Big Play
I saw an extraordinary play last night, Scenes from the Big Picture by Owen McCafferty. It was put on by the DC company Solas Nua, which is devoted to contemporary Irish works. The play depicted a day in the life of Belfast, with a cast of twenty performing in a scrappy, smallish space at Catholic University.
It sounds a little lowbrow to express amazement when an actor gets a foreign accent down accurately. How many times has that been the first thing you've heard someone compliment Meryl Streep on? It's true there's so much more to a dramatic portrayal, but when the accent isn't quite right, or when it comes and goes at random, it's a distraction that can last the duration of the play. In this one, every member of the mostly American (and local) cast had a completely consistent and believable Northern Irish accent, which isn't the typical "Always after me Lucky Charms!" brogue that Americans usually associate with Ireland.
Scenes from the Big Picture builds from the quotidian to the riveting over about two and a half hours. It has almost nothing to do with Belfast's "troubles" -- the words "Catholic" and "Protestant" are never uttered, and only one or two of the many interweaving stories have (maybe) a connection to the political/religious divides that Northern Ireland is notorious for. These characters' troubles range from drug addiction to infidelity to loneliness to loss. Plenty to relate to, yet you feel that they could take place nowhere other than where they do.
The friendly fellow next to me had returned to see the play a second time. I would consider doing that myself if it weren't both closing tomorrow and sold out for the remaining performances. I will, however, be back for Solas Nua's next production.
It sounds a little lowbrow to express amazement when an actor gets a foreign accent down accurately. How many times has that been the first thing you've heard someone compliment Meryl Streep on? It's true there's so much more to a dramatic portrayal, but when the accent isn't quite right, or when it comes and goes at random, it's a distraction that can last the duration of the play. In this one, every member of the mostly American (and local) cast had a completely consistent and believable Northern Irish accent, which isn't the typical "Always after me Lucky Charms!" brogue that Americans usually associate with Ireland.
Scenes from the Big Picture builds from the quotidian to the riveting over about two and a half hours. It has almost nothing to do with Belfast's "troubles" -- the words "Catholic" and "Protestant" are never uttered, and only one or two of the many interweaving stories have (maybe) a connection to the political/religious divides that Northern Ireland is notorious for. These characters' troubles range from drug addiction to infidelity to loneliness to loss. Plenty to relate to, yet you feel that they could take place nowhere other than where they do.
The friendly fellow next to me had returned to see the play a second time. I would consider doing that myself if it weren't both closing tomorrow and sold out for the remaining performances. I will, however, be back for Solas Nua's next production.
posted by Billy at 1:01 PM
2 Comments:
Fascinating, especially in light of the article in yesterday's paper about the controversy over the "orange" represenatatives at the Folklife Festival. Is the cast made up of local actors? Were there any you had seen before? Did they have a dialect coach?
Yes, the cast was mostly, if not entirely, local. I may have seen some before but didn't recognize any names or faces specifically. I think they were mostly new to me. I thought there had to be a dialect coast, but the guy sitting next to me, who had seen the play before and seemed to have some inside knowledge, said that the director, Des Kennedy, who is from Belfast, "worked really hard" with the cast on their dialect.
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