"Shining City" casts light on real-life relationship drama
Posted Nov 20, 2009 By Desmond Devoy
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Desmond Devoy, Ottawa East EMC
From left, actors Nancy Kenny and Richard Gélinas, and director David P. Kelly, listen intently to comments from assistant director David Whitely after a rehearsal.
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Desmond Devoy, Ottawa East EMC
Nancy Kenny reacts as Richard Gélinas storms off after an angry on-stage contfrontation at the Orléans Young Player's rehersal space last week.
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EMC Entertainment - Forget not feeling the love, John Kelly isn't feeling the hurt. 
Desmond Devoy, Ottawa East EMC
HERE'S LOOKING AT YOU, KID: As their on-stage relationship comes to a shuddering end, characters Neasa and Ian, a former priest, share a more pensive moment together.
"There's something about the way that line is coming out that is not hurt enough," he says, stepping forward onto the rehearsal stage towards actress Nancy Kenny. He tells her and fellow actor Richard Gélinas to try to project "the sheer exasperation of not being understood."
The trio were standing in the middle of a sparsely furnished, blacked-out rehearsal stage at the Shenkman Arts Centre, 245 Centrum Blvd., in Orléans, on the morning of Tuesday, November 10, rehearsing a scene for the upcoming production of Irish playwright Conor McPherson's play Shining City (2004).
"I'll f***ing kill you if you cry too early. You're only robbing yourself," Kelly says to Kenny. "In a lesser production, this would be wonderful. But we need to take it to that extra level."
The language may be a bit blunt for stage directions, but the scene that has just wrapped was an emotionally intense one.
Set in modern-day Dublin, it tells the story of Ian, a former priest who has become a therapist. One of his first clients is John, who says he sees his late wife, and is now terrified to return home to his house. Sympathetic though he is to his patient, Ian is also in the midst of seeing his relationship with girlfriend Neasa, who has borne his child, disintegrate.
The play, which was nominated for a Tony Award on Broadway in 2006, is a realistic drama, with all of the dramatic pauses found, for example, in the works of British playwright Harold Pinter, which also often punctuate an impassioned argument between two lovers. Even watching a rehearsal, one feels the uneasiness of watching a couple argue at a dinner party, when you can't make your exit, and are forced to watch the fireworks from across the table.
Appropriately, since the play takes place in the Irish capital, it is directed by a man who was born and raised in the Docklands area of north Dublin. In his youth, Kelly trained with the renowned Abbey Theatre. After his training, he made his way as a radio drama director and producer for Ireland's state broadcaster, RTE (Radio Telefis Eireann).
"I arrived here, rather big headedly believing...that someone would give me a job here. So I put together my own little company," he says of his company, Seven Thirty Productions, in 2005, a year after his arrival. The company's name came from the fact that "the first play we did, we had to be out by 10 p.m., so we had to start by 7:30."
Kelly's company is up against some competition on the Irish theatre scene with the Tara Players, but, unlike Tara, "I'm not producing plays for an Irish audience...we do plays for a general audience," though the "Irish are more than welcome to it," as well. "I pride myself that the nature of the theatre I try to bring here is modern, gutsy theatre."
The company's first production was called Eden (2001) by Eugene O'Brien, which premiered at the Mercury Lounge, 55 ByWard Market Square, in the ByWard Market in 2004. It told the tale of a married man out for a wild weekend in Portaloise, County Laois, in Ireland's midlands area (think having a wild time in Brockville or Cornwall.)
"It's not the image one has of the Irish," said Kelly.
Some of the plays Kelly has chosen for his Ottawa company do not play respectful homage to the Irish disaspora worldwide like some other productions do. One such play was The King of the Kilburn High Road (2001) by Jimmy Murphy about the Irish community in London, England, and their failings, something he says is far removed from "the old Irish kitchen sink drama."
"There is an image of the Irish play," he adds, with the works of say, Brian Friel and works of his like Dancing at Lughnasa (1990) or Philadelphia Here I Come! (1964) offering a view of Ireland that may have been true in the past, but is no longer the case.
"Ireland has just spent 24 years as the Silicon Valley of Europe," Kelly said. "Now it is going through disasterous times."
Kelly predicts that now that Ireland has returned to outward immigration, that Canada will be a top destination since "people don't want to go to the States, because it has a very bad name."
For a company that deals in modern Irish drama, the part that accents play in any production set in a foreign country can be daunting for both director and actor alike. Some productions suffering from "disappearing accent syndrome," where an accent will come and go. Other times, accents seem so put-on that they take away from the play. Two days previously, Kelly had been to Montréal to see a production of Death and the Maiden (1990) by Chilean playwright Ariel Dorfman.
"It annoyed me to hear Canadian actors speaking with Chilean accents," he admitted, though their accents were very believable. In his plays, "we work on words, rather than accents," relying on the "flow and rhythm of the accents," instead of the accents themselves. "I'm a director, not a teacher," Kelly says.
Numerous times, well-intentioned Canadian friends will "give me the Lucky Charms accent. They don't have Lucky Charms in Ireland!" he says of Lucky the Leprechaun, the cereal's spokesman. But even at that, he has Australian friends whom he admits to using the "G'day mate," Crocodile Dundee accent on. After he has done his Crocodile Hunter impression, he will often catch himself and go "Why am I doing that? That's what people do to me and I hate it!"
During his time in Canada, one phrase has entered his lexicon, must to his delight - is the dismissive "whatever."
Kelly current works as a director with the Gladstone Theatre, 910 Gladstone Avenue, in the west end, a place he calls a "God send," since there is "an absence of space to do theatre," in Ottawa. Many of his productions have played at the Gladstone, but in the early days, he used locales as diverse as upstairs at The Aulde Dubliner pub, 62 William Street in the ByWard Market.
While he is glad to have the support of the Gladstone, and revels in the studio space provided by the Orléans Young Players, he admits that, for the theatre scene in Ottawa, "it's very difficult. I don't know what the future of my company is...It's getting harder and harder to find places to rehearse."
The Seven Thirty Production of "Shining City" runs at the Arts Court Theatre, 2 Daly Avenue in Sandy Hill, from now until Saturday, November 28. Showtimes are at 8 p.m., with Saturday and Sunday matinees at 2:30 p.m. (No shows on Monday or Sunday night.) Tickets are $20, $15 for students, seniors and the underemployed. There will be a pay-what-you-can matinee on Sunday, November 22.
ddevoy@thenowemc.ca
