Writer, director and actor John Farrell writes for Culture about his new play 3 Lies, premiering as part of this year's International Gay Theatre Festival.
3 Lies started out, a few years ago, as a much more esoteric reflection on the perils of memory, the ubiquity of deception and the possibilities of mystical eroto-mania. But then a bunch of things happened, the Tuam Babies scandal, the #MeToo movement; I turned 60. I saw that dealing with my life in terms of 'high art' was just another disguise, another false identity, another way of essentially deflecting what the real lessons were.
So, I decided to simply tell the story in the fairly raw terms which would reflect the real unfolding of events and my truthful impressions as they happened. That happened in 1958, sixty years ago. We now have a much better idea of the opprobrium single mothers endured at the hands of the Church but have not yet examined the shame and abuse suffered by the children who were born in sin. I was badly hurt – in a sexual way – when I was about 3. The injury was never treated and it took years to heal, the scars have been with me my entire life. But there were also emotional scars, reminded as I often was by my adoptive mother that I was "damaged" goods. I was made to understand that bad things were my lot in life because my damaged soul invited all kinds of abuse and that I deserved it.
It’s autobiography, social history; part polemic, part stand-up comedy but, in the end, it ultimately affirms the centrality of love...
It’s comforting, of course, to act like we in Ireland – where I was born – were all somehow blind to these things, that no one had any idea how the mothers and babies were being treated. Really? I suspect the shame and self-loathing may have begun with the church but they were amplified throughout the culture. There is a grim satisfaction in being cruel to one’s inferiors.
As an adolescent, I was sexually available and found the attention of a number of clergy and Diocese do-gooders a step up in the world. I felt cared for and found myself, for a time, even seriously considering taking orders. (I was invited on a lot of retreats!)
When I broke away, I broke away big-time. I got a full scholarship to Columbia and cultivated a new image as the quintessential Brooklyn Bad Boy (which I certainly hadn’t been) Drugs, alcohol, night clubs, fun sex as opposed to obligatory sex and then I meet someone who actually loved me and I wasn’t prepared for it. The at the age of 21 he was murdered, a murder some people I thought close to us both, gossiped that I had committed.
That’s kind of where 3 Lies ends, but not without some real insights that surprised even me at the time but were to change my life. This hour-long monologue, presented as part of Dublin’s International Gay Theatre Festival, is neither a pity party nor a revenge play. It’s about a lot of things, it’s autobiography, social history; part polemic, part stand-up comedy but, in the end, it ultimately affirms the centrality of love - love and forgiveness, not in spite of suffering but because of it.
Farrell’s story can be seen at the Momentum Studio, 19 Lombard Street East, from 7 -12 of May at 7:30pm with matinees on the 7th and the 12th at 2:30pm. Tickets can booked on-line here.
