INTERVIEW: Mick Mellamphy becomes ‘The Smuggler’ at Irish festival
Photo: The Smuggler stars Mick Mellamphy, a frequent presence at Origin’s 1st Irish Theatre Festival. Photo courtesy of Origin’s 1st Irish Theatre Festival / Provided by Media Blitz with permission.
Mick Mellamphy is no stranger to Origin’s 1st Irish, the annual theater festival celebrating the work of Irish and Irish-American playwrights. The actor has been performing in plays over the entire history of 1st Irish, and this year is no different. He is currently taking on the one-man show The Smuggler, playing through Jan. 21 at he cell theatre in Chelsea.
In the play, written by Galway-born playwright Ronán Noone, Mellamphy’s character of Tim Finnigan is on a comedic journey of self-discovery. He needs to navigate life with a partner, with a newborn baby and a new understanding of the American dream.
“It’s by a wonderful writer from Ireland who is actually based here up in New Engand, called Ronán Noone,” Mellamphy said in a recent phone interview. “And it’s a festival that is very close to my own heart. I’ve been involved in almost every one since its inception, even in years where I haven’t been so busy regarding theater. It’s always been a part of the calendar that allowed me to jump right back into my acting career, kind of helped keep my acting career going, and things have been quite busy in the last 12 months. And a lot of it has stemmed from this festival.”
Mellamphy, winner of two Best Actor awards at Origin’s 1st Irish, made the connection to Noone’s play through the director, David Sullivan.
“David Sullivan, who is the director, he directed a piece years ago called The Compass Rose at the festival at a venue that I actually owned at the time,” the actor said. “I owned a little Irish pub on the Upper East Side. The festival is great because it kind of promotes a lot of businesses as well, and quite often they do on-site or site-specific productions. And The Compass Rose was running with a production I was doing called The Cure, and David came to see The Cure at my bar. And we just became friends and struck up a bit of a professional relationship from there, and then when Ronán reached out to him with this particular play earlier in the year, I think they both knew that I had done one or two one-man shows before, that I had some history with the festival. And they asked me if I’d be interested in doing it, and obviously yeah. I read the script, and it’s a fantastic, fantastic play. It’s also quite relevant to a lot of what’s going on at the moment in our country here in America.”
Mellamphy defined the play as a comedy and his character of Tim Finnigan as a disillusioned writer. This “smuggler” came to the United States with a shot at being a professional writer, but a day job was necessary to keep his head above the water.
“Obviously anybody involved in the arts — if you’re a writer, if you’re an actor, director, singer, dancer, anybody involved in the arts — you usually have to have a day job, temping in an office or getting behind somebody’s bar and slinging drinks,” he said. “That’s kind of what’s happened to this particular guy. He’s settled down. He has a relationship. He has a newborn baby. It’s quite realistic in terms of what he has to do in order to survive and support his family, and he’s a sharp, witty guy. Trying to figure out the American dream can be a job in itself, and that’s the predicament he finds himself in. Eventually he has to start making decisions, not from the point of view of an immigrant anymore, but from the point of view of an American, what that all entails.”
When Mellamphy performs the piece at the cell theatre, he can look out into the audience and see a wonderful cross-section of theatergoers. Many are fans of good off-Broadway theater, while others might be Irish or Irish-Americans. No doubt some audience members fit both categories. This is one of the joys of 1st Irish.
George C. Heslin is the founding artistic director of the festival, which has been around since 2002. The annual showcase has helped usher in some important Irish voices to the New York theater scene. Mellamphy has been there to witness it all and bring life to these poetic words.
“It was kind of based on the fact that really the only big event in New York that exists for the Irish that we all get together is St. Patrick’s Day,” he said. “[Heslin’s] idea was that there are so many wonderful modern Irish playwrights who are doing great work on Broadway and in the West End of London and indeed across America and back home in Ireland, his idea was to foster a festival that would showcase a lot of great writers, and in the midst of course that would also create plenty of good work for lots of directors and actors, not solely Irish but from across the board.”
He added: “I think there’s a theatergoing public who come to support this festival, but you also get an awful lot of people who would be drawn to it who would not necessarily always be theatergoers either. You get a lot of people who are coming to see productions because they’re friends of friends, because they hear about it in the bars and restaurants around the city where they may not hear about other productions. A lot of times because the plays are from Irish writers, that kind of generates a great deal of excitement amongst Irish and Irish-American audiences, but in the years that I’ve worked on the festival, I’ve noticed a real diverse crowd. As you probably know, the off-Broadway community here in New York is very strong. There are people who come out and support off-Broadway theater the same way people come out and support the New York Yankees.”
By John Soltes / Publisher / John@HollywoodSoapbox.com
Origin’s 1st Irish festival continues with performances of The Smuggler through Jan. 21 at the cell theatre. Click here for more information and tickets.
