LOCAL ENSEMBLE Tyger Theatre Company take to the stage in the Town Hall studio next week with the premiere of Philip Doherty’s comic and stirring new play, The Dove and The Crow.
The play’s main protagonist, a young man called Cormac, dropped out of college suddenly and fled to a new life in New York five years ago. US immigration had other ideas and now he’s back in small-town Ireland with a secret weighing heavily on his conscience.
Director Jessica Curtis expands on The Dove and The Crow’s main themes.
“The play explores a number of themes including sex, loneliness, fertility and grief through the myriad relationships of its protagonist Cormac,” she reveals. “It reaches into the depths of his depression brought on by an incident that happened in Ireland years previously.
“It is punctuated throughout with humour that manifests itself in an array of interactions between mis-matched characters in both New York and Ireland. Cormac’s chequered inner life also provides both light relief and dizzying depths - the script says the things we think but daren’t say.”
Curtis and Doherty first met up at NUI, Galway several years ago and have stayed in contact ever since.
“Philip has been sending me his scripts to read and consider since we worked together during the MA in drama and theatre studies in NUIG,” Curtis discloses. “We have spent those intervening years trotting around the globe [Philip] and living and working between Galway and Dublin [me]. We finally sat down together last September - me having settled in Galway and he in Cavan - and decided it was about time we put a production together.
“Working on a new play that has never been staged has been incredibly hard work involving three readings and long hours of editing sessions from December to February. Thankfully the result is a thought-provoking play with a wacky edge to it in Philip’s inimitably colourful style.”
Since completing that NUIG MA, Doherty has been a busy and productive writer. He has had his work staged in the New Theatre in Dublin and The Loft Space in Cavan town and has had numerous radio plays broadcast on Northernsound and Shannonside Radio stations.
He was the youngest ever winner of RTÉ’s PJ O'Connor award in 2006 for his play Mysterious Ways which first saw the light of day in a production for Múscailt (directed by Curtis ) in 2004. He has recently founded Gonzo Theatre Space in Cavan town where this month he staged a series of self-penned one acts called Tales From The Heart in collaboration with five local visual artists.
He also has a play under consideration with Livin Dred theatre company and completed a playwrighting workshop with Fishamble last year. “He is not one to rest on his laurels!” Curtis notes.
The cast of The Dove and The Crow features John Cullen (as Cormac ). Conor Geoghegam, Tara Breathnach, Rebecca Guinnane, Eimear Kenny, Paul Donnelly, Conor Quinlan, and Gillian Bogan. “I am genuinely thoroughly enjoying working with each of them, we have great craic and learn from each other every day,” Curtis enthuses.
The Dove and The Crow is at the Town Hall studio for four nights from Wednesday March 3 to Saturday 6 at 8.30pm. Patrons should note that the play is restricted to over-15s due to some sexually explicit language and dark subject matter.
Tickets are available from the Town Hall on 091 - 569777.
