YOU can take the show out of the venue, but you can’t take the venue out of the show. It is two years since ‘Smallone’ awed a Limerick audience with a site-specific show which took its audience through one of the city’s Georgian buildings.
So, what’s different this time round? “The size of the venue,” laughs Michelle O’Flanagan, who plays ‘Mingey’ in this one-woman show, “A huge difference, that’s our biggest challenge. And it’s funny, when we did it last time, we thought it would be very challenging with the small venue, and the audience literally a foot away from you, I was petrified of that.
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“Now we have the other challenge of trying to recreate the intimacy we had in the room, in the Belltbale and other venues, big theatres.”
Director and writer, John Murphy, describes the show as being about a woman who has found herself in “a very isolated situation, and who has become lost in some ways to normal society”.
Throughout the show, Murphy explains the audience sees who the character is, but is also given glimpses of her past.
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“She talks about herself as a child, about her relationship with her father and mother. We meet other characters in the play who come into her life.
“She was originally, I suppose, inspired by lots of people who live behind closed doors. Who live cut off from friendships and relationships. To end up becoming, you know, the local neighborhood ‘weird’ person. ‘The witch who lives behind the hedge’ or whatever.”
Playing such a complex character is “very challenging”, O’Flanagan tells the Limerick Post it is “the toughest role I ever played, and probably ever will play”.
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“But it’s wonderful because she goes through such a range of emotions. And; I love her, because she’s so real, and human, and she’s a myriad of things: she’s cranky, she’s feisty, she’s kind, she’s loving, she’s everything you’d ever want in a character. And the writing is just beautiful.”
Smallone comes to the Belltable theatre, Limerick, on Thursday, March 28. For tickets and further information visit www.limetreetheatre.ie/shows/belltable
