Being an actor, a mum-of-four, and holding off on a writing career has had its lighter moments for Rose Henderson, writes Sheila Wayman
THE HALF-CLEARED breakfast table, the towels scattered across the bathroom floor, the discarded underwear. A house might be empty and silent, but the shape of the mess left behind can speak volumes.
"It's fascinating how people live, isn't it? You learn an awful lot from changing bed linen," remarks Ruby, one of the characters in a new play about the relationship between a housewife and the cleaner who visits her once a week. Central to this two-hander comedy, Ruby Tuesday, are the frustrations, doubts and pre-occupations of stay-at-home mothers.
It's not biographical, says its author, Rose Henderson, but it certainly draws on "where I was at" as a mother of four living in DúLaoghaire, Co Dublin. Her first play, "it's a comedy with issues which came bubbling out in what I saw around me."
An actor and former presenter of children's programmes such as Pajo's Junkboxon RTÉ, she is probably best known for her appearances in Father Tedas the no-nonsense nun Sr Assumpta. "That, or the butter ad," she laughs.
An irrepressible comic at school in Alexandra College, she nevertheless went for "the steady job" in Guinness. But after attending the Oscar Theatre School of Acting in her spare time, she took leave of absence in 1983 to study at the New York School of Polish Mime. Appearances at the Peacock and Samuel Beckett theatres back in Dublin followed, before six years in children's TV and then a regular comedy spot on RTÉ's Nighthawks.
She continued some acting after the birth of her first child, Jonathan, now aged 14, but when Holly (10) came along she restricted her work to voice-overs. Once Joshua (8) was three, she started to write in the evenings and had a short story published in the Sunday Tribune. "I can do this," she thought. Then the arrival of Matthew, now aged four, put the lid on her writing for another couple of years.
"When you are artistic and want to do something creative, you have to, it's in you. You can do it by making buns and being creative with the children but it's a real hunger, especially as a performer, just to do it." While Henderson knows she is fortunate that her husband, Derek Seymour, a senior executive with AIB, earns enough to support the family, it is hard looking at a 12-year-gap in her CV.
"It's very frustrating, even if the rest of your life is great. I am so fulfilled with the children. But it blows everything else out of proportion when you're not doing what you should be doing." So once Matthew was in pre-school, Henderson started to write again. "I set myself the goal of writing a comedy sketch once a month. Even if it was rubbish, at least I would have done it."
By the end of the year she had 15 sketches and showed them to actor friends, Owen Roe and his wife Michelle Forbes. "They said, it's crying out to be a play." So she redrafted the sketches to turn them into one coherent work which will be staged at lunchtime in Bewley's Café Theatre, Dublin, next month.
Originally envisaging it as a one-woman show, with herself in the title role of Ruby the cleaner, Henderson soon decided that it would be more fun to have someone else involved, after the solitary journey of writing it. She invited actor Helen Norton on board as Ruby, while she switched to play Mrs T, before sending the script to director Deirdre Molloy.
"Deirdre's reaction was that there was a lot of deep stuff in it and she didn't want to do it unless we were going to deal with the issues, as well as it being a light, frothy lunchtime play." So while there are plenty of laughs, there are also moments to make the audience flinch.
Ruby is working-class, down to earth and forthright. She has cleaned every Tuesday for Mrs T for eight years and has the upper hand in the relationship.
"Mrs T is coming up to her 50th birthday, her three teenage children are moving on and she's wondering what she's going to do with herself now," explains Henderson.
Mrs T's husband works in insurance and the marriage is a sham. It's his comment one day that "the kids are grand, sure they raise themselves" that pushes her over the edge. In an instant he has totally belittled her years of hard work and sacrifice.
Henderson can identify with the trap her character has fallen into. "It's the temptation to be feeding everybody else and not feeding yourself. Nobody else can make her happy until she starts making herself happy."
Staying at home to care for children is hard to validate, she says, "as you can't judge the results. Yet I know it's an intrinsically valuable thing to do. Giving time can't be quantified. With children looking for attention," she adds, as Matthew runs into the kitchen to fling his arms around his mum, "it's a bottomless pit."
Ruby Tuesday opens at Bewley's Café Theatre, Dublin, on April 2nd at 1pm, previews March 31st and April 1st. Tickets €15/€13 including light lunch. Booking: 086-8784001.WORDS SHEILA WAYMAN