It’s a late greeting, we know, but we haven’t had much to say until now!

Okay, so, we need dramatic actor types!

We’re currently in the process of casting our new show and we’ve got some openings we’d like to fill if at all possible. The play itself and the parts are under wraps for now but if you’re interested at all, we will fill you in on contact.

Female: 40′s – 60′s. Role is quite small, non verbal, lots of physicality.

Male: Late 30′s – late 40′s, role is small, non verbal, lots of physicality, also needed for a film shoot connected to the project.

The play will rehearse in Kilkenny in June and will be performed in July… and maybe later. At present, the production is profit share and the roles will be paid on that basis.

If you’re interested and available, please contact us on info@devioustheatre.com with a statement of interest and if you have a CV and/or headshot, please submit them also.

Our big project of 2011 was In The Future When All’s Well which was our biggest project ever in fact. Three plays in six months and two of them hit the road. We kept busy for the rest of the year though… and now we’re absolutely, fucking wrecked. But happy.

Here’s what we did:

Scratcher

Written and directed by John Morton, produced by Ken McGuire, Angela Barrett and Paddy Dunne, it took its bow on February 17th in Project Arts Centre as part of The Theatre Machine Turns You On Volume II. It played in Kilkenny Arts Office from 22nd – 26th February in Kilkenny Arts Office.We may just bring it back if it stays relevant… and so far, it is.

Shifting

Written by John Kennedy, directed by John Morton, produced by Ken McGuire, Angela Barrett and Paddy Dunne. Shifting played 18th – 23rd April in Kilkenny Arts Office as part of In The Future When All’s Well. It turned out to be our biggest hit of the year.

Smitten

Written by John Morton, directed by Angela Barrett & John Morton, produced by Paddy Dunne and Ken McGuire. Smitten opened in Solstice as part of Cork Midsummer Festival on June 16th and played Kilkenny Arts Office from June 26th – July 2nd as part of In The Future When All’s Well. We liked it better this time.

Bash: Latterday Plays

Written by Neil LaBute, directed by Ken McGuire, Annette O’Shea and John Morton. Produced by Angela Barrett. It played Cleere’s Theatre from October 17th – 22nd. This was the first time we went serious… no one laughed. Much. In fact, some people walked out. That’s what it’s all about for us – keep them coming back for more, but keep them guessing.

And…. we capped off the year with a small little piece of Bard from some of our troupe in…

TEXT | Messages

Pyramus and Thisbe from A Midsummer Night’s Dream by William Shakespeare, directed by John Morton, performed by John Doran, Amy Dunne, Ken McGuire, John Morton and David Thompson on December 14th in Project Arts Centre, Dublin.

The people who made all of this were:

Amy Dunne, Alan Butler, Ross Costigan, Paddy Dunne, Ken McGuire, Annette O’Shea, John Morton, David Thompson, Angela Barrett, Alex Christle, Linda Hanbidge, Eddie Brennan, Lucy McKenna, Richie Cody, Geoff Warner Clayton, Louise O’Connor, Sorcha O’Boyle, Alan Slattery, Darragh Byrne, Nathanael McDonald, John Kennedy, Eleanor Walsh, Peter O’Connor, Ruth Phelan, Jessica Walsh, Colin O’Brien, Rhian Gibson, Aoibhín Murphy, Adrian ‘Razor’ Kavanagh, Connie Walsh, Alan Doyle, Shaelin Vellani, Stephanie Cassin, Aidan Doheny, Jack O’Leary, Kevin Mooney, Gemma Grant, Suzanne O’Brien, Maria Murray, Lynsey Moran, Thom Dowling, David Sheenan, John Doran, Niamh Moyles.

Also major thanks to everyone who facilitated, sponsored, programmed, funded and supported this work: Kilkenny Arts Office, Mary Butler, Niamh Finn, THEATREclub, Lara Hickey, Zia Holly, Solstice, Dawn MacAllister, Ruairí Donovan, Shirley Somers, Eszter Nemethi, Cork Midsummer Festival, Johnny Holden, Paul McCabe, Cleeres Theatre, Project Arts Centre, Maeve Butler and everyone on our friends of programme: John Cleere, Darragh Doyle, Anthony McGuiness, Enda McEvoy, Darren Byrne, Steve Aylin, Tess Felder, Gemma McGirr, Patricia Walsh, Tom and Angela Barrett and Willie Byrne. Thank you all.

While we have them namechecked above, we couldn’t have completed the year without the help from Mary Butler and Niamh Finn at Kilkenny Arts Office with the backing of Kilkenny County Council. In times when funding for arts is being cut left, right and centre, and indeed decimated in other areas, they continued their support of our company by putting a roof over our heads for six months to develop personally and professionally. Our residency gave opportunity to 44 individuals to work in a theatre space for six months of the year, to hit the road to Dublin and Cork and see what it’s like to make theatre both on and off the stage. They have been firm supporters of our work since our inception in 2006 and they continued their support after the residency finished at the beginning of July by handing us the keys for our new home at The Maltings under the Not An Empty Space initiative. While it’s up to us to pay the rent and the bills, they arranged everything for us, including the setup costs (which we must pay back) but as a result, we were able to produce works like bash and Pyramus and Thisbe for TEXT | Messages.

We’ve also stepped things up on the organisational front as well and now boast the letters LTD after our name. Check that. Boom.

Next year will see us return to the Watergate Theatre in July with a new(ish) play written by Connie Walsh and John Morton, a return to radio theatre, a prospective festival jaunt, John Kennedy scribbling a new play and a crash course play clinic with the wonderful people in Fishamble. More elaborations on all that and a lot more besides will follow as we kick off 2012. And again, hopefully all will be well.

So from ourselves (Angela, John, Ken, Paddy), our thanks again to everyone who made our 2011 possible. As much as we make theatre for ourselves, we do it for you too and it is you who drive us to continue to make more. Have yerselves a deadly Christmas, enjoy the time off and we’ll see you again in the New Year.

In fact, the entire event was an absolute blast and even though we missed the last night of performances for different reasons (work, weddings, illness and hangovers) everything we managed to watch and partake in was a massive joy.

We hit the stage early on Wednesday night with our rather cheeky adaptation of Pyramus and Thisbe from A Midsummer Night’s Dream, which pretty much meant we could just about stage an entire ‘play’ in the 160 line limit. It really helped that we were on first as we could indulge in our ‘warm up’ routine as the audience were coming in. Thus, they and ourselves were sufficiently limber for the cascade of ham, flubs, miscues and overwrought death scenes that we foisted upon them for the next 20 minutes.

The reaction to the piece was lovely and everybody was ever so nice to us about it which resulted in some great feedback. And yes, everything we said was genuine Shakespeare… even if we did adapt his words into some modern pop songs. Hearty thanks to curators Lara Hickey, Aoife Spillane-Hinks, Megan Riordan and Conor Hanratty for all their help and support and to all the folks in Irish Theatre Institute and the Project Arts Centre for their hospitality. TEXT | Messages was a really exciting project to work on and it would be great to see more Bard tackling of its like in the future.

We’ll be back tomorrow with our wrap up of 2011. It was a damn busy year. Lotsa recapping to be done.

TEXT | Messages sees nine emerging directors tackle 160 lines of Shakespeare in no more than 20 minutes. It takes place over three nights with three directors presenting their work per night. The project has been curated and produced by Conor Hanratty, Aoife Spillane-Hinks, Lara Hickey and Megan Riordan. One of our lot, John Morton, is going to be one of the nine directors taking part in the project along with Edwina Casey, Conor Hanratty, Jose Miguel Jimenez, Sophie Motley, Oonagh Murphy, Aonghus Óg McAnally, Aoife Spillane-Hinks and Lianne O’Shea. Altogether there are 48 people working on this exciting new project over the next three nights. Shakespeare bitches, but not as you know it.

On our front, John’s contribution is of course, Devious centric, featuring a great number of our regular troupe. He will be joined by John Doran, Amy Dunne, Ken McGuire and David Thompson for what is going to be a very streamlined version of Pyramus and Thisbe, the disastrous play within a play that is performed during A Midsummer Night’s Dream. The Devious troupe will be performing on Wednesday December 14th along with pieces from Aoife Spillane-Hinks and Aonghus Óg McAnally. The kick off time is 8.15pm, tickets are only €5 and available from the Project Arts Centre website.

This is the first time we’ve tackled any Shakespeare since our battle rap Shakespeare In Bits back in 2009 and it’s real nice to mess with the Bard again. It’s a great pleasure for us to be involved with some many talented peeps and it’s going to be fitting finale to what’s been our most productive year to date. So if you’re in the Dublin vicinity, get thee to the Project Arts Centre for what’s going to be a fantastic piece of theatre. And there’s also some romance and a bit with a dog.

TEXT | Messages opens tomorrow night Tuesday December 13th and runs until Thursday December 14th in Project Arts Centre.

Photos by Ross Costigan Photography.

Entitled Coming Soon, it’s a selection of fake movie posters set around various Kilkenny locales and features a spread of our acting ensemble including Jack O’Leary, Aoibhín Murphy, Alex Christle, Ruth Phelan, John Morton, Ken McGuire and one upcoming one called Brendan Corcoran (more on that later in the week).

The launch is Thursday December 8th in the upstairs gallery of The Watergate Theatre at 7.30pm. Come along for the popcorn and the visual treats. The launch later moves across the road to Cleeres for a night of movie soundtrack goodness from The All Time DJ’s.

Coming Soon runs upstairs in the Watergate Theatre until January 13th.

Devious Theatre Company, Kilkenny took another positive step towards recognition as a professional theatre company with a stunning production at Cleere’s Theatre, of the controversial Bash: Latterday Plays by Neil Labute. This is a play, because of the subject matter of its three sections caused the author to be excommunicated from the Church of the Latterday Saints. These plays are meant to evoke revulsion and admiration and this company repelled me with the presentation of evil in a cruel, indifferent world and impressed me with strong, searing acting in a small intimate space, where you had to engage with the horror onstage or look away.

Based loosely on aspects of the cruelty and inhumanity contained in Greek theatre, these three pieces, two monologues and a dialogue took more ability than just nerve to do something shocking and controversial.

In Iphigenia in Orem, John Morton confronts his audience with a confessional admission that he stood back and allowed his baby, an infant, to smother beneath a duvet or comforter as American’s say. His explanation of this horrible act had a chilling rationality to it and it was a feat of acting and directing by Ken McGuire.

McGuire partnered Amy Dunne in A Gaggle Of Saints where he describes how his friends go up to the city for a bash or party, follow a gay man and beat him to death, steal his ring and present it to his fiancé, Dunne. The counterpoint of their cross purpose dialogue is a wonderful testament to fine acting and spot on direction from Annette O’Shea.

John Morton directed the final piece, Medea Redux, where a tearful O’Shea recalls being seduced by a teacher and giving birth to a fine baby boy. In an unspeakable act of revenge and cruelty she kills the son to make a point to the smug teacher who rejected her.

This was a difficult performance and Annette O’Shea riveted the audience with an awesome performance where I just could not avert my eyes and such was the shock at the heart of this play that I found it hard to applaud at the end.

Why the Arts Council has not granted-aided this company to become a professional theatre is an indictment of the reductive trend many subsidized organizations are pursuing with difficult diligence.

Bash ran from October 17th – 22nd 2011 in Cleeres Theatre, Kilkenny.

If you didn’t see the play during it’s April 18th – 23rd run then this will be a nice way to see it again. Albeit, on a big screen. Entry is €5 and all proceeds go to Enable Ireland, like all events that will be taking place over Rockfall. John Kennedy‘s Kilkenny based comedy will be screened along with a trailer and a behind the scenes featurette. The show played to packed houses and received widespread positive reviews during its run including this blurb from Liam Murphy of The Munster Express:

‘Part of me is thinking I’ve seen it all before, nothing new in this genre. But was I mistaken. Such is the ability of this young ensemble that I was taken into their world and shifted in the sense of having my preconceptions challenged.’

KilkennyMusic.com will be handling proceedings for the rest of the night with a gig from white hot local boys Alka Jessie and Rescue Remedy headlining the event.

The entire night is €5 and all proceeds are going to a much worthy cause. This is our fourth year contributing to Rockfall after performances of Heart Shaped Vinyl in 2007, Shakespeare In Bits in 2009 and a screening of Trainspotting in 2008 and it’s something we’re delighted to partake in.

Come along for what should be one of our best parties of the year!

It was a pleasant surprise to turn up to a horror-tinged play to find warm, cushioned seats in Cleere’s Theatre on Tuesday evening, but such is the star treatment to be expected from Devious Theatre Company – as if to cushion the blow for the difficult subject matter to follow.

Bash: Latterday Plays, which they are presenting nightly until Saturday, is a series of three one-act plays, starting with the extended monologue Iphigenia in Orem performed by John Morton. In this confessional-type tale, an average office worker in middle management, with an average tie and an average haircut and an average life, unfolds a burdensome secret.

A Gaggle of Saints then sees Ken McGuire and Amy Dunne as a college couple who travel from Boston to New York for an unforgettable party, followed by an expertly disturbed Annette O’Shea in Medea: Redux.

With each tale more disturbing than the last, the actors had the audience hanging on their every word, the intimate setting and the directness of their delivery captivating from start to finish.

“I’ve gone off the path here … somehow,” John’s character says at one stage – and this is the common thread of the three works, that any of us could find ourselves off the path at some stage, not knowing whether we’ll find our way back.

It could happen to anyone, for these are all ordinary people, and it’s a truly extraordinary performance from Devious Theatre.

With previous productions they have shown their ability to be fun and vibrant and larger than life, and in this case they are showing their more serious side. It’s a side they clearly have the talent and desire to explore further in future shows.

They may be venturing onto another path, but they’re certainly leading the way.

These comments have been gathered from our Facebook profile, bash: latterday plays events page and comments left to actors within the show. If you’ve been to see the show and want to pass a comment, leave it in the box below, head over to Devious Theatre on Facebook or drop an email to info@devioustheatre.com.

The Audience on bash:latterday plays

“Yet again Devious Theatre prove themselves as an amazingly talented group…if you get a chance over the coming week check out their most recent production,three horror stories of everyday evil….BASH- LATTERDAY PLAYS by Neil Labute.”

“excellent show you guys (ha ha!!) really enjoyed it! I’ll be sleeping with the light on, scary!”

“I’m terrified yet kinda satisfied at the same time? Well done, everyone, that completely blew me away!”

“All I can say is wow… Well done!”

“Immensely powerful performance!! Really well done!”

“Devious Theatre’s ‘Bash’ is the Feel Bad Hit of the Winter which you have to see.”

“Awesome performances, deeply disturbing content …”

“Thanks to bash: latterday plays, I will be checking on my kids every 5 minutes tonight, just to see if they’re still alive… What an amazing show”

“Amazing work. I felt revulsion and admiration…”

“You will leave Bash groping, overwhelmed and with the need to experience the better side of humanity”

“Devious theatres latest production in cleeres is incredible. Amazing sustained performances. We are so lucky in this small city to have such talent.”

Getting Tickets

If these comments do anything for you then don’t wait around to get tickets. Online sales for tonight (Wednesday) have stopped so it’s tickets at the venue only (you can ring and reserve on 056 7762573). Tickets are available online for Thursday, Friday and Saturday but in typical fashion now as with our previous shows, it looks like we’ll have to suspend online ticket sales early as demand in the venue, including post-show ticket sales for subsequent nights has been great.

Thanks so much to all who have come out in the past two nights, we’ve still got four performances to go and we’re looking forward to each and every one of them.

After a whirlwind couple of weeks of rehearsals we’ve arrived here in Cleeres Theatre to open up proceedings. We’ve been teching all morning, sorting out the seats and testing our soundscape. It’s all coming together really well and as an added bonus we’ve just stocked up on Cleeres homemade chorizo and tomato soup. We’ll be well sorted for the evening.

We’ll be opening the doors tonight at 7.40 and will be starting the show absolutely dead on at 8pm. So if you’re thinking of running late, please try not to as we won’t be able to let you in until the second play. The running order for the play is iphigenia in orem, a gaggle of saints and then we’ll finish with medea redux after the interval.
We hope we’ll see you there! Tickets are starting to fly out and we’re confident that we’re going to deliver something a little different again. bash will run until this Saturday night, October 22nd at 8pm nightly. You can book tickets in Cleeres on 056 – 7762573 and online here.

And that’s probably why we love Neil LaBute. He was one of the writers who was on our mind when we formed the company in 2006. We would sit outside the Marble City Tea Rooms (and then the Coffee Club when it got colder) and we would spitball about theatre and we would pass around plays and get ourselves excited about the potential of what we could do. Neil LaBute was one of those writers who got us excited. We nearly did The Shape Of Things a couple of times (could still happen). At one point we talked about doing Fat Pig and reasons to be pretty in tandem, like a ‘Neil LaBute Season’. And of course, there was always bash. That was ‘the best one’ we felt. It was just gut wrenchingly powerful. It still is. It was absolutely shocking and fiercely uncomfortable. And I think that’s why we  loved his work in general. We formed a theatre company in Kilkenny when there was no company that did work that we wanted to see. We were effectively creating the theatre company we wanted to see. We wanted to bait and provoke and gut punch and engage. We wanted to make people laugh and cry. We wanted it to be a communal experience. So we’ve spent five years doing plays that provoke and prod and get the audience involved, we’ve done things to challenge ourselves, challenge the perceptions of what we can do and burst open that box that you get put in whether it be ‘regional company’ or ‘young lads’ or ‘shock theatre’. We take delight in being really fucking cheeky with our work. And that’s why Neil LaBute spoke to us. Because that’s the kind of work he does. So after years of talking about his plays, we’ve now got to the point where we’re opening one tomorrow night. It’s exciting to finally get to this point. We’ve now chalked LaBute down, much like we did with Dario Fo previously. There are others too, but hopefully they’ll come in time.

bash lives and breathes by its audience. The final part of what LaBute calls ‘the triangle’ along with text and performer. And we hope the audiences will come to see bash when it opens tomorrow night. And we hope they get their hands dirty. We’ll leave you with a quote from a 2008 interview with Neil LaBute. One that pretty succintly sums up why we wanted to do this play:

‘So go back to the theatre, audience members everywhere, and get your hands dirty. Sit closer than you usually do. Smell the actors and make eye contact and let a little blood splash on your hem. Give the musicals a break for a while: those bastards are rich enough. Let us know that if we are brave enough to write about the stuff that matters, then you’ll come and watch. I may never fight a battle, or run for office, or help an old lady across the street – but when I sit down and put pen to paper, I can promise to write about a subject of some importance, and to do so with honesty and courage. The time for fear and complacency is past. Bravery needs to make a comeback on both sides of the footlights, and fast.’

bash: latterday plays by Neil LaBute opens tomorrow night in Cleeres Theatre at 8pm. It runs until Saturday October 22nd. Tickets can be booked in Cleeres on 056 – 7762573, bought at the venue or bought online here.

That’s all we’re asking. That you sit and listen to these three stories. And if you need to loosen up, then by all means loosen up.

bash: latterday plays opens on Monday. We’ve got a long week of teching and dress rehearsing in front of us as we approach opening night. Then on Monday we’ll open the doors for its 6 night run in Cleeres Theatre and invite an audience in to listen to three of Neil LaBute’s most darkest confessional plays. Iphigenia In Orem, A Gaggle Of Saints and Medea Redux are dark portraits of what lies under the surface of ordinary people. Like the Greek myths they’re based on, they’re epically tragic in their own way and infused with what LaBute himself describes as ‘a casual atrocity.’ It’s the darkest we’ve gotten with any of our work to date but we’re confident that we’re up to the challenge. Are you?

bash: latterday plays by Neil LaBute opens on Monday October 17th at 8pm in Cleeres Theatre on Parliament Street, Kilkenny. It runs until Saturday October 22nd. Tickets can be bought at the venue, booked on 056 – 7762573 and purchased online here.

In a strange way, my rehearsal for this play began about four years ago. I am sure he has long forgotten but back in 2008, in my eternal search for the perfect audition monologue, I asked John Morton if he knew of any gems and sure enough he told me to look up Medea Redux by Neil Labute. And I can honestly say it was one of the best pieces of advice I have ever gotten in my theatre life.

I read the play and immediately went back to page one and read it again. not because i felt like I missed anything or didn’t understand something, i simply wanted to luxuriate in the writing, the imagery, the genius of Neil LaBute over and over. It is so hard to find, even today, strong, powerful, ballsy female parts and so to find this was so heartening, it made me excited about theatre, about acting. I knew in that instant that I was absolutely going to play this part at some point in the future. It was my Hamlet.

So when I heard the mutterings one night in Cleeres about Neil LaBute having his Devious debut, needless to say I was very excited. To be afforded the opportunity to play this part is both fantastic and absolutely daunting. The sheer volume of words, the challenge of holding an audiences attention for 35 minutes, doing the writing justice and giving “Medea” a chance to say her piece are all very daunting but equally very exhilarating tasks.

Before beginning bash, i never expected it to be as much a collaborative process between the four actors as it has been. when we rehearse together it is such a supportive and open environment which is a blessing when each one of us are dealing with such traumatic material. The amount of time we have all had to spend alone simply getting to grips with the logistics of the piece before being able to present it to each other is something i have never experienced before.

It’s interesting how pure fear can make you do things you never imagined were possible. I now have all 18 pages in my head. I have no idea how but they are in there and the only thing I can attribute it to is a mixture of fear and the utter brilliance of Neil LaBute’s writing. It flows like Shakespeare and when something is that enjoyable to read it seems to make it that much easier to learn.

Monday is going to be a milestone in my theatre life. I am so looking forward to getting on stage, first of all, to play this part, but also to introduce a Kilkenny audience to Neil LaBute’s work. Hopefully this won’t be the last we’ll see of Labute in Kilkenny.

Annette O’Shea performs Medea Redux in bash: latterday plays by Neil LaBute from October 17th – 22nd in Cleere’s Theatre, Kilkenny.

I had always hoped Devious would to a Neil LaBute play. I read The Shape of Things about seven years ago and so began my love for this playwright. I made it a mission to read as much of his work as possible.  I think Bash is a brave and bold choice for Devious.  We really haven’t done anything like this before so I’m looking forward to seeing how regular theatre goers and Devious fans respond to this production.  It may not be everyone’s cup of tea but I think it’s important we keep growing as a company by challenging ourselves with different material.

We had six weeks to prepare for this production and now it opens in 6 days. Time has flown by incredibly fast  so I’m a bundle of nerves this week but I know things will all fall into place. Initially, I thought myself and Ken would sail through the duologue. But I have come to learn that duologues are quite tough. I recently performed a monologue for a radio play and I always knew I could backtrack if I skipped some lines or lost my way, I only had to take responsibility for myself. I suppose the challenging thing about duologues is that you have to know the other person’s lines as well as your own so that you can deliver your lines on cue.  And God forbid, but If I skip a few lines, or miss a cue during the performance it will effect Ken so there is pressure to be on top on your game for the entire piece. We can’t afford to switch off for a second.  So, myself and Ken are working hard at the moment, trying to drum those lines into our heads like there’s no tomorrow.

I think there are many layers to the characters of John and Sue. They appear one way, but subtle hints suggest all is not what it seems.  There are tense moments in the piece and I’m looking forward to telling the audience our story.  It’s been great working with Ken. The last time we were paired together was for Judith and Brian in Monty Python’s Life of Brian almost 12 years ago. So It will be nice to play a couple on stage again. Except this time, there will definitely be no singing. But perhaps, some whistling…

Amy Dunne performs A Gaggle Of Saints with Ken McGuire in bash: latterday plays by Neil LaBute from October 17th – 22nd in Cleere’s Theatre, Kilkenny. Buy tickets online here.

This one is ticking a few boxes for me. First off, it allows us to mark bash off our list of things to do in the theatre. It puts me into my first short play (outside of sketch shows or scene based shows, everything I’ve done in the last fifteen years has been feature-length). I’ll save my third box for the performance week, see if you can figure it out. And, interestingly enough, it marks the ten year anniversary of myself and Amy Dunne appearing as a couple on stage. Take that, Kilkenny history boffins. Of course, the last time we shared spoken roles together, she put me in my place by pulling a gun on me so we’ll see what happens next week.

Genuinely though, I’m loving exploring bash, and in particular, a gaggle of saints. With four of us working in close quarters on the three pieces, I don’t think I can recall a time in the past five years with the company that we’ve dissected a script so much – whatever about accents or physicality but actually trying to delve into the minds of the characters, dig out their back story from the text, really get under their skin. While the performances are quite stationary, LaBute has created some remarkable characters within each text which gives us a lot to work with.

Given the nature of the piece, the rehearsal process has been thrown on its head. I’m sick of the sound of my own voice, or at least sick of the voice that was recorded three weeks ago. I’ve been listening back to a recording myself and Amy did of the piece and I guess I sounded to an American what Americans sound to Irish people when trying an Irish accent. But, thankfully, it’s come on in the past few weeks.

What has been tough to chew at times is the script in itself. Not for the amount of content – we’re getting through that – or the speed or the cues, but the actual subject matter itself. In a blog post last week, John summed it up perfectly in saying

“We want it to shock. We want it to horrify people. And for the first time since we’ve been producing shows, we want people to feel bad about laughing.”

That’s just it. Each performance contains genuinely shocking material. So read about it, you see it in film or on TV but with each production, it’s laid bare in front of you – one on one with the actors in a small room, and you need to face it. That delivery, that execution as an actor, has been the real testing point. Finding that point means, I think, you’ve finally gotten to the heart of the character.

But it’s a test that’s been welcomed and once the show is done I’ll tick the box that says “test passed”. Or something cheesy like that.

On a closing note, the last time I wore a tuxedo for The Devious Theatre Company, we won a PPI Radio Award so the omens are good for the week ahead.

See you at the bash…

Ken

Ken McGuire performs a gaggle of saints with Amy Dunne in bash: latterday plays by Neil LaBute from October 17th – 22nd in Cleere’s Theatre, Kilkenny. Buy tickets online here.

John Morton last appeared for us in Smitten. Here, he writes about his relationship with iphigenia in orem and what exactly makes him want to tell that story.

I performed iphigenia in orem in college a few years ago. Not the entire thing, just an excerpt from it, maybe three pages or so. I did it for a class where we used to have to come in as a character and engage with other members of the class as whatever characters they were. Which always threw up some pretty interesting combinations. What I loved about doing this piece was how unassuming I could be. So normal. Not looking for attention. Not encouraging people to talk to me. Just being polite and friendly and maybe a bit awkward. Just an ordinary, everyday guy.

And that’s what I loved about bash when I read it first. The normality of it all. How relatable the characters are and how easy it is to put ourselves in their shoes. And I loved the wickedness of what LaBute does to the audience with that relatability. He uses the familarity against them. He uses their own preconceptions of what is ‘normal’ and what is ‘good’ and twists them around to deliver something truly horrific. And that in short, is the pleasure I derive from performing iphigenia in orem. It’s been a tough couple of weeks rehearsal but it’s starting to show signs of working. It’s all about control, I guess. I’m trying to make the audience as interested in the story as they can be, interested in an unremarkable man but at the same time, you don’t want to bore them. You’re a camera angle with no cutaways. You want to draw them in and make them part of it. I think that’s the beauty of what LaBute has done with this play, he’s delivered Greek tragedy on an intimate scale. He’s made it everyday stuff and thus, relatable to everyday people and this, I think anyway, is part of the reason why bash has been so popular for the past decade. I don’t think it would pack the same punch for the ancient Greeks if they saw it. But for anyone in a boring job or a fucked up relationship or with any kind of anger or misplaced prejudice and fears of our modern world, it’s terribly tragic, epic stuff.

Funnily enough, I also performed Greek tragedy in college (including Medea!) but I just couldn’t relate to it half as much. There ya go.

John Morton

John Morton performs Iphigenia In Orem in bash: latterday plays by Neil LaBute from October 17th – 22nd in Cleere’s Theatre, Kilkenny.

If you missed our sell out run of Shifting this past April, there’s going to be a one night only screening of the entire play as part of this years Rockfall Festival.

This is the fourth year we’ve been involved with the Rockfall Festival following on from performances of Heart Shaped Vinyl and Shakespeare In Bits in 2007 and 2009 and a screening of Trainspotting in 2008. All proceeds from these (and every other Rockfall event) went straight to Enable Ireland and this year is no different. It’s a great cause and one we’re always delighted to contribute to.

There will also be a music element to the night, in conjunction with KilkennyMusic.com but we’ll have more on that soon.

Shifting entirely sold out its 6 night run from April 18th – 23rd of this year. This will be your first (and last) chance to see the play in its entirely. It will be introduced by the writer John Kennedy and the director John Morton and will be preceded by a never before seen behind the scenes featurette on the play.

It takes place on the opening night of Rockfall, October 28th at 8pm in Cleere’s Theatre. The entire event will be €5 and all proceeds will go to Enable Ireland.

Amy Dunne and Ken McGuire during the promo shoot

We’re just under 2 weeks off of our fourth and final production of 2011, Neil LaBute’s bash: latterday plays. It’s all come about pretty quickly and we’ve been focused so much on the play that we haven’t really had a whole lot of time to blog about it. So this here is a quick update.

We had our first run through in Cleeres Theatre today and we’re really happy with how it worked out. Cleeres is the smallest black box style theatre venue in Kilkenny and this marks our third time using it, after our debut show Heart Shaped Vinyl in 2006 and the second run of Shakespeare In Bits in 2009. It’s a venue that works really well for intimate shows that rely a lot on the close relationship between audience and performer. And that’s exactly what makes it a perfect fit for bash.

Like a lot of Neil LaBute’s work, bash makes the audience complicit with the characters actions. These are confessions, stories that are being told in confidence. And there is nothing between audience and performer in bash. The stories succeed in lulling the audience into a false sense of security, where they feel like they’re comfortable with the performers and then, like the greatest of Greek tragedies, they’re brought to a point of no return, where the cruelest of actions are laid bare. The audience are put in the shoes of the characters, to examine themselves and what they, as ordinary people, may be capable of. That’s the real joy of Neil LaBute’s plays, of how mundane he makes the horrific seem.

Even when you’re dealing with the huge, heightened dramatics of Greek tragedies, it’s wonderful to see them whittled down to naturalistic, everyday stories. If this was us performing Greek tragedy as is, we’d probably be practicing our projection out in Ballykeefe Amphitheatre right now but because it’s LaBute, the intimate confines of Cleere’s Theatre suit our purposes perfectly for bash.

Each of the three plays (iphigenia in orem, a gaggle of saints, medea redux) are going to be using the space in different ways and each of them has their own specific lighting design and sound scapes. These will really show the marks of the three different directors. But the performance style, the themes, the words, the effect, they are something we’ve all worked on together in order to produce the best possible experience for an audience. Today we sat down with our cups of tea and bottles of water, turned the lights down in Cleeres Theatre and let the actors and words of Neil LaBute work their magic. It was great to get a glimpse of what it’s going to be like when it comes together. It’s safe to say that bash is definitely going be an intense experience. We’re going to work even harder at it over the next 10 days to make sure that it lives up to our own expectations. We want it to shock. We want it to horrify people. And for the first time since we’ve been producing shows, we want people to feel bad about laughing.

bash: latterday plays opens on Monday October 17th in Cleeres Theatre, Parliament Street, Kilkenny and runs until October 22nd at 8pm nightly. Tickets are €12 and can be bought at the venue or online here. Bookings are on 056 – 7762573.

It is made up of the opening lines from each of the three plays within bash: iphigenia in orem, a gaggle of saints and medea redux.

It also features the song ‘Solitude’ from Billie Holiday, whose music features quite heavily in bash.

Both rehearsals and production have been revving up over the past week and we’re nearly at the start date for what will be our fourth production of 2011. bash: latterday plays opens on October 17th and runs until the 22nd in Cleere’s Theatre, Kilkenny. Tickets can be bought at the venue for €12 and online purchases can be made here.

It showcases the four letter based posters that we’ve released throughout the week, featuring the cast of the play Amy Dunne, Ken McGuire, John Morton and Annette O’Shea.

As usual, the poster design was handled by our wonderfully talented designer Paddy Dunne, who is nearing both the 50 mark and exhaustion when it comes to our posters.

Tickets for bash have just gone on sale in Cleere’s Theatre at the price of €12. Bookings can be made on 056 – 7762573 and of course, online purchases can still be made here.