A drama for the generations

In the depths of Lockdown, a reading of Tara Maria Lovett’s play ‘The Whispering Chair’ was one of the true highlights of a rather truncated Culture Night. Even though it could only be viewed online due to Covid, the reading by Aaron Monaghan and Clare Monnelly, the drama and tension was evident in Lovett’s artfully crafted script.

Now the Ballyjamesduff playwright is back to enliven another Culture Night with an eagerly anticipated new play ‘The Half Coat’ that was, maybe not quite inspired by a story on the front page of The Anglo-Celt, but certainly triggered by it.

“It was so interesting,” she begins as we scan through a blown up copy of the paper dated August 1846. “If you can imagine now 1846, we’re in the grip of a famine,” she points out of the paper that doesn’t have even a whisper of the hardship befalling tenant farmers.

“I could have went all sorts of lovely weird and wonderful medical stuff - unctions and potions for every class of thing was to be had, and then there’s things to do with people who owed money.

“It’s any amount of advertising stuff, selling stuff, and down here,” she says as her finger heads southwest, “here in the very far corner there’s a little tiny piece called ‘The Extinguisher’.

The item purports to retell an encounter between a Quaker and a young woman who was voicing her support for the death penalty. The item has the Quaker pose the question:

“‘Dost thou think a man ought to be hung before he has repented?’

‘Oh, no; certainly not! No one ought to be sent into eternity until he is prepared for the kingdom of Heaven!’

“‘Good,’ said the Friend, ‘but now I have another question to ask thee. Dost thou think any man ought to be hung after he has repented and is fitted for the kingdom of heaven?’ The lady was speechless.”

Given the neatness of the yarn the Celt is sceptical of the veracity of the tale, but then maybe it did happen. Tara Maria was happy to go with it.

“This is what I loved about it, it’s nearly an overheard conversation - you can imagine them meeting in a parlour in a grand house in Cavan having a chat - it’s nearly like the conversation you’d hear on the bus, and that was the spark for the play.”

The language in the news report is especially florid, almost biblical, and Tara Maria was mindful of the mid-19th Century language.

“People often comment, ‘You have this poetic style in the way that people speak’ - but if you listen to Irish people speak, we speak poetry all the time in this country, so I don’t think it’s too much of leap,” she says, yet assuring, she “didn’t labour it too heavily”.

The tactic of seeking an outside stimulus for a play is one Tara Maria employed so effectively for The Whispering Chair. In that case the ICA selected an artefact from Cavan County Museum’s display.

“There needs to be something that the public has a vested interest in. I believe its nearly a public collaboration - so for me it’s very important that the public has an input into the initial spark of the play. Obviously it’s up to me after that,” she says.

She opted for the Celt, because, although she’s not got Breffni blood she understands the significance of the publication for the county.

“I’m here for the last good few years and I cannot get over The Anglo-Celt newspaper in this county - it’s a religion. Nothing happens but it’s in the Celt, everybody talks about the Celt. So I thought it was important, again, the Celt is a public paper.”

She is eager that theatre is “publicly shared”.

“That for me is the only way that theatre is going to grow again. To be interactive as a playwright is very important - I cannot be sitting up in my ivory tower talking about things that I want to talk about, that are in my own head. It has to come from a community, it has to come from the public.

“I don’t like to be in control. It’s lovely to have something random - and just say: ‘Well now you are a playwright, if I give you that, can you write a play about that? And I have to be able to say, ‘Yes, then okay I will’.”

She is confident that she can always answer in the affirmative after 20 years of honing her skills set. Tara Maria explains she has a wall brimming full of plays she’s penned.

Her realisation she was destined to be playwright came during a Dingle Writers’ Course back in 2000 taken by Cavan’s own Michael Harding.

“I don’t want to sound weird but it was literally like nothing in my life was ever the same again after meeting him - it was a completely life changing week. Completely!”

Asked for an example of what Harding taught her, she explained:

“Basically I was taught, this is a craft the more you do it the better you get. I don’t believe in the muse, there’s no muse, it’s work it’s craft, but you always have to be brave.

“It’s like a very good carpenter or a very good plumber - it’s a craft that’s handed on. I was lucky to have been taught by Michael Harding, he passed the craft on to me - I’ve been heavily influenced by, God rest him Tom MacIntyre - that’s where I feel my artistic influences come from - they are the people who came before me, who forged the path that said as a playwright you can do anything - you can talk about anything, you can go into dark areas and don’t be afraid.

“You can put anything up on stage for it to be shared - just be brave, don’t be safe. That’s what I’m always trying to do.”

Without giving away too much The Half Coat operates across two time periods and focuses on “intergenerational trauma”

“You are linked back through the years to the people who came before you, came before you, came before you,” she says rolling her hands with the passing generations.

“The play looks at that - a contemporary man and his great great grandfather - he’s a man in famine times.

“Often times we are carrying stuff from the generations that came before us that we’re not even aware of - there can be hard stuff, there can be painful stuff, there can be stuff that needs healing now.

“This play is definitely looking at ‘what’s it like to carry the weight of one of your ancestors who is considered a hero? And you are sitting here in contemporary Cavan and you’re not a hero. What’s it like to carry that?”

The harm caused by secrets is a key element to the play too.

“It might be a habit that we keep a secret, thinking we are doing good: don’t talk about it, don’t tell it, don’t do anything about it and it will just go away. But actually that’s where the damage comes from.

“Once something is said out loud it loses its power, and that’s why secrets are so destructive - they hold huge power because they are not said out loud. And in a relationship, if one party is holding a secret that the other party doesn’t know about - the energy of that is poisoning the relationship all of the time.

“Okay, if the secret comes will the relationship be destroyed? Maybe it will, maybe it won’t. But even if it is, are the two individuals better off than lumping around this secret?”

Religion is a recurring issue in Tara Maria’s work, and in this case Quakers, who were prominent in Bailieborough in the 19th Century come into the play.

“I think they’re a fascinating organisation - they’re so different from the rigidity of the Catholic faith that was pervasive at this time. This idea of unstructured prayer, and people speaking if they are moved - I just think they are a remarkable people.”

Given the death penalty, tangentially at least, is going to rear its head in the story, Tara Maria admits there’s darkness in her tale.

“Bottom line for me as a playwright is for me to tell a story that people will follow and be entertained by, and yes, there’s a little bit of darkness in it - there’s plenty of darkness in it!”

“If I can’t have people come in, sit down, be engaged - if they are thinking about where they parked the car or are they going for a pint on the way home, I’ve failed. I might as well shut up shop and go home. It’s useless.”

If you are going to The Half Coat decide now where you are having a pint, because you won’t have time to think come Friday evening.