Award-winning writer and performer Eva O'Connor, the theatrical force behind the acclaimed Mustard and Chicken, returns with her new play The Kerryman - she introduces a work that isn't afraid to go deep on 'the messy push-pull carnage of an all-consuming love'.
The Kerryman, my new play opening at Glass Mask Theatre, is essentially a love story. The play is loosely based on a poem I wrote a few years ago, about the same name, about falling in love with a lad who was infinitely kind but a bit too obsessed with his home county (Kerry!) and hence unable to commit.
The world of the poem lingered, and loved rent-free in my brain. So when Glass Mask commissioned me to write a new play for their beautiful intimate space on Dawson Street, I knew I wanted to write The Kerryman.
The play follows Eoin, a lad from South Kerry who works in insurance, and Cait, a struggling artist who's just moved home to Dublin after living abroad. Eoin meets Cait in The Big Romance, a bar on Parnell Street, where she’s performing a naked cabaret piece. Cait despairs at his suit and pointy brown shoes. He’s exactly the kind of lad she swore she’d never date and yet, there is a magnet pulling them in. On paper it should never work, but they fall head over heels for each other. What ensues is the messy push-pull carnage of an all-consuming love.
The Kerryman is about love in all its wild, cruel complexity. It's about heartbreak and how it can change and age you.
I wasn’t sure entirely how it would work, transitioning from poetry to a play. Switching forms always feels like a gamble. Writing a play is an excruciating process. It never gets easier. I marvel at writers who enjoy the process. But somehow the play emerged. And seeing it on its feet in rehearsals with the brilliant Lauren Larkin and Seán Fox, has been electric. It’s incredible watching two actors breathe life into a text. A two-hander play (and in particular a two-hander love story) lives and dies on the strength of the chemistry on stage. I can assure you this play is very much alive!
The Kerryman is about love in all its wild, cruel complexity. It’s about heartbreak and how it can change and age you. It’s about two people desperate to make it work, but unsure if they can, or even should. It’s also very funny (am I allowed to say that about my own play?).
I’m currently in Toronto touring another play called Chicken, so I’ve been joining rehearsals from across time zones. I’ll be back home on opening night to see The Kerryman. If you’ve never been to Glass Mask before, take a punt on a ticket. You’ll be greeted with cheese boards and wine, and a play with a very big heart. I’ll be lurking in the back row, witnessing the love story play out. I am riddled with the nerves, but buzzing to see it.
The Kerryman runs May 26 – June 13 at Glass Mask Theatre at the Bestseller Café, Dawson Street, Dublin - find out more here
