Theatre For One review: Intimate setting makes for wonderful experience at Cork Midsummer
All of the city is a stage is a central tenet of Cork Midsummer Festival, one that is underscored as the queue begins to grow outside the Theatre for One venue near Cork Opera House and the starting time is delayed as we wait for a noisy street-cleaning machine to pass by. It all adds to the camaraderie and anticipation for the offerings from Landmark Productions and Octopus Theatricals, as does the welcome offer of sunscreen from the staff as the midday sun makes its presence felt.
Theatre for One presents five-minute pieces performed by a single actor to an audience of one in a confessional-style booth. This year, the theme is Made in Cork, featuring plays by six Cork writers, directed by Julie Kelleher and Eoghan McCarrick. As the door shuts, the sudden darkness of the plush red velvet surrounds strikes a particularly Proustian chord with this former convent school girl.
The religious theme continues to echo in The Green Line, written by Michael John McCarthy and performed with affecting conviction by Marion O'Dwyer. The set-up is quickly and skilfully achieved, as an older woman at a New York bus stop unburdens herself to a fellow waiting passenger — I startle when she asks my name.
As she reminisces about her childhood in Ireland, the New Yawk accent is replaced by the musical lilt of her West Cork upbringing. Wearing a cross, she has been at the church to pray for her late husband and imagines an idealised version of her own funeral at home before dismissing the idea. She indicates that my bus is coming and it's time to say goodbye.
Next up is Hex, showcasing the considerable talents of Gina Moxley, who both writes and performs. She recounts a trip with her college friends to the US and an encounter with Elijah, the palm-reading hotel worker with 'a bang of Southern Gothic' whose casual aside has tormented her for years. Fragile, yet determined, she, like my friend at the bus stop, is confronting her mortality.
It sounds deep but it's also very funny, employing Moxley's gift for a neat turn of phrase. The intimate, and confronting, nature of the format comes to the fore as she asks to hold my hand, commenting on how soft it is before giving me a notebook and asking me to write something for her, the text of a tattoo she plans to get across her chest. As she spells out the three words, I catch my breath at the implication and hesitate to complete her request. It's one of the most powerful and profound moments I have ever experienced in a theatrical setting.
As the screen comes down, my eyes prickle with tears. I need a moment to compose myself but the door opens, the darkness recedes and the sunlight floods in — time to go back to the real world.
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