High drama in store as Druid take on the Bard

“The neighbourhood is gone to hell,” was the reaction from several locals when Druid Theatre moved into its Chapel Lane premises off Quay Street in the late 1970s.

And, says the company’s Artistic Director Garry Hynes happily, it will be “going to hell” again in May, when Druid present a specially commissioned, abridged production of Shakespeare’s History Plays in the ambitiously titled DruidShakespeare project.

Irish playwright Mark O’Rowe was the man tasked by Druid with reshaping Richard II, Henry IV (Parts 1 and 2), and Henry V, retaining their historic continuity but cutting them drastically for this endeavour. If performed in full, they would take more than a day, explains Garry, who is directing this new version.

The DruidShakespeare project, which has been in gestation for “five or six years”, may seem like an unusual one for the Galway company, but not so, according to Garry.

I don’t think there’s anybody working in theatre who doesn’t consider Shakespeare at one time or another. He is the most performed writer in the world,” she says. Druid has only ever tackled him once before in its 40-year history – with Much Ado about Nothing in 1981, but DruidShakespeare is totally different.

“It’s the history of our nearest neighbour, one that’s entwined with our own,” she says.

“In the context of history between Ireland and England and the difficult relationship between the countries, it’s a story of the making of a nation, and of kings and queens,” she adds. The plays, about the rise of England’s House of Lancaster cover events in that country from the late 1300s to the early 1400s, and were written by Shakespeare in the late 1500s. Ireland only features occasionally as a troublesome place, filled with uncouth and troublesome people, and a breeding ground for rebellion – a reflection of attitudes in the Elizabethan era, when Shakespeare was firing out his plays.

As for abridging the plays, Garry feels that’s perfectly reasonable.

“Shakespeare was first and foremost about theatre and actors and so he was about editing and shaping and chopping and changing,” she says.