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| all thumbs, the first read through today! |
But it was also made on the street outside and in the lobby and it was made by such a large body of people with an excitement and energy I have rarely felt before.
The speakers were profound and passionate, some spoke from a depth of experience of the gender bias - and yes, it is there and it's systemic; so many of the stories felt familiar to me; others belonged to the more recent wave of theatre practitioners and creatives.
I was speaking recently in a debate in Trinity College, Dublin's Hist Society. "That this house should only consume art created by women." Yes, it was provocative and I was... it's the joy of debating! But when you look at the stats, when you hear the stories, when I looked at my own experience of writing and working in theatre, film, tv, animation, games, setting up a company, producing, directing,,,, it wasn't hard to find my own stories of the pervasive, destructive and systemic gender bias. 
As Olwyn Foure said in a speech delivered by Aoife Duffin yesterday:" This is a great moment... and a shameful moment".
Eloise, a timid and ladylike soul, is getting tired of being confronted by the male conquests of her more adventurous sister, Lulu. And though perhaps he might just be the fix they each need to move on, the last thing Eloise wants now is to meet Lulu's latest conquest...
A very powerful one-woman show, produced by Moonstone Productions, written and directed by Lindsay Sedgwick, and starringKaren Connell, the writing is powerful, the subject matter gripping, and the performance by Karen is winsome and compulsive. There are layers to be peeled, depths to be reached and meanings to make and all three are accomplished without unnecessary adornments and distracting props; all senses are focused as the world in which Eloise finds herself trapped unfolds...
This is the first time Lindsay has directed, and on writing the play, she explains that it came about when she originally brought a much shorter early draft to the Attic Studio Dublin for a night of audition pieces. 'Everyone was talking about it and it seemed there were as many questions about the two sisters as there was life in the characters. So I wrote a bit more...'
A brave and engaging piece of theatre, do yourself a favour and take some time to see it. Fried Eggs runs from Tuesday, 11th - 22nd August [Tuesday to Saturday, with matinees on Wednesday and Saturday]
Review # 2: No More Workhorse (By Frank L) ;
12th August 2015
The set is just the back wall draped in a plain fabric and two metal chairs placed facing away from each other. Eloise (Karen Connell) sits on one of the chairs as the audience assembles. A ticking, clicking sound indicates the beginning. This sound is used subsequently and effectively to define the three different acts. When she stands, Connell reveals herself to be svelte and statuesque, accentuated by her long, knee-length, white shirt and bare feet. She is somewhat remote in appearance, unobtainable.
Eloise describes her relationship with her identical twin sister Lulu who is far more outgoing than she is. She smiles far more often. Smiling is an issue for Eloise as the mother had views about smiling. And then there is Dan who works in a chipper, who has hairy arms, and from whom Eloise orders three fried eggs.
In a finely written script, Connell brings to life each of the characters. Her technique is low key, voice rarely raised. She speaks each word with precision. She varies the pace. She allows the comedy and disappointments in the text to emerge naturally. She brings you into the world of Eloise, her likes, dislikes and her needs. They are not that unusual other than that they are complicated by the smiling presence of her identical twin sister, Lulu who dominates her life.
Although the piece is under an hour in duration, the combination of the quality of the text and the authoritative but calm delivery of it by Connell ensures that the world of Eloise is displayed in all of its fragile uncertainties. Connell, in her creation of Eloise, has created an empathetic individual who is to an extent an observer but also well capable of being a participant when the need arises. As a result she and Sedgwick have combined to create a piece of theatre of some moment.
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| Karen Connell: When the stage isn't big enough, grab the back row and sing |
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| Brian Murray deciphering footlight spaghetti |
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| Aoife Fealy, Set Design & Suzie Cummins, Stage Manager |
"I remain still... Still as a knuckle sandwich in a snowstorm when you don't know who to fight..."
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| Exploring character with Suzanna Geraghty |
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| Worn out by rehearsals... |
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"He snarls the way some people can pirouette in a shower without falling over or flooding the bathroom or accidentally killing his partner with the shower nozzle."
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| Eloise. Lulu. Photo by Claire-Jeanne Nash |
"Three eggs... like suns in a moon cloud..."
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| Auditioning mirrors: Early days when the mirror was an important image - two sisters, two sides of one coin; what we see, how we understand reality and ourselves... all crucial themes. |
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"Dignity is over-rated
and cruel, says Lulu."
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A tiny taste of the play:
“He snarled the way some people can pirouette in a shower without
falling over or flooding the bathroom or accidentally killing their partner with
the shower nozzle.”
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So what is it about?
Fried Eggs is a bizarre love story about two unusual sisters and one very understanding man. Eloise spends her life consoling men her sister Lulu has slept with and dumped. If Lulu could only be a little more inhibited, that might make Eloise’s life a bit easier. When Eloise loses her job because of Lulu, the last thing she wants is to meet her sister’s latest conquest, Brendan.
But then again, Brendan might be the one person who can make everything right.
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"Lulu. My name is
Lulu." Photo by Claire-Jeanne Nash
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Two weeks from today, we will be in Theatre Upstairs putting up our set and lighting design and creating the setting in which Karen Connell will create the magic using my script, Fried Eggs. It's a pretty scary and yet exhilarating moment to stop and smell the roses. Before dashing off to another rehearsal!
And a bit more again.
It's official - the poster is up and out there!
The first batch of Claire's pictures are just downloading onto my computer as I type this but we have to hold them back for posters and banners and stuff that will make you desperate to see the show!!
I have to write that down and put it out there because it is soooo wonderful when, as a writer, you hear a response like this. That it came from the theatre manager who can - and wants to programme the play so that I'm only now waiting to confirm dates, it was like nectar!
Looking forward to seeing old faces and new -- let me know if you're coming along so I can keep an eye on numbers. |
| Nicola Lindsay as Mam, such a glamorous role as you can see by the fantastic costume! Ken Fletcher as Kevin, looking far too happy. Peter Bodie, Producer, surviving us all. Martin Curley, DP/ Camera Man lurking behind the light and Lauren Shannon-Jones, who assisted on the shoot, somewhere out of frame - probably working while we all malinger? |
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| Okay, Martin Curly, our (can I say that?) camera man is looking very happy indeed but producer Peter Bodie looks as if he can't understand whey he's not being filmed too.... Speech bubbles/ captions please... |
I've never done this before - it's still one of my newest and most exciting areas of work. And who was inviting me? Mary Morrissey, a wonderful writer I last met 30 years ago on Arlen House's - remember that women's publisher? - inaugural Women's Writing Workshops. Eavan Boland ran it, we even had a session with Seamus Heaney. He liked four lines in the middle of a 40 line poem; so, as I translated it, he liked 10 percent of my work!
