Two young actors tomorrow revive 'Bedbound', Enda Walsh's powerful two-hander. Their career paths, via RADA and the latest Martin Scorsese film, are a study in contrast, writes Susan Conley
As maiden voyages go, the Eircom Dublin Theatre Festival's foray into producing new writing got off to a rousing start. Bedbound's short run during the 2000 festival blew the roof off the New Theatre, in Temple Bar, and earned two Irish Times/ESB Theatre Award nominations, for Peter Gowen, as best actor, and Norma Sheahan, as best actress. Enda Walsh's play returns to Dublin tomorrow, at Andrews Lane, with Liam Carney replacing Gowen as Dad and Sheahan reprising her role as Daughter, after a three-week run at the Royal Court, in London, and a successful outing at the Edinburgh Festival.
Despite the fact that Bedbound was Sheahan's first role after acting school, there's nothing giddy about her. Sheahan is the epitome of collectedness. The acting school was, after all, the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art, in London.
She is quick to give her Irish roots their fair dues as well, however. "I also did loads of drama at UCD. It'd be crazy, because we'd say: 'OK, in two weeks, let's put up a Mamet.' And we'd go for it. You'd just give it welly. That's the way a lot of Irish people learn to act, by giving it welly, and that's why there's such passion around. I have to say that the training does stand to me as well, after paying all those thousands!"
The Corkwoman's time at the prestigious English school seemed geared to lead her into a career on the British stage. It was her performance in a Dublin-based acting showcase, for Irish actors who had studied abroad, that brought her to the attention of Maureen Hughes, a casting agent. Hughes put her forward for the demanding role of Daughter, a character trapped in her home by her father's psychotic paranoia.
Her performance as the young girl crippled by polio is so convincing that Charles Spencer, of the Daily Telegraph, went so far as to say that Sheahan "is so persuasive as a polio victim . . . that you believe the actress must really be disabled". Add the blinding, flat-out pace of the 60- minute show and, Sheahan laughs: "I'll tell you, I'm very fit at the moment! There's no need for gyms, there's no need for diets. I sweat for an hour every night. I had a former tutor in last night and he said: 'You've lost weight.' Yup, just over the last three weeks!"
Now based in Dublin, there's been plenty of work for the young actress. She had a role, again as an embittered daughter, in the National Theatre's recent production of Big Maggie. "When I got Big Maggie, it was 20 weeks' worth of work, so I came back, and I've built up good connections here for the last year." She laughs again. "It was wonderful to be brought back to London for a reason. Most of my friends from RADA had come in to see it, and they're all in shock. They'd all thought I'd disappeared, like, 'Oh, yeah, she went back to Dublin. God, that was a silly thing to do.' "
BEFORE Liam Carney took on the role of Dad in Bedbound, he had a jammy gig playing one of Daniel Day-Lewis's bodyguards in Martin Scorsese's film The Gangs Of New York, which was shot at Cinecittà studios, in Italy. Seven months of New York by day and Rome by night? Go on, then. "I had very little to do in the film; whatever scenes was in, I was in. I had plenty of time off to savour Rome."
His voice warms with the memory. "It was something else. We were put up in the best of apartments, by the Spanish Steps . . . It was better and better the more it went on." Carney didn't have much contact with Scorsese. "It was just a buzz being there and working with DiCaprio, Daniel Day-Lewis, Cameron Diaz, Liam Neeson, Jim Broadbent. There was no elitism or tiers; we were all there to do the same thing."
Take a 180-degree turn and find Carney in a role that is as far from a non-speaking cinematic part as possible. Playing Dad requires not only the sort of continuity that the fragmented process of film-making rules out, but also an enormous amount of verbiage delivered at a heart-stopping rate. "I love doing it. As soon as I read I wanted to do it. It just jumps off the page. I found it hard to even read it slowly. I was delighted when I met [Enda Walsh]. I think it's one of the best things I'd read in a long time."
The play has a frenetic pace. "It really takes it out of you. I normally sit in the dressing room for about half an hour before I even go down to the bar [after the show]. I sit and have a smoke, get changed very slowly and try and relax a bit. It's pretty exhausting, but at the same time it's rewarding, so it's a good exhaustion."
Carney's biography speaks mainly of his film and television work, but his roots are in theatre. Unlike Norma Sheahan, he eschewed the drama-school route, blagging his way into Equity with only a few amateur productions under his belt.
The Dubliner is fiercely devoted to life on the boards, and is especially vocal in support of Paul Mercier and Passion Machine. "I think he's a genius. He seems to have been passed over a lot by the powers that be, to a certain extent. I think a lot of the work he has done is in a class of its own."
Carney's performance in Bedbound is also in a class of its own, and despite his character's disturbing nature, the actor classes Dad's actions as "far too possible - we read these stories often enough in the paper, of children being kept in cupboards or under stairs for years, and nobody knows. That's the really scary thing".
Art imitating life is art at its most painful, perhaps, but also at its most relevant - and its most alive. "Oh, yes," says Carney. "This is alive."
Bedbound opens at Andrews Lane, Dublin, on Wednesday, with a preview tomorrow; bookings at 01-6795720
