Towards Tallaght

Tallaght is a suburb of Dublin, to the South of the city.  A bit like the areas of Bologna where Teatro dell’Argine and Cantieri Meticci operate, this is a culturally rich but cash poor, multicultural and multilingual space, an ideal location for the Irish leg of the CRE-ACTORS project. In a generation or so, much of Ireland will probably look like Tallaght. This year alone, with the government’s positive response to the arrival of refugees from Ukraine, there has been a significant demographic shift in the country.  As elsewhere in Europe, theatre and culture need to encompass this increasing diversity.

It’s quite daunting to lead the last of the three CRE-ACTORS training workshops. So much has already been achieved under the remarkable leadership of the Théâtre du Soleil and Teatro dell’Argine teams. There would be no point in pretending we’re starting from nothing again. So, rather than simple “sharing our methods”, we are going to attempt to build on what has been learnt so far, and to explore how the project participants (who have melded so quickly into an international ensemble) might develop some of the theatrical styles and storytelling processes we’ve been investigating into drama.

At the centre of drama is conflict and at the centre of conflict is difference. So we’ll be working with place and space, with the particular contexts of contemporary Ireland, contemporary Europe and contemporary Tallaght, dialoguing with our local community participants to acquire a sense of how difference is operating, and how that might be expressed in dramatic form.  We’ll be using the fact that we are a varied and multilingual collection of people as a resource, and asking how we can truthfully, creatively and actively intervene through theatre in the evolving society around us.  

Years ago, when I was training at Trinity Dublin, I worked on a play by Denis Johnstone, called THE OLD LADY SAYS ‘NO’!  A couple of years later, I came back to this wonderful, expressionistic fantasia on Irish history and theatre, directing it with students at Royal Holloway in London. Thinking about our journey towards Tallaght, I can’t help but recall the glorious closing section, as the character called The Speaker (an actor who imagines himself to be the Irish independence leader Robert Emmet) addresses the diverse and complex city of Dublin herself.

“Strumpet City in the sunset
Suckling the bastard brats of Scot, of Englishry, of Huguenot
Brave sons breaking from the womb, wild sons fleeing from their Mother
Wilful city of savage dreamers
So old, so sick with memories, 
Old Mother.
Some they say are damned
But you, I know, will walk the streets of Paradise
Head high and unashamed.”

Michael Walling - Border Crossings