INTERVIEW: Tom Moran is ready to come clean, and he’s invited you to watch
Photo: Tom Moran brings his one-person show to New York City, April 15-20. Photo courtesy of Ste Murray / Provided by Origin 1st Irish festival with permission.
It’s confessional time for Tom Moran, an actor and comedian who is finally telling the truth about some lies that he’s shared in life. His poignant look at childhood, adulthood and the connections between the two began as a novel in development during the COVID-19 pandemic and quickly morphed into a one-person show, which was presented at Dublin Fringe. Now that theatrical experience is heading to New York City as part of Origin’s 1st Irish Theatre Festival, with Dublin’s Abbey Theatre attached as a co-presenter. Performances of Tom Moran Is a Big Fat Filthy Disgusting Liar take place April 15-20 at the Irish Repertory Theatre’s W. Scott McLucas Studio Theatre in Manhattan.
“It’s a legitimate dream come true,” Moran said in a phone interview. “I have a kind of funny history with New York, too, insofar as when I first came out of drama school, I was actually cast in a show that was due to go to Broadway, a big, proper Broadway musical. It was called Bloody Irish. It was amazing, like my big break, and about three weeks before we were due to go, contracts had been signed and everything, it got canceled and broke my heart, along with the rest of the cast and crew. So this feels like a redemptive moment to get to bring my own show off-Broadway, so, yeah, it’s such a buzz.”
Moran, who won the Fishamble New Writing Award for this piece, describes his show as “very honest,” which is somewhat ironic given that the title of the piece calls the actor a liar. He intends to essentially tell the truth about lying, and along the way, he’ll make the audience laugh and cry.
“It’s a standup comedy show aesthetically, but it becomes something else,” he said. “It’s very much that tradition of Irish storytelling, a lot of humor, a lot of heart, a very contemporary story. Basically it’s about a crazy lie that I told as a child that spiraled totally out of control that led to some pretty terrible consequences, and really it’s a story about a boy who lies, who grows into a man who still lies, who eventually wants to stop lying.”
The reason Moran lied as a child and continued to lie as an adult is because he’s a people-pleaser, which he hopes is a quality that proves relatable to the audience at the Irish Rep. He believes that people-pleasing comes from a place of shame, of not trusting others, of an inherent guilt that is difficult to decipher.
“Certainly in my case, it was really about wanting everybody to like me to a really extreme level, but not necessarily trusting the truth to do that, and that being a real tension for me,” Moran said. “And I suppose that’s ultimately what my life journey and the journey of the show is, to get into a place where you trust yourself, you trust the truth, to not have to lie and pretend and people-please and do all those things. I think my story is a pretty extreme journey to get there, so, yeah, full of lots of laughs and an awful lot of emotion. But I think that’s what it comes down to for me.”
The actor has attempted to better understand the issues that are brought up in the piece, and he shares his findings during the work. He talks about self-worth and how he often defined himself through the eyes of other people. These feelings started in childhood when certain realities were coming into fous, and he didn’t know how to process them.
“As you grow into an adult, [these feelings] can get complicated,” he said. “In terms of romantic relationships, alcohol, sex, work, all these kind of things, the stakes get a lot higher, and that’s kind of the structure that the show takes I suppose. It started in my childhood. It grows up into my 20s, and ultimately the final act of the play is about going back to your childhood in order to rightsize and fix some of those tendencies that we learned from childhood that no longer serve us in our adulthood.”
Moran started writing the piece as a novel during lockdown. He had a lot of extra time on his hands because theaters were shut down, so he began putting pen to paper and drafting some essays. When theaters began to reopen, he realized the story needed a live audience, and he wanted a connection that can only be found on a stage.
“As theaters started to open up, I kind of looked at the book, and I was like, I think there’s a play, if not a couple of plays, in here,” Moran said. “And so in pulling out some of the stories, I found this real through-line, which was ultimately about that shame, that people-pleasing, that idea of going back to your childhood in order to save your adulthood. It really jumped out, and so sometimes people ask me how long the play took, and the answer is probably two years and then also three months. There was about two years of writing done, and then when I decided actually it was a play, it came together quite quickly because there was a deadline, and we were going to premiere at the Dublin Fringe.”
Moran added: “One of the really interesting parts of the journey was I hadn’t really told my parents or my family a lot of these stories because they were lies, and as the title might suggest, I’m a pretty good liar. So there was a process of having to come clean to my family about some of these secrets, these lies that I told, some as a child, some as an adult, and tell the truth ultimately. It was a really fascinating thing insofar as that process of speaking to my parents about the making of the play then made its way into the play, so it was an incredibly live and urgent piece in that it was rewritten right up until the last minute. And still to this day, two and a half years on from its debut, I still like to give it a little rewrite every time just to make sure that it’s fully up to the minute and as honest as I can make it.”
By John Soltes / Publisher / John@HollywoodSoapbox.com
Tom Moran Is a Big Fat Filthy Disgusting Liar, written and performed by Moran, plays April 15-20 as part of Origin’s 1st Irish Theatre Festival in New York City. Performances take place at the Irish Repertory Theatre’s W. Scott McLucas Studio Theatre. Click here for more information and tickets.
