INTERVIEW: Pat Kinevane on his latest solo creation, now playing LA’s Odyssey Theatre
Photo: King stars Pat Kinevane, who also wrote the solo play. Photo courtesy of Maurice Gunning / Provided by Lucy Pollak PR with permission.
Pat Kinevane is a theatrical treasure who has been bringing his solo shows to the United States from his native Ireland for years. His latest play is called King, which recently wrapped a successful run at 59E59 Theaters in New York City. Performances of the monologue piece are now playing at the Odyssey Theatre in Los Angeles. Ireland’s Fishamble: The New Play Company, a frequent collaborator with Kinevane, is presenting the show, which is directed by Jim Culleton.
King is essentially a theatrical exploration of isolation, and what’s amazing about the piece is that Kinevane wrote it before the COVID-19 pandemic. But admittedly it’s difficult to experience the show and not think about the virus, the masks and the lonesomeness of a life lived at home.
“It was well before COVID hit,” Kinevane said in a recent phone interview. “I was always really interested in writing something about an isolated man, particularly in Ireland. I’m sure it’s all over the world topically, but I have been noticing very much pre-COVID that there’s a lot of isolation with all of the communication that’s there and all of the iPhones and computers and stuff. The isolation is growing all the time, especially among young and middle-aged men, so I’ve always wanted to write about that. I just started to write about a year before COVID, and then during COVID, I just kept at it. It’s strange because people ask me, ‘Is it connected to it?’ It’s not at all. I’m very interested in the phenomenon, you know.”
The main character is an Elvis impersonator named Luther, so called because his grandmother was a big fan of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Kinevane calls this man “very resilient” and someone who has suffered a terrible trauma during his teenage years.
“A lot of further problems in people’s lives unfortunately are because of early trauma, so really the piece was about discovering that trauma and what really happened, particularly in school-going days,” the actor said. “It’s tough enough for young girls and young boys, but sometimes people are left traumatized for the rest of their lives by an event in those years. He came to me quickly actually [as a character], and then I was really interested in the backstory of his parents and his mother’s previous lover who really is, I suppose, the driving force behind the piece and the trauma.”
Luther is taking care of his father during the play, but he needs money to pay for his dad’s personal needs. His father is living in an assisted living facility, but they won’t pay for personal upkeep, such as haircuts, teeth hygiene and nail cutting. So Luther needs to find some extra cash to ensure his father is taken care of properly.
“Because he loves his father so much, and his father was always a very immaculate man, he decides that the only thing he can do is to sing in this karaoke club to make extra money so that his father will be looked after properly, that he’ll have his dignity,” Kinevane said. “The Elvis journey started with him when he was in love with a woman from way back called Mildred. He used to sing to her. It came out of love, and it’s for love for his father that he does the Elvis numbers. Nobody knows who he is. When he leaves the house, he leaves by taxi, and he gets dropped back by taxi. So nobody actually knows that’s him up there, and I think he likes it that way. He’s not doing it for the ego; he’s doing it for the love, you know. It’s bizarre. I know it’s bizarre. It’ just another part of his life, yeah.”
Kinevane, whose previous shows include Forgotten and Silent, has been a working actor for 35 years. He received his start at the Abbey Theatre in Dublin. At that historic venue, he was soaked (positively drenched) in the beautiful writing of Irish playwrights. The actor has always found it curious that his country, relatively small on the map, has produced such a large creative output for the theatrical stage.
“The playwright is still very, very much held in high esteem here, so I had the fortune really to work with a lot of beautiful writers,” he said. “They were older than me, and I was very much influenced by their process. And I think the backstory really is a huge part of that. I think, particularly in the exposition of a play, I’ve always felt in Ireland that it was the attention to detail that was enormous. … We like to know the backstory or are fascinated by the backstory. Maybe it’s because we’re just a petal in the ocean. We’re just a small island, and it comes from a curiosity and also a suspicion that we need to know people’s story — where they come from, why are they here, why are they in my village. Or, even if they’re in your village all your life, you want to know that you feel safe around them. It’s quite a parochial thing. In this, I think nobody outside of the house knows Luther’s backstory. They might know a bit of it, but it’s very, very discreet, whereas he knows the backstory of everybody on the street because the census woman has called to the house. And she left all the forms behind, so he knows everybody’s backstory on the street. That’s his weapon.”
By John Soltes / Publisher / John@HollywoodSoapbox.com
King, written by and starring Pat Kinevane, is currently running at the Odyssey Theatre in Los Angeles. Performances run through May 5. Click here for more information and tickets.
