Reading Plays

A new podcast in which two writers attempt to develop a film in real time, with no preparation. Featuring Gareth Stack & James Van De Waal. Download: Let’s write a film – Episode 2. Previous episodes. Advertisements

A new podcast in which two writers attempt to develop a film in real time, with no preparation. Featuring Gareth Stack & James Van De Waal. Download:  Let’s Write A Film.

Love and Money is a little known play from 2006, an early work by Dennis Kelly, the London Irish television writer who would go on to create controversial British television series Pulling & Utopia. The play debuted at the Manchester Royal Exchange, before moving to the Young Vic. It was recently staged in Dublin by … Continue reading Love & Money – Reading Plays – Episode 16 →

A satire of the Southern potboiler in the form of a beauty pageant, The Miss Firecracker Contest was first performed at a tiny LA theatre in 1980. Later moving to an off Broadway production directed by ubiquitous character actor and storyteller Stephen Tobolowsky. Tobolowsky’s childhood experiences served as the inspiration for this story of narcissism … Continue reading The Miss Firecracker Contest – Reading Plays – Episode 15 →

Martin McDonagh’s 1996 play ‘The Cripple of Inishmaan’ is the first in a loosely defined and as yet unfinished Aran Island Trilogy. Set on the most banal of the islands, Inish Maan, in the early 1930s, the play is a violently farcical examination of family, social exclusion and the noble lie. Cripple of Inishmaan was … Continue reading The Cripple of Inishmaan – Episode 14 – Reading Plays →

A family history entwined with the legacy of slavery. Black urban poverty in 1930’s Pittsburg. Criminality and working class aspirations. Intersectionality and the patriarchy of the poor. August Wilson’s Piano Lesson is an issue play, and winner of the Pulizer prize. Does this relentlessly grim parlour drama descend into stereotyped kitsch, or lend it’s denigrated … Continue reading The Piano Lesson – Episode 13 – Reading Plays →

Some peanuts are eaten, some water bottles empties, some hotel rooms vandalised. Outside of that Neil LaButes ‘Some Girls’ is a less than action packed look at relationships. Love through the eyes of an immature ‘every guy’ whose self absorption drives his quest to reexamine a history of failed relationships. There are plenty of plays … Continue reading Some Girl(s) – Episode 12 – Reading Plays →

His autobiography boasts that Steve Martin began working at age ten in the newly opened Disneyland, graduating to study poetry and philosophy and spend 18 years performing as “America’s best loved stand up comedian”. Martin has in addition managed a career an accomplished banjo musician and movie star. He writes “I was not naturally talented… … Continue reading Picasso at the Lapin Agile – Episode 11 – Reading Plays →

Arriving at the end of the nineteen nineties, at exactly the time Martin McDonagh was exploding the Irish national theatre with the first of his Leenane trilogy, Disco Pigs articulated a radical new vision of Irishness. An Irishness deracinated of nationalism, appalled by republicanism, raised on television and clubland. A dissolute Irishness – frozen in … Continue reading Disco Pigs – Episode 10 – Reading Plays →

Quantum Physics, synchronicity, English mustachios, it has to be Eugene Ionesco’s ‘The Bald Soprano’ (La Cantatrice Chauve). This is a play for which context is essential: Beckett’s growing reputation in France at the beginning of the 1950’s. The efforts of dramatists who became known as the ‘theatre of the absurd’ to acknowledge the horrors of … Continue reading The Bald Soprano – Episode 9 – Reading Plays →

We conclude our discussion of JP Shanley’s classic play, doubt. Download: Episode 8 – Doubt (Part 2) ‘Reading Plays‘ is a discussion show, featuring Gareth Stack and James Van De Waal. Each week we do a close reading of a modern play, discussing it’s merits, themes, issues raised, and so on. You can play along … Continue reading Doubt (Part 2) – Episode 8 – Reading Plays →

We interview the cast of the recent Smock Alley production of ‘Welcome to the Ethics Committee’. The play was based on the collaborative fiction project, The SCP Foundation, and was written and directed by Katherine Farmar. We spoke to some members of the cast – Elitsa Dimova, Libby Russell, Jack Beglin, Liam Hallahan, and Declan … Continue reading Reading Plays – Interview – Cast of ‘Welcome to the Ethics Committee’ →

In the introduction to his already classic play ‘Doubt: A Parable’, JP Shanley writes ‘we are living in a culture of extreme advocacy, of confrontation, of judgment, and of verdict’. In the decade since the publication of the play, as the culture wars have expanded, his words have seemed ever more prescient. Doubt is a … Continue reading Doubt (Part 1) – Episode 7 – Reading Plays →

The titular Arcadia is Sidley Park, Estate of the earl of Croom. We enter Sidley park at the dawn of the 19th century, and today, as two parallel storylines converge to resolve a literary mystery. Arcadia is a Wildely brilliant farce, which examines the spirit of an age and it’s relationship to time, the mathematics … Continue reading Arcadia – Episode 6 – Reading Plays →

The Misanthrope (or the ‘The Cantankerous Lover’) by Moliere, is a comedy first performed at the Theatre du Palais-Royal in 1666. Despite its age the play deals with modern concerns, like the nature of friendship and the choice to embrace cynicism over solipsism. Although absent the careful plotting, dynamic staging or linguistic experimentalism of modern … Continue reading The Misanthrope – Episode 5 – Reading Plays →

Death of a Salesman is perhaps Arthur Millers best known play. A seminal work of twentieth century American theatre, it touches on themes as diverse as the death of masculinity, family dysfunction, the role of women, and the changing nature of work in a rapidly advancing, materialist society. The play was written shortly after the … Continue reading Death of a Salesman – Episode 4 – Reading Plays →

This weeks play – The Baltimore Waltz by Paula Vogel. The play was recently produced by Acting Out at the Harbour Playhouse in Dublin, and we’re joined by the cast Michael J. Kunze, Niamh Denyer and Brian Graham Higgins. The Baltimore Waltz was first produced off-Broadway at the Circle Repertory Company in 1992, and first … Continue reading The Baltimore Waltz – Episode 3 – Reading Plays →

This weeks play – Lonesome West by Martin McDonagh. Lonesome West is part of Connemara triology, along with Beauty Queen of Leenane and A Skull in Connemara. Published 1997, Methuen Drama. First performed Jun 11th, 1997 at Druid Theatre in Galway, in a coproduction with London’s Royal Court Theatre. Went on to Broadway in 1999, … Continue reading The Lonesome West – Episode 2 – Reading Plays →

This weeks play – Oleanna by David Mamet. First produced 1992 (stage), 1994 (film) starring William H. Macy & Rebecca Pidgeon. Oleanna was controversial on release and remains so, as it deals with issues of sexual harassment and rape. Mamet’s interest in these themes arose out of the media circus surrounding the nomination of American … Continue reading Oleanna – Episode 1 – Reading Plays →