Brewing up a storm with a brand new take on tea

Arts Week with Judy Murphy

Irish people have had a love affair with tea since it was introduced here in the mid-17th century. We make tea when we are happy. When there’s a crisis we make tea. Through good times, bad times and in-between times, tea is a vital part of daily life.

Writer and actor John Rogers has taken that relationship and incorporated into his latest show, entitled simply Tea, which will be performed at the Galway Theatre Festival on April 18 and 19. Tea sees Leitrim-born John team up with Galway musician Aengus Hackett to create a performance that will infuse Eastern tea ceremonies with more familiar Irish rituals.

Tea, the theatre show, is the result of a six-week residency that John had in the Asian island of Sri Lanka in 2015 as part of an international scheme supported by Galway 2020.

The two countries are oceans apart and vastly different in many ways, but there are similarities too, says the actor who studied computer engineering in Sligo before pursuing his love of theatre which brought him to Galway a decade ago.

Ireland and Sri Lanka are small islands located beside far larger neighbours – India in the case of Sri Lanka. Both were colonised by England, both have had a history of violence, and both love tea.

“I love the idea of finding common ground between different cultures and the way that they totally differ and then play with that,” explains John.

When he went to Sri Lanka in 2015, he had intended writing a piece based on tea rituals of that country. But the rituals he expected didn’t exist. That’s because tea isn’t native to Sri Lanka – it was introduced there and to India by the Brits during their colonial heyday, to sate their desire for of this most comforting of drinks.

Last year, John performed this piece as a one-man show in Galway City’s Secret Garden, a restaurant specialising in teas from all over the world.  The version being staged at the Theatre Festival has been reworked by himself and Aengus so that the music is almost another character.

For more, read this week’s Connacht Tribune.