Theatre composer, music educator and percussionist Mel Mercier has written the music for Cork's Everyman theatre’s new production of Brian Friel’s Making History, which runs at The Everyman from 11 to 26 of April. We asked Mel the BIG questions . . .
Directed by The Everyman's new Artistic Director Des Kennedy, Making History explores the life and legacy of Hugh O'Neill, Earl of Tyrone, during a pivotal period in Irish history.
The play delves into themes of Irish nationalism, the Nine Year’s War, and historiography, focusing on O'Neill's leadership in the Irish Spanish alliance against the English.
Kennedy, in his first season at The Everyman, says "I’m so excited to be directing this fascinating, and rarely revived, Friel masterpiece as my first production as Artistic Director of The Everyman.
"I had been looking for plays and stories that had relevance to Cork, then realised that one of the most significant moments in Irish history - the Battle of Kinsale - happened in 20 miles down the road from and remembered that one of our greatest Irish playwrights had written a play about it.
"The play was first produced by Field Day, and Friel was writing as much about the Troubles in the 1980s as he was about 1601, so our production is a bold, contemporary take on the story of Gaelic Chieftain High O’Neill that feels as relevant to 2025 as 1601.
"Our Hugh O’Neill is modern Zelensky type figure fighting to save his country from a neighbouring oppressor. During rehearsals we have been doing a lot of exploration around Ukraine, Gaza, and colonialism. The play says that history isn’t a fixed fact or point in time. We are living through history.
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Hugh O'Neill will be played by two actors - Aaron McCusker, fresh from his run as Quinn Carney in The Ferryman in The Gaiety, as O’Neill in Ireland, and Cork actor Denis Conway as O’Neill during his exile in Rome.
Tell us three things about yourself . . .
I was blessed to be introduced to Irish traditional music and a wide variety of European folk music and a sprinkling of big band jazz by my parents, Peadar and Nuala. I began my musical life as a bodhrán and bones player during the heady days of the traditional music revival in the '70s, and my musical world expanded exponentially in the ‘80s when I met and performed with the American avant-garde composer John Cage and moved to Cork from Dublin to study music at UCC. My musical horizons were stretched even further when I studied world music percussion at the California Institute of the Arts, specialising in Indian, West African and Javanese music.
How would you describe your music?
My music could be described as "polystylistic". I love creating deep grooves and rich soundscapes, using a very diverse palate of instrumental, environmental and vocal sounds.
Who are your musical inspirations?
Peadar Mercier, Seán Ó Ríada, Mícheál Ó Súilleabháin, K.R.T. Wasitodiningrat, Steve Reich, Philip Glass and John Cage.
What was the first gig you ever went to?
A Chieftains concert in the Carlton Cinema on O’Connell Street, Dublin, sometime in the late ‘60s.
What was the first record you ever bought?
I bought the single, Winter World of Love by Engelbert Humperdinck in 1970, in a second hand record shop. I fell in love with the B-side, Take My Heart, which I have crooned occasionally as a party piece.
What’s your favourite song right now?
I was admiring the cherry trees in all their splendour in the morning light as I left my house today and John Spillane was on the radio singing The Dance of the Cherry Trees. Perfect!
Favourite lyric of all time?
"Still every night the light goes out she’s waiting there for me, Like a fool I run to her, There’s something I gotta see" - There is a Girl by Johnny Duhan.
If you could only listen to one song for the rest of your life, what would it be?
Kate and Anna McGarrigle’s Heart Like a Wheel.
Where can people find your music/more information?
Testament (Heresy Records) and The Three Forges (Diatribe Records).
Alan Corr
