WILLIAM MASTROSIMONE’S award-winning comedy-drama The Woolgatherer hits the Town Hall Theatre next week in an acclaimed Irish premiere staging from Orion Productions in association with Blue Moon Theatre Company.
Set in South Philadelphia, the play centres around Rose and Cliff, two neurotic people searching for love. In her dingy apartment with boarded-up windows Rose is a mess of shut-off emotional valves, topped by a psychosomatic rash. She works at a nearby five-and-dime and dreams of true love.
Cliff is a foul-mouthed, wise-cracking, transcontinental truck driver who gets stuck in Philadelphia when his rig breaks down. A constant traveller, he is the most exotic guy Rose has ever met, especially since she has been, “cooped up too long”. To Cliff, Rose is a homebody who could well be the perfect anchor for his lifelong drift.
Sinead O’Riordain plays the dreamy Rose, and also takes on the role of producer.
“I first read The Woolgatherer last October and I fell in love with it, the characters, the story, the sense of hope,” she tells me, speaking ahead of the play’s Galway visit. “I knew I needed to get the right team of people around me to do the play. I instantly knew Michael Hough would play Cliff because I worked with him before. He is very talented and we have a good chemistry onstage together. Only one person ever really came to mind as director - David Byrne.”
O’Riordain invested €5,000 of her own savings into the production, a measure of just how much she believes in the play.
“I look at staging plays as an entrepreneurial adventure,” she declares. “If you find a wonderful little play, I think it important to stage it. Too often people get caught up in the dreaded search for ‘funding’. You can often end up chasing your tail.
“Putting on a play is a difficult enough proposition without driving yourself to distraction looking for funding from the public purse. Luckily I had some savings set aside that I could invest in the production and I’ve made most of the investment back so far.”
O’Riordain describes the unlikely couple whose story forms the basis of the play.
“There’s a sense of extreme loneliness in both of their lives,” she says. “Cliff is used to being cooped up in his truck where he only has the radio for company. Rose has been institutionalised in her past and is very shy and tends to stay at home a lot. She’s a dreamer and dreams of meeting her Prince Charming who’ll come and save her from her mundane life.
“Cliff walks into the shop and they get chatting and before you know it they are back chatting in her apartment and the play develops from there. There is a nice balance in the play between the drama and comedy.
“When I first read the play, the character Rose really resonated with me. I believe her character and indeed the entire play mirrors wider societal themes. Mental health is one of the issues which the play deals with. Rose suffers from mental health issues and has being institutionalised when she was younger. The audience empathises with Rose and wants her to find happiness.
“Cliff also has skeletons in his closet. Highly cynical and betrayed in the past, he could also be classed as neurotic but his character too is deeply layered. Although he comes across as brash and foul-mouthed, he has this vulnerable side to him, a sort of lost soul, where the audience wills him to find love.”
The production also has a Galway connection as O’Riordain reveals.
“Two of our company members are from Loughrea and I couldn’t have done the show without them,” he said. “Donna Patrice is our assistant director and Becky Gardiner assistant producer and set and lighting designer.”
The Woolgatherer runs at the Town Hall Studio from Monday May 13 to Saturday 18 at 8.30pm. Tickets are €12/10 from the Town Hall on 091 - 569777 and www.tht.ie
