Waterboys legend joins Una Ní Bhriain at Bray venue for play
ACTOR Una Ní Bhriain and musician Steve Wickham of The Waterboys, are bringing Clare Monnelly and Bob Kelly’s play, ‘The Hare’, to the Mermaid Arts Centre on Wednesday, March 6, for what is described as a “visual and aural treat”. The play hits Bray for one show only.
This one-woman play by the award-winning theatre-makers Monnelly (‘Moon Boy’, ‘Charlie is a Clepto’) and Kelly (‘Breakfast on Pluto’) explores being out on the fringes in rural Ireland, exploring how a young woman deals with her isolation by her friends, and which route will work for her sanity – the innate wildness within her or dealing head-on with the supposed civilised world that rejects her.
‘The Hare’ premiered in 2023 at Cairde Arts Festival, Sligo as well as Cork Arts Theatre and Pavilion Theatre, Dun Laoghaire and was an instant hit with audiences . Once Off Productions are bringing it to the Mermaid as it tours Ireland.
Before the play begins, a fiddler sits in the centre of the stage. This fiddler is played by Steve Wickham (The Waterboys), who has also written the music for this production and comes armed with two fiddles.
The narrative focuses on an absent father, who looms large in this story and when the play opens the audience are introduced to the “unnamed troubled girl (played by Ní Bhriain) who never knew her father and whose mother is confined to her bed”.
“She’s an odd one; a lonely girl living at the edge of the world, ridiculed by her peers and unable to fit in.
“Torn between the society that rejects her and her own wilder nature, she creates her own world, and lives as best she can. She sees the rest of them, but holds them at a distance. We meet her on the day that is today – and today is made different by the arrival of a letter. An opening. A suggestion of potential life beyond this place and these people.”
Clare Monnelly is an actor and a writer. Her first play ‘Charlie’s a Clepto’ was nominated for two Irish Times Theatre Awards (Best New Play, Best Actress) and the Stewart Parker New Playwright Bursary. Her second play, ‘Minefield’, premiered at the Dublin Fringe Festival 2019 and was nominated for three Fringe Awards (Best Design, Fishamble New Writing Award, First Fortnight Award).
This year, she has premiered two new plays – ‘The Hare’ with Once Off Productions and Cairde Arts Festival and The Local with Asylum Productions and Kilkenny Arts Festival. SuperBogger with Livin’ Dred Theatre Company will debut in November.
Bob Kelly is a director and actor, whose recent work includes ‘Humans: A Robot Musical’ and ‘The Sleep that Ceased to Settle’ for Graffiti Theatre; ‘Once: The Musical’ for Landmark Productions; Klaus Haro’s feature film ‘My Sailor My Love’; and the short film ‘Vote Matty’.
Recent writing projects include ‘Breakfast on Pluto: A New Musical’ for Landmark Productions and ‘Tintown’ for Blue Raincoat. He recently co-wrote ‘The Hare’ with Clare Monnelly; and a new staging of Pat McCabe’s acclaimed novel ‘The Butcher Boy’.