Fighting Words marks centenaries on stage

The Abbey Theatre opened a window to the future with Centenaries 2022, a presentation of pieces by six of its playwriting graduates. Developed with Fighting Words, a creative writing initiative developed by Roddy Doyle and Seán Love, the project invited the young bards to connect their work as loosely as they liked to the concept of the centenary. Doyle, at the Abbey’s downstairs Peacock space for the show, was taken aback at how creatively his charges had interpreted the brief.

“We decided it was a free interpretation of ‘centenary’ and it’s just as well it was,” he said. “I remember reading the first drafts of the six plays and being taken aback and, on another level, thrilled.”

At least one of the short plays does lean directly into the current centennial engagement with the conflicts that led up to the foundation of the Irish State. Aindreas Fallon Verbruggen’s Kingdom Come dared to sensitively treat a subject that often produces more blustery heat than useful noise: the role of the Royal Irish Constabulary during the twilight of British rule. Steve Blount is touching as a retired officer who, in the early days of independence, finds it hard to live with the fact that former comrades now take orders from their old enemies. Anthony Moriarty plays a younger colleague, now in the new force, who explains unhappy realities about the past. The play is unusually generous to both men. There is scope there for a longer piece.

In complete contrast, Danny Liken’s adorable The Wobble starred Paul Mallon and Jade Jordan as a youngish couple celebrating the 100-month anniversary of their relationship as Queen Elizabeth II plausibly takes the salute for a centenary of her own. The dialogue may be sharp, but that does nothing to deflate the warmth of the characterisation. One could imagine such a scenario leading to Pinteresque barbs, but the author is more forgiving of his squabbling couple. Noting that the Northern Irish James is fonder of the Queen than Dubliner Siobhán, one may reasonably admit the presence of a gentle political subtext.

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The piece that most explicitly revealed the anthologies’ origins in the pandemic era was Lilian Chan’s Timezones. Cousins Monica and Charlie (Liadh Blake and Ashley Xie) communicate via, respectively, phone and tablet from different corners of the world. They discuss ambitions. They ponder contemporary neuroses. In a nice touch, Liadh discusses her difficulty with a project focusing on, yes, centenaries. Bobby Sands comes into it. There are ponderings of shifting priorities. One lovely moment has Monica’s most revealing speech delivered to empty air as the connection goes down.

Jack Fanciulli took the most abstract approach of the six writers. His Another Nail had two mysterious figures – Luke Casserly’s “Narrator” and Goran Zelic’s “The Body” – employ logorrhoeaic magic on what appears to be a yarn centred on the meaning of the Irish Wolfhound in our history. Is the Narrator the future and the Body the past? There is a sense of that going on, but Another Nail – which happens upon some unexpected shadow puppetry – seems most interested in working creative allusion in with an impressive school of avant-garde gothic.

There were further allusions to Ireland’s murky past in Lily McCullough’s sharply titled Banshees are a Metaphor. Martha Breen plays a bright spark who worries about losing her Irish identity as she anticipates study at Oxford. Her pal, played by Sinead McGee, works Dracula, the Banshees and Scooby Doo into an explanation of why there is no need for this to happen. Properly funny. Wise.

The pieces in Centenaries 2022 were staged as something between reading and full performance. (I may be doing the fine cast in Timezones a disservice when I compliment Chan’s resourcefulness in finding a way to get screens before both her characters.) But each showed ingenuity in staging. The most visually and aurally impressive was Rachel Thornton’s The Adventures of Pops and Lil’ Orla. Steve Blount and Megan McDonnell star in an imaginative memory piece that connects with film comedy of the 1920s. There is a version of the railway handcar on stage so beloved of silent comedy and Wile E Coyote. The cast mime to a pastiche soundtrack to great comic effect.

Thornton spoke warmly of the development process. “We found a great freedom in creating something new and something more experimental,” she said. “Looking out into the audience, being watched and looking back at the watcher – those moments can’t really be found on the page.”

Coming a week after the Abbey was forced to cancel performances of Brian Friel’s Translations due to Covid concerns (the production is back on stage this week), Centenaries 2022 looked forward optimistically to life after the pandemic. Roddy Doyle noted that he had recently been to see a gig and had forgotten that the band tends to come back for an encore after the supposed final song.

The strange times aren’t quite over.