INTERVIEW: Irish Rep revives ‘The Weir’ with actors from previous productions
Photo: Dan Butler stars in The Weir, a new virtual production from Irish Repertory Theatre. Photo courtesy of Irish Rep / Provided by Matt Ross PR with permission.
The Irish Repertory Theatre in New York City, an important member of the off-Broadway scene, has tried their best to continue programming during the COVID-19 pandemic, and, despite all of the odds, they have successfully given their audiences remarkable content. They commissioned a brand-new virtual play called The Gifts You Gave to the Dark, and this week they are premiering a new virtual production of Conor McPherson’s modern classic The Weir.
For this new show, directed by co-artistic director and co-founder Ciarán O’Reilly, the acting company has been pulled from performers who portrayed these characters in previous Irish Rep productions. The “performance on screen” is thus both simultaneously new and nostalgic, very much like the storyline in the play.
The Weir deals with a small country pub in rural Ireland where the ghost stories flow from the mouths of the motley clientele. The audience hears these increasingly intense stories through the eyes of the main protagonist, Valerie, who has a few secrets of her own, according to press notes.
The virtual production, which runs July 21-25, features Dan Butler, who plays the character of Jack, a role he portrayed in the Irish Rep’s 2013 production of the McPherson play. Butler has appeared in many theatrical offerings, including Broadway’s Travesties.
“I suggested the idea to Ciarán who informed me that others had had the same idea,” Butler wrote in an email to Hollywood Soapbox. “Was so happy this confluence of ideas came together to make it a reality. … It’s tricky coming back to a play and part I love. You don’t want to throw the baby out with the bathwater, for there was a lot of foundational work that still serves. You then have to weave in the different me seven years from then, how both play and role speak to me now, how they move me. The dialect always helps as an in, and then the different medium of film invites and sort of forces you to come at it all in a much more intimate way. I hope it turns out well. We all put a great deal of good creative focus into it, a lot of love.”
The COVID-19 pandemic has upturned the theater community in New York City and around the world, driving companies to push their content online. Now live-stream shows are the norm, and archives of past hits are being showcased on YouTube and other online outlets. For Butler, the day Broadway closed its doors in March, he packed up his things and traveled with his husband and cat to a new life in New England.
“We have a place in Vermont we’ve turned into a part-time artist residence called Fuller Road, and it’s been the perfect retreat,” he wrote. “There’s something about the inherent resilience that’s required to be an actor that’s served me well to just go with the flow in my life, especially now. This is momentous! We’re living in an historic moment! The whole world given a poetic pause! The loss of life has been horrible, and the lack of wisdom and leadership from the top continues to be frustratingly infuriating. But for the most part I’ve enjoyed this time, this opportunity to discover how one can be grateful through this, to ask where can I best help, to discover what is the opportunity in all this, where can I best focus my abilities.”
He did admit that there were some planned jobs that have been put off indefinitely, but these virtual projects have filled in some of the gaps on his calendar. Most importantly, the gathering of artists in Vermont — from a safe distance, no doubt — has restored his spirit.
The idea of “getting back to normal” is not a set of words that Butler considers all too much. What truly is normal, after all. Instead, he has been fascinated and interested about what will come next after this moment in time.
“There are plenty of dramatic theatrical things to write or act about right now, but I think some things are going to take patience,” he stated. “They will take time. It will take time for people to be confident to come back together in an audience to watch an event, but I don’t think the world or the human spirit can do without theatre — to be present for the actual live event, present, taking it in for that never-to-be-repeated moment in time. Amazing, magical, alive! A normal to get back to would be having it be affordable enough for actors to actually go and see their fellow actors act on a regular basis.”
Acting in this McPherson play in a part he first embodied seven years ago has definitely kept his mind busy and thoughts stirring.
“There are all kinds of hauntings in our lives, all kinds of ghost stories, mysterious and unexplainable,” Butler stated, “even ghosts of our earlier selves whose actions we live with every day.”
By John Soltes / Publisher / John@HollywoodSoapbox.com
The Weir, by Conor McPherson and directed by Ciarán O’Reilly, will be presented as a performance on screen July 21-25 by the Irish Repertory Theatre. Click here for tickets and more information.
