how else would she get it from him?”
Watch out for Tull’s claim of vainglory past as a Soldier of Ireland, booking at www.limetreetheatre.ie to find out if the feet are clay.
