Download The Walworth Farce Teachers\` Notes.

THE WALWORTH FARCE TEACHERS’ NOTES








At a Glance
Production Credits
Director’s Note
The Walworth Farce Story
Dinny’s Play (The play within the play)
Druid Theatre
Enda Walsh
Links
At a Glance
Set on the 15th floor of a tower block on London's Walworth Road, The Walworth Farce is a blend of
madcap humour and the darker, deeper concerns pivotal to human existence. The talented cast
swap characters and change costumes throughout, effortlessly combining side-splitting hilarity with
dramatic intensity. This "ferociously entertaining" production was written by multi-award winning
Irish playwright Enda Walsh, who shot to fame with Disco Pigs - a widely successful play which he
later adapted for film.
Production Credits
CREATIVE TEAM
Writer
Director
Set and costume designer
Lighting designer
Casting director
Enda Walsh
Mikel Murfi
Sabine Dargent
Paul Keogan
Maureen Hughes
CAST
Dinny
Sean
Blake
Hayley
Michael Glenn Murphy
Tadhg Murphy
Raymond Scannell
Mercy Ojelade
CREW
Production manager
Technical manager
Company stage manager
Stage manager
Master carpenter
Costume supervisor
Wigs and make Up
Eamonn Fox
Barry O’Brien
Sarah Lynch
Paula Tierney
Gus Dewar
Doreen McKenna
Val Sherlock
Director’s Note
Hello. I’m Mikel Murfi, thanks for coming to this evening’s performance of The Walworth Farce.
We’re delighted to be here. This has been a great journey for us and spans five or six years all told. In
2005, Garry (Hynes) Druid’s Artistic Director and Enda Walsh asked me to come on board as a
director of The Walworth Farce. Since then we’ve been fortunate to tour the world with this piece.
The production team you see listed in this programme have been with the show since day one in
some capacity or other and I’d like to acknowledge them all, they’re all really, really talented,
dedicated people, Druid is a special company. So here’s a little background...
Enda, whom I’ve known for years, sends me a play. I’ve no idea why. He says ‘here, have a read of
this’. He’s wondering, I suppose, that if I like the piece, would I be interested in directing it. So, I read
the play. It’s not really possible to describe what happens next. It is like being punched in the deep
subconscious repeatedly for several days on end. I’m reeling. I have to say, honestly, I haven’t a clue
what is going on, other than I love the play immediately. It is something wholly new and with an
impossible amount of energy coming off the page. I read it again and again and the play becomes
clearer to me but still and it’s now six years later, it still holds secrets, still compels with every
remount, still challenges the actors, wrings them out, every evening asking them for new
psychological and physical feats to be performed and what I love most... it still challenges an
audience in a big, BIG way. The Walworth Farce is a great ‘ask’ of an audience. It asks you to allow us
throw you into the unknown, the un-understandable. It’s confusing. It’s fast. It’s delirious. And I
think ultimately thrilling for an audience. Enda is a fierce and brave writer. He’ll stop at nothing to
break the actors in two, to split the audiences’ heads, to rush words at you so quickly you think you
might not survive the night and yet he has such a pure understanding of how to make theatre that
his plays are a treat again and again for theatre folk. It isn’t possible to imagine Enda’s plays in
another form other than theatre and that’s a fine achievement. I couldn’t give the plot away if I
tried. You’ll just have to sit back and give yourself over to the madness. I directed the piece, that I’ll
acknowledge, but in writing this note I just want to share my enthusiasm for Enda’s work. The piece
flies along, it’s like being on two roller coasters simultaneously and then being hit by a third. Once I
had said that I’d direct the piece I had very little to do other than follow what was on the page. It’s
meticulously worked out. It’s funny, harrowing and as all great theatre does, it speaks to the heart of
us, reflects in a brilliant theatrical way on what it is to be us, to live in this mad world of ours. I hope
you enjoy it. Mikel Murfi
The Walworth Farce Story
Everyday, the same routine. Set in a council flat on the fifteenth floor of a tower block on the
Walworth Road, a father and two sons act out as farce the day the father left Ireland to live in
London. The father stars as himself, Dinny – a house decorator then brain surgeon from Cork. The
two sons, Blake and Sean, take between eight other characters – including, on Blake’s part, three
women. The farce is frenetic, madcap slapstick, a trial for the greatest gymnast and everyday they
have it all to play for, the acting trophy – daily coveted and daily won by Dinny. Farce it may be, but
for these three men locked in this room it must count as the truth – “this story we play is
everything” – as a shield against all that threatens from outside. Written by controversial Irish
playwright Enda Walsh, this “ferociously entertaining” production is currently on one of the biggest
world tours for a new play in recent theatre memory. By the time The Walworth Farce shows in
Sydney (Australia) on the 24th April, 2010, it will have been performed 209 times in 22 cities using
627 cans of beer, 418 packets of pink wafers and 41 pints of Maureen’s ‘special blue sauce’ – this is
the story so far.
2003
The Walworth Farce is commissioned by Druid.
2006
World premiere at the Town Hall Theatre, Galway, on 20th March followed by a short tour to Cork
and Dublin. The production receives remarkable Irish notices and work begins almost immediately to
bring the production to the Edinburgh Festival the following year.
2007
Opens to critical acclaim at the Traverse Theatre as part of the Edinburgh Festival, winning the
prestigious Fringe First award. Plays to sold-out houses and attracts the attention of international
presenters. The calls to tour the work begin and plans are made to bring it to New York, London and
back home to Ireland the following year.
2008
American premiere at St Ann’s Warehouse, New York, on 17th April 2008. In September it joins the
‘rep’ of the National Theatre, London, for a three month run, becoming the sell-out hit of the
season. In December it returns home to Galway where it plays to a capacity crowd at the Town Hall
Theatre before transferring to the Project Arts Centre, Dublin.
2009
In September, The Walworth Farce starts out on one of the biggest world tours for a new play in
recent theatre memory. The production opens in the UK, followed by a quick stopover in Galway
ahead of an extensive tour of Canada and coast-to coast America.
2010
Premieres in Australia and New Zealand and on April 24th the curtain closes on a play that has
wowed audiences all around the world for the past 5 years. As for the future, watch this space…
Druid would like to acknowledge and thank Eugene Downes and his team at Culture Ireland for their
financial support and commitment to bringing The Walworth Farce on this world tour.
Druid would also like to acknowledge the Arts Council for their financial support towards the original
staging of this production.
Dinny’s Play
(The play within the play of The Walworth Farce)
The action takes place in the fine house of Jack and Eileen Cotter which overlooks glorious Cork City
on the hills of Montenotte.
Dinny
Paddy
Brain surgeon and painter decorator, a family man
Dinny’s younger brother, over from London where he lives in terrible
poverty on the Walworth Road.
Maureen
Dinny’s wife. A wizard in the kitchen.
Vera – Paddy’s wife
A money-hungry, man-eating, meddling fox.
Sean
Dinny’s five-year-old son
Blake
Dinny’s seven-year-old son
Jack Cotter
Wealthy businessman about Cork, who has an interest in
women’s clothing
Peter – Jack’s brother-in-law City gent who spends his weekends schmoozing at Kinsale Yacht Club.
Eileen Cotter
Jack’s wife and sister toPeter. A fancy woman.
Druid Theatre
At the heart of everything we do is our audience. Our goal is to create electrifying theatre
experiences for every person, in every place and every time we perform. Since its foundation in
Galway in 1975 and right up until the present day, Druid passionately believes that audiences have a
right to see first class professional theatre without having to travel long distances outside their own
communities. The company has toured to every nook and cranny in Ireland and since 1982 has
toured to key global centres around the world, making it one of the premier theatre companies in
the English speaking world. Druid’s goal is to create electrifying theatre experiences for every
person, in every place and every time they perform. Between 2009 and 2010, the company will tour
internationally to Australia, Canada, New Zealand, the United Kingdom, and the United States.
Druid was founded by graduates of the National University of Ireland, Garry Hynes, Mick Lally and
Marie Mullen, and has had two artistic directors: Garry Hynes (1975–91 and 1995 to date) and
Maeliosa Stafford (1991–94).
Enda Walsh-Writer
Druid: The Walworth Farce (Edinburgh Fringe First Award 2007); The New Electric Ballroom
(Edinburgh Fringe First Award 2008; Irish Times Theatre Award Best New Play 2008); one-acts
Lynndie’s Gotta Gun and Gentrification. His other theatre writing credits include: Delirium, an
adaptation of Dostoevsky’s The Brothers Karamazov for Theatre O (The Abbey Theatre, The
Barbican); The Walworth Farce (Galway, Cork, Dublin, Edinburgh – 2007 Fringe First Winner, New
York, London); Chatroom (Cottesloe, Royal National Theatre, March 2006, Autumn 2007); The Small
Things (for Paines Plough, Menier Chocolate Factory, London and Galway Arts Festival 2005); The
New Electric Ballroom (Perth International Arts Festival, Riverside Studios, London,
Edinburgh – 2008 Fringe First Winner, Irish Tour, Kammerspiele Theater Munich, winner of Theater
Heute’s Best Foreign Play 2005); two short plays, How These Men Talk (Zurich Shauspielehaus) and
Lynndie’s Gotta Gun (for Artistas Unidos, Lisbon’s National Theatre); bedbound (Dublin
Theatre Festival 2000, Edinburgh 2001 – Fringe First Winner, Royal Court, London, New York and
worldwide); Misterman (for Corcadorca, Granary Theatre, Cork, 1999); Disco Pigs (for
Corcadorca, Triskel, Cork, 1995; Dublin, 1996; Edinburgh, 1997; West End 1998 – awarded Arts
Council Playwrights Award 1996, Best Fringe Production 1996, Stewart Parker and George Devine
Awards 1997); and The Ginger Ale Boy (for Corcadorca, Cork, 1994).
Enda Walsh’s plays have been performed worldwide and have been translated into more than
twenty languages. He has received four Edinburgh Fringe First Awards as well as a Critic’s Choice
Award (1997) and the Edinburgh Herald Archangel Award (2008) for his contribution to the
Edinburgh Festival Fringe. His film credits include: Disco Pigs (Temple Films/ Renaissance), and
Hunger, (Blast/FILMFOUR, winner of the Camera D’Or and international prize in Cannes 2008). He is
currently shooting Chatroom (Ruby Films/ FILMFOUR). In development: Island of the Aunts (an
adaptation of Eva Ibbotson’s children’s novel for Cuba Pictures); and Dusty Springfield: Goddess of
the Sixties (Number 9 Films/FILMFOUR). His radio credits include: Four Big Days in the Life of Dessie
Banks (RTE Radio – winner of the PPI Award for Best Radio Drama 2001); and The Monotonous Life
of Little Miss P (BBC – commended in the Berlin Prix Europa 2003).
Links
Druid Theatre
www.druid.ie
The Walworth Farce
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2huVAv_LayY
Interview with Company
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rsEZbjbTK3Q