Set in the Autumn of 2022, when four successful South Dublin school friends, gather around a kitchen island to finally celebrate a win over a rival rugby school, 45 years later, Tina Noonan's new play The Island is inspired by ongoing historic revelations of abuse by pupils who attended some of Ireland's most prestigious schools.
Tina introduces The Island below.
The seed of an idea was sown at a Christmas drinks event in South Co. Dublin, in 2021.
A survivor, a past pupil of an elite Dublin rugby school, asked me would I write about what happened to 'them'. I declined because I knew it would only work if I could weave humour into it, and also having no direct experience of this trauma it terrified me.
However, the idea of staging it around a kitchen island, calling it The Island, came very quickly.
A few months later, at an outside area of a South Dublin pub I overheard another said survivor in conversation with his son, who pointedly asked his father ‘Why the hell did you send me to that school after everything that happened to you?’. From that moment I was in - but these survivors wouldn’t let me in, wouldn’t share their stories, they closed ranks. It frustrated me and so I began doing my own research, devouring biographies of survivors, newspapers articles, podcasts and I began engaging in conversations with everyone and anyone and I found out very quickly it was everywhere.
So I invented four characters - Pete, Gabe, Mark and Eoin - and In September 2022, on a writers retreat on Inis Boffin (Island of the White Cow) with Yvonne Cullen’s Writing Train, we had our first read on the Inishwallah Restaurant Bus - 16 pages of raw ideas, an outline, a frame was built for The Island.
I knew I had to get it on the nose if I was going to get this right.
In October 2022, I held another read in Wicklow Library with 5 local actors, now including a stepson character. Going forward, we performed private rehearsed reads several times as the script progressed, with said survivors from different elite schools and industrial school survivors. Each time we arranged a rehearsed read, these said survivors would arrive immaculately dressed, polite, formal, yet all, every time were grey, clammy, sweating on arrival. And yet, we heard them laugh throughout the script and similarly, when it finished, relief, a release, smiling through tears. It was also an incredible opportunity for me to take notes and absorb their feedback. I knew I had to get it on the nose if I was going to get this right.
On 28 May 2023, I was invited to perform a rehearsed read of The Island at the Tuatha Dé Danann Festival in Fermoy Co. Cork. We performed on a stage built of wooden creates, our kitchen island, a rusty food trolley. A flapping marquee tent, packed with 200 people, dogs and babies. A tough crowd. Yet once we started the marquee audience were captivated. Belly laugher till the end - and again tears of joy, trauma, release.
The Island is at The New Theatre, Dublin, from 28th May - 1st June 2024 - find out more here.
