Compensations

Written and directed by: Loretta Stanley & Andrew McIlroy

Performed: 11-15 June 2002 in the Studio Theatre in Schaerbeek (Check out the review in the Bulletin)

Information on the play:

I saw a blind beggar man the other day, said Mrs Furriskey rummaging with a frown in the interior of her memory, in Stephen's Green I think it was. He was heading straight for a lamp-post. When he was about a yard away from it, he turned to one side and made a bee-line round it.

Oh he knew it was there, said Furriskey, he knew it was there. He knew what he was about the same man.

The Compensations of nature, that's what they call it, explained Shanahan. It's as long as it's broad. If you can't speak you can listen twice as good as the man that can. At Swim Two Birds- Flann O'Brien

How do we know what's really going on? Are the people we know actually like that? Or are we simply incapably of seeing them clearly? Do we see things as they are, or are we condemned to see them as we want them to be? In this new play, commissioned by the ITG, four people, linked by blood, by history or by greed confront their lives, and in the process betray themselves and their motives to the audience more clearly than they do to themselves. Compensations also tells a hidden story about a woman's past, and the surprising impact it has on her family, reminding us that somehow, we all get by on what life offers us. Funny, vicious, and melancholy by turns, this fast-paced short play is set in Ireland, but glances at life in Brussels. It invites more questions than answers.

Compensations was the result of a collaboration between Loretta Stanley and Andrew McIlroy. Loretta is already well known as an actress on the Brussels's English language stage, and she has written several short pieces for the ITG. Andrew is very active as a director and adaptor of plays for the ITG. This is his first staged play.

Storytelling has a long history in Irish culture, and the Irish still love to tell each other stories, sad, funny or fantastic. At its simplest what is a monologue but a good story, well told? Perhaps this explains why the monologue has always been in fashion on the Irish stage. Brian Friel showed us its power with Faith Healer, and the genre has been remodelled recently by writers like Sebastian Barry or Eugene O’Brien with his hugely successful Eden. The attraction of monologue for the writer is obvious – it gives you a chance to get into the heart and soul of the character, but it also poses immense challenges – how to drive the action forward, how to show the reality of relationships and how to invite the audience to question, not comply with the character. Compensations attempts to exploit the flexibility and limitations of the format to draw out four people, to explain, to justify and to motivate them. The monologue can sometimes be accused of telling the audience too much about the character. But our characters do not actually know themselves well enough – for us to know them, they need to be reflected in the minds and stories of others. Maybe this is Compensations’ theme - that the “real you” is only to be known through the way you are known by others. It’s the angle that counts.

There are some unconscious nods to other authors, to Beckett’s “Krapp’s Last Tape”, to Murphy’s “Bailegangaire” and to Joyce’s Molly Bloom in “Ulysses”. The piece was written along the lines of four stories, built up by asking ourselves “what if….?” and then finding an answer that made sense to us. We hope that Deirdre, Pat, Michael and his mother strike some chord of recognition in you, because, although we all tell stories to ourselves, how many of those would we want made public?

Andrew McIlroy

Cast:

Mother - Isabel Walsh
Pat - Nikki Johnston
Michael - Andrew McIlroy
Deirdre - Loretta Stanley

Production Team:

Producer - Kevin Walsh
Stage Manager - Roisin Dore
Lighting - Tony Knott, Fionnuala Gogarty
Sound - Jim McKenna
Make up - Pat Hourican
Crew - Henry Dobbin, Annette Kelly, Liz Ross,
Publicity - Anna MacDougald
Box Office - Carissa Hernu, Noreen Doyle, Louise Lang
Print and Web - Pascal Voisin, Vincent Eaton
Photography - Eamonn Bates