“Do you fancy being in a play?” Debra said. “We’re looking for a young handsome man to play the love interest in a production we’re putting on before Christmas. My ego was suitably stroked and I agreed readily, ignoring the fact that my only previous stage experience was playing a sleeping baby Jesus in a shivering nativity play.
Two days later, I found myself in a draughty library in suburban Luxembourg with a bunch of seconded Irish civil servants. I nodded my hellos and shyly slunk into a seat at the back. As a novice in the world of theatre I wasn’t clear how to act (if you’ll excuse the pun). Should I come over all luvvie, hugging everyone and air kissing like a Hollywood Princess? Or should I brood moodily like Clint Eastwood in a spaghetti western?
In the end, I opted for the look which would serve me so well in my later acting life. I sat looking gormless.
It quickly became clear that I had been oversold in relation to my part. I ended up playing an idiot farmer whose only love interest was with his sheep. The play itself was terrifying, particularly when our alcoholic lead turned up drunk for the last performance and proceeded to fall asleep on stage. By that point we had been through two light failures and a partial collapse of the scenery. So I assumed that all plays were ‘fly by the seat of your pants’ experiences and was sold on the adrenalin buzz.
Shortly afterwards I moved to Ireland and after ‘resting’ for a year or so I found out about a local drama group and made a tentative phone call. As with all these things, I reckon your first encounter is key. I was lucky enough to bump into a tousled haired chap with a curious English accent. His name was Charles and he seemed to have an ill-defined role in the drama group centred on making new members welcome and finding any excuse to go for a Guinness. I was happy to oblige him in both endeavours. Before we could get to the beer however I had to show that I was a willing participant in the group’s activities. I had turned up on the opening night of their Spring Play and was duly handed a bunch of programmes and told to man one of the entry doors.
By the time the play started I had accumulated seven pounds in programme sales and it’s a testimony to the faith of that Methodist group that they would trust a strange Catholic like me with the cash box. Particularly as I arrived with a meek but slightly threatening Northern accent that jarred in the company of so many soft spoken South Dublin vowels.
In the pub afterwards Charles let me into the secret of his burgeoning writing career. He had dabbled with that monstrosity of theatre known as musicals but was now ready to get into proper drama. His first play was a comedy set in the West of Ireland during World War II. I got to play a terrorist, for the second time in the four plays I’d done to that point. I was beginning to see a trend.
I would go on to play a number of roles which were either sinister baddy or general idiot. It culminated in my portrayal of Seanie Keogh in the “Playboy of the Western World”. Seanie is one of the great put upon eejits in Irish Theatre. Every play set in the Emerald Isle has one. The guy who is always half a page behind the rest of the cast, the one who thinks the female lead is in love with him, only to get his comeuppance in hilarious circumstances at the end of both Act 1 and 2.
I made these roles my own to the extent that one of the group’s Life members embraced me after that play and told me that “you do gormless better than anyone else in the company”. It was my proudest moment.
As my belly expanded, my roles developed into bumbling detectives and lay about husbands, but I struggled to become the centre of the audience’s attention. In one performance I found myself at the edge of the stage in a state of mournful reflection. It was a poignant moment before the end of the play and I was trying to emote the loss and devastation that my character felt. I heard a whisper among the blue rinses, who through lack of hearing dominated the front row.
“Who’s he then?” one asked to her wheelchair bound companion.
“He’s the fat bloke from Act 1”.
I was crushed but determined to continue. When I moved to Australia I was curious to see how things compare here to back home. I got a part in a play shortly after arriving. I played a gormless idiot (surprise, surprise) and I guess the biggest difference I noted was that this play was performed in 36c heat, a misery I had never endured in Dublin. It was fun, but the social elements weren’t the same.
Australians take everything very seriously. For example, Cricket clubs in Ireland will have eight teams and basically every team from the fours downwards will be in it for the fun and the beer afterwards in the club bar. In Melbourne, cricket is hugely popular, but clubs will generally have only two teams. The firsts, who will be highly competitive and the seconds who comprise people desperate to get into the firsts. If you’re not in it to win, then they don’t want you.
It’s kind of the same in theatre here. They don’t like calling it amateur theatre for a start. It has to be called “Community Theatre” because everything is professional except the pay. The plays are magnificent and they definitely stretch the abilities of the actors. But sometimes you have to pinch yourself to remind your jaded body that you do this for fun.
I’ll keep looking though. There are lots of drama groups in Melbourne and surely one of them has a tousled haired Englishman, ready to welcome new members and keen to go for a Guinness.
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