FOR ONLY the second time in his career, the bestselling author Colm Tóibín is to bring a play to the stage. Testament, a monologue featuring actor Marie Mullen, will begin a two-week run at Project Arts Centre on October 3rd as part of the Ulster Bank Dublin Theatre Festival.
While reluctant to give too much of the plot away as yet, Tóibín has revealed that while the play is “not set in the contemporary world it does have very large contemporary resonances”.
It is further described as giving voice “to a woman who was forced to bear an unimaginable burden in tumultuous times”.
Tóibín is collaborating on Testamentwith award-winning director Garry Hynes, and it will be a highlight of this year's festival when it announces its programme later today.
The novelist and short story writer, best known for the likes of Costa Prize-winning book Brooklyn, has previously written only one play.
In 2004, Beauty in a Broken Place– about the riotous first staging of The Plough and the Stars, was commissioned as part of the Abbey Theatre's centenary year and performed in the Peacock.
Testamentemerged out of a conversation Tóibín had with the festival's director, Loughlin Deegan, over two years ago.
Deegan subsequently wrote to Tóibín asking him if he would consider writing a play for the festival, after which Tóibín agreed that he would “have a go”.
Tickets for Testamentwill go on sale on the morning of 16th August.
