Galway theatregoers are set for a treat this summer when Landmark Productions and Galway International Arts Festival present a major new revival of Bedbound by Enda Walsh, tickets for which go on sale this morning (Thursday )
Colm Meaney and his daughter Brenda Meaney star together for the first time in the production which will play at the Festival from July 14-29.
Directed by Marc Atkinson Borrull, the production sees a father and daughter bound, inextricably, to each other. And the walls are closing in.
He talks frantically about his extraordinary past in furniture sales; she talks no less compulsively about anything at all, to fill the terrible silence in her head.
Enda Walsh’s savagely funny play - a sensation in Dublin, London and New York - gets a major revival.
Colm Meaney - whose recent stage performances include Cat on a Hot Tin Roof in the West End and The Iceman Cometh on Broadway - returns to the Irish stage for the first time in over 40 years, to play the once-flamboyant furniture salesman. Brenda Meaney plays his daughter, confined to a small bed.
What would happen if the torrent of words … just stopped?
The stellar creative team also includes Jamie Vartan (set and costume ), Sinéad McKenna (lighting ) and Sinéad Diskin (sound ).
Colm Meaney said his daughter Brenda brought the play Bedbound to me earlier this year with a view to them doing it together.
"I was in no mood for doing a play having recently done The Iceman Cometh and Cat on a Hot Tin Roof. Two epics and very hard work.
"I made the mistake of reading Bedbound and was immediately swept away by the power and brilliance of the language and fascinated by these two extraordinary characters.
Despite my best efforts I couldn’t resist! To get to work on this wonderful play with Enda and Marc and the great team at Landmark and Galway International Arts Festival is truly exciting and a real privilege," he said.
Brenda Meaney said that she has been a fan of Enda Walsh's work since she was struck by a student production of Disco Pigs at Players in her first year of college at Trinity.
"To have the opportunity now to work with his incomparable language, and the inspiringly dark world of Bedbound, is an absolute dream, a thrilling, complex, terrifying dream.
"The added boon of working with my dad - our first play together - is above and beyond what any actor could ask for: challenging, exciting, wonderful. It feels like a homecoming and a new chapter all at once.
"I also have to say how in awe I am of the creative team - I feel so privileged to work with Marc Atkinson Borrull again, and to collaborate with this incredible group of artists whose work I have admired for so long. I couldn't imagine a more dynamic, inspiring group to delve into this world with.'
Enda Walsh said he is absolutely delighted that Landmark Productions and Galway International Arts Festival are taking on Bedbound. "One of the most personal and ferocious plays I’ve written, Bedbound takes an idea of my upbringing and completely twists and abstracts it. The very best to the director Marc Atkinson Borrull and the other creatives - and Colm Meaney and Brenda Meaney. So looking forward to it," he said.
Producers Anne Clarke and Paul Fahy said Bedbound is the latest in a series of significant productions of Enda Walsh’s plays from Landmark Productions and Galway International Arts Festival, which have toured widely internationally - including Misterman, starring Cillian Murphy (to be seen later this year on National Theatre at Home ), and the world premieres of Medicine, Arlington and Ballyturk. We are thrilled to be bringing Colm Meaney back to the Irish stage, for the first time in over 40 years, in this explosive two-hander with his daughter Brenda Meaney.’
