Portrait paints realistic picture

Date Published: 30-Oct-2009

ONE of Galway’s most famous authors, Walter Macken, earned international acclaim for his depiction of Irish life. The portrayal of his hometown in the 1950s, as seen in his novel, Rain on the Wind, was praised by many for its realism and authenticity and gave him worldwide success. Now, 32 years after his death, another well-known Irish writer, playwright Christian O’Reilly, has set about telling Galway’s story for the 21st century in his new play, Here We Are Again Still, a work commissioned as part of Public Art Galway, Galway City Council’s public art programme. This is the first time that the City Council has worked with a playwright on a theatre commission, and is co-producing the play with the Galway Arts Centre and Decadent Theatre Company. However, what makes the play unique is how its story was inspired. During the Summer of 2008, Mr O’Reilly set up weekly workshops in the area named after one of the men that would have inspired him to become a storyteller, Walter Macken Place. It was here that Mr O’Reilly heard the stories and learned about the lives of the Mervue residents, which led him to be able to depict a realistic portrayal of what it is like to live alone in a small community. According to Mr O’Reilly, the resulting play is not based solely on the true accounts of life in Mervue that he heard, but rather it is a work that is inspired by these to create a fictional but realistic portrait of Galway life. “It was more a sense of what it might feel like to live alone in that kind of community,” says Christian. “The idea behind [the workshops] is that you engage with the community, so instead of writing from what you think is accurate, you get a better idea of what is authentic.” For Mr O’Reilly, who lives in Galway but was brought up in Listowel, Co Kerry after being born in London, these types of workshops were not new. In 2005 the playwright had a similar experience in Listowel, but on a smaller scale, writing The Avenue for the Per Cent for Art scheme there. In the case of his Galway experiment, then, Mr O’Reilly knew what his first duty was in order for his play to be a success. “We knocked on all the doors, buzzed all the buzzers, asking if people would go to the workshops,” says Mr O’Reilly. While some were less than enthusiastic by the idea, others quickly came on board, leaving him with a core group of 12 Walter Macken Place residents, each with their own stories to tell. For more see page 8 of this week’s City Tribune