IFTA nominated Red Rock star Patrick Ryan stars in Decadent Theatre Company's acclaimed revival of Conor McPherson's play The Weir, which returns to Dublin's Gaiety Theatre next month. Here, he writes for Culture about the magic of McPherson - and the differences between acting for theatre and telly.
“And there is no dark like a winter night in the country”, says Jack, one of the principle characters from Conor McPherson’s hugely successful play The Weir, and there is no dark quite like an auditorium when the house lights go down. In order to reach that moment, however, a silent bargain is made between cast, crew and director to faithfully serve the writer’s work.
Stepping into the shoes of my character Brendan Byrne felt somewhat natural for me, having experienced years of rural quiet and solitude that is so brilliantly captured in McPherson’s writing. A meeting point for much of the work with (director) Andrew Flynn is always story and he fleshes out the author’s worlds, using his own experiences growing up in a rural Irish town. These shared experiences helped us to breathe life into finely observed characters, who are both familiar and removed from us.
The hoary old question is often raised by our audiences – “So which do you prefer - theatre or telly?”
Owen McCarthy’s flawless set reminded me of pubs from my youth in county Limerick, which are now long boarded up, their interiors photographs in family albums and it is these images, frozen in time that he re-imagines and builds.
My co-actors Janet, Frankie, Gary and Garrett bring such life and vivacity to their respective characters that the ‘job’ disappears and I become part their stories on a dark night in the countryside. To be in Brendan’s shoes, in that bar, on that night, with such company has been a privilege and will continue to be this spring in The Gaiety Theatre.
I slip off Brendan’s shoes and replace them with the standard steel toe capped Garda issue pavement pounders of Paudge Brennan and a very different world called Red Rock.
From theatre to television, and the rhythms become very different. Where in the theatre rehearsal room we had four weeks to stumble, suggest and discard, our time now becomes a little more precious and decisions made a little more in the moment.
A Red Rock working day can begin at 7am and finish at 7pm. A Decadent Theatre Company day begins at 10am and finishes at 5pm or a little longer depending on the day. A Red Rock scene can typically be committed in a few takes, a moment in the theatre can have a full tour to breathe and grow. If I misplace a carefully scripted line on television we can all return smiling to our first positions, however in a theatre, the same misguided line can ensue panic or our great friend/enemy corpsing (laughing) or someone’s wrath. To return to the old analogy, theatre is the tightrope with no safety net and the screen is a tightrope with a safety net.
The hoary old question is often raised by our audiences – “So which do you prefer - theatre or telly?” And honestly, I always answer the same: “Whatever I am doing today…”
The Weir is at The Gaiety Theatre, Dublin, from February 20th - details here.
