FÍBÍN MAKES a welcome return to An Taibhdhearc next week where it begins a national tour of its award-winning play Sétanta, written and directed by Paul Mercier.
Sétanta breathes new life into the ancient story of Sétanta and Ferdia, delivering a stylised tale of greed, power, envy, and love. The play tells how these two young warriors become sworn enemies under the reign of the all-powerful Medb. Fíbín makes exciting use of multimedia including explosive visuals, music specially composed by Mel Mercier, and almost 50 hand-made highly expressive masks by Matthew Guinnane.
Fíbín premiered Sétanta in 2011 at the Peacock. The production gained enthusiastic reviews and went on to win a Stewart Parker Trust Award for Paul Mercier, while Mel Mercier (his brother ) was shortlisted for The Irish Times/Theatre Awards for his music score.
Ahead of the show’s return, producer Darach Ó Tuairisg outlines what audiences can expect.
“It’s a modern take on the familiar mythic story,” he begins. “In the play, Paul Mercier is reflecting on the modern world and the society where we live, so the timeline has changed but the story stays the same.
“We’re still consumed by materialistic things and ownership and problems surrounding that. These are things Paul explores in Sétanta. This is the first professional Irish language play Paul has ever written so it was a big deal for him as well in that regard.”
Where the original myth features warriors wielding swords and spears, in this version Sétanta and Ferdia’s combats take place in a wrestling ring.
“Paul has chosen to dramatise their struggle by making them famous wrestlers,” Ó Tuairisg explains. “It’s a motif that lends itself readily to movement onstage and he also gives them this stardom quality, their milieu is all to do with fame and adulation and them having the people behind them and what can be done with that power.”
A key element of the production is the remarkable mask work of Matthew Guinnane and the verve with which they are deployed in the show.
“It was a huge undertaking because there are 50 characters in the play and just five actors,” notes Ó Tuairisg. “Over the last 10 years we’ve done a wide range of styles of work, everything from finger puppets to giant 14ft high puppets and then mask work as well. With Sétanta we couldn’t afford a cast of 50 so masks were an obvious way to deal with all the characters.
“The difficulty then is that you can only have so many characters on stage at any one time. We spent a year and a half to two years working on this project and trying to get it right. I think that work has paid off. Audiences will be amazed at the number of characters and how quickly they can come in and out.
“There is a big video art element in the show as well which is closely integrated into the production. The production happens on three levels simultaneously which is another reason why it was quite an undertaking. There was the text, the video, and then the music all of which are 75 minutes in duration, and the three all work together and are dependent on each other.
“I believe this is an important play; we got a fantastic response to the show when we did it first in 2011. It sold out in the Peacock which was a huge thing for us considering it had been so long since there had been an Irish language play on there – and one of the main things we were trying to achieve was to show that there is an audience for the national theatre to be doing work in Irish.
“That great response to the show is what led to us being given an Arts Council touring grant for this revival.”
The revival boasts the same five cast members that figured in the play’s premiere outing; Mairéad Conneely, Stephen Darcy, Eoin Geoghegan, Grace Kiely, and Seán T Ó Meallaigh.
Ó Tuairisg concludes our chat about the play by stressing that Sétanta’s appeal is not confined to Irish speakers.
“The production is highly visual and the show not exclusively for Irish speakers - we’re not teaching or promoting the language or doing anything from an educational point of view and the show is accessible to all,” he says.
“Down through the years we feel we’ve proven that about our work by getting invited all over Europe and as far afield as Africa, Canada, and the US. It can be difficult at times because a lot of people think that if it is in Irish then they won’t understand it, but I guarantee people will enjoy Sétanta, it’s a visual feast. And this is a limited run so people should take the chance to see it now because I don’t think it will be coming back out once this run ends.”
Sétanta is in An Taibhdhearc on Thursday April 18 and Friday 19 at 8pm. Tickets can be booked at the Taibhdhearc (091 - 562024 or www.antaibhdhearc.com ).
