Síle in Cork play set for Abbey Theatre
Wexford actress Síle Maguire recently made her professional debut at the Everyman Theatre in Cork in the play Asking For It, adapted from the best-selling novel by author Louise O’Neill.
Síle, a former student of the Loreto secondary school who graduated with a degree in Drama and Theatre Studies from Trinity College, Dublin, in November
2017, starred alongside Lauren Coe,
Paul Mescal, Sean Doyle, Amy McElhatton, Kwaku Fortune, Venetia Bowe and Darragh Shannon.
The production is based on a script by Meadhbh McHugh written in collaboration with the director Annabelle Comyn. A co-production between Landmark Productions and the Everyman theatre, it was co-commissioned by the Abbey Theatre where it will be staged from November 9 to 24 with Sile once again taking on the role of Ali.
Asking For It shines a stark light on the experiences of a young woman whose life is changed forever by a horrific act of violence.
‘It’s such an important story for Ireland, for men and for men’, said Síle. ‘It really examines and interrogates the binding values within rural communities – that I feel a lot of people can identify with and relate to – and how that is deeply destructive. I feel honoured to be part of telling such a heartbreaking yet necessary story that I think everyone should see.’
‘It has been such a privilege working with a hugely talented and inspiring cast and amazing creative team and I’m really looking forward to the run in November’, she said. Julie Kelleher of the Everyman Theatre which hosted the world premiere of the play during the Cork Midsummer Festival, said they were ‘ blown away by the level of talent we encountered in the casting process’.
Twenty-four-year-old Sile is a daughter of the Wexford poet and creative writing teacher Jim Maguire and his wife Ha-Lin of Clonard. She is currently rehearsing for a show in September in Dublin called Everything Can Be Dismantled wit the theatre company Discotheque Collective. The show is an interactive fantasy about the politics of housing, inspired by the novel Invisible Cities by Italo Calvino.