Unravelling Emotion

By Marie Madden
Galway Independent
July 24, 2013

http://galwayindependent.com/20130724/setlist/unravelling-emotion-S21615.html



The treatment of the women of the Magdalene Laundries is a subject that continues to grip and horrify the nation, but one of the first true insights into the lives of the survivors was written by a Galway woman and revealed to the nation in 1992.

‘Eclipsed’ by Patricia Burke Brogan tells the story of a young novice nun who is set to work in a Magdalene Laundry and is hugely troubled by her experiences. It draws on Ms Burke Brogan’s true-life experiences and aims to show the day-to-day reality of life for those interned in these religious prisons.

When first performed by Punchbag Theatre in 1992, the play drew scorn and abuse on the writer, with Ms Burke Brogan once telling me that someone had cut her picture out of the paper and drawn horns and different symbols on it before sending it to her home.

“I got up one morning and this had been thrown in the door, which was very upsetting and hard to handle. People thought I was being anti-Church but I wasn’t. Everyone blamed the sisters, but the State did nothing to intervene.”

The controversial play has since seen many incarnations and become a cornerstone of the country’s historical record of the infamous Magdalene Laundries. Now, in the wake of a redress scheme being put in place to formally compensate those that were imprisoned, Mephisto Theatre Company is to bring the play to life once more with a run at the Town Hall Theatre this August.

The new production will be directed by Niall Cleary, who first came upon the play after picking up a copy ten years ago in Charlie Byrne’s Bookshop. He says that the enduring impact of the writing is what lead him to tackle the project, adding that he feels a “huge sense of responsibility” towards those directly affected.

“The characters in the play are fictional but you are representing the lives of people who have been through the Magdalene system and you want to get it right,” he says.

“You’re representing the women’s story; you have the young nun in there who is conflicted and the Mother Superior, who is absolutely supporting the system, so you have to get all those points of view across. It’s easy to let your anger run in a direction but then you are not remaining truthful to the play that was written because it has all the viewpoints in there. It’s definitely a challenge but responsibility is the overwhelming emotion for me at the moment.”

Cleary reveals that Ms Burke Brogan has been heavily involved in the initial stages of the production and he feels that this input has added an extra dimension to the production. He continues to add that he and the cast have been greatly inspired by the enduring effect that her experiences have had on her life and her continuing relationships with Magdalene survivors.

While he acknowledges that there is an expectation that the play will be “very heavy going”, Cleary says that ‘Eclipsed’ manages to address the central issues of the play, while still infusing some humour. He explains that rather than being all “doom and gloom”, the play aims to focus “not just on the religious or political, you are locked into the lives of the women and they can be complex and colourful”.

“It is looking back on a really recent, horrible chapter but what attracted me to the play, and what the audience will gain from it too, is the strength of the women, their endurance and fight, and their absolute instinct for survival and to see their children again,” he says.

“There’s some really harrowing stuff in there but there’s lots of laughter too. It’s a very theatrical play; it changes location and it changes mood and while the women are locked up under this Catholic oppressive regime, the soundtrack in their heads is Elvis Presley and rock and roll. There is this conflict going on and these two worlds shifting together. It’s a play that takes you different places over the course of an evening.”

Mr Cleary adds that his hope for the production is that it provides context for the current debate on the Magdalene Laundries, as well as tackling the mindset of the time and questioning the motivation behind the laundries.

“The arguments for both sides are laid out very clearly in the text so what we are looking at is ‘how did it happen?’ and ‘why did society think it was right to put these women in a laundry’. We have to hear those reasons and argue them and debate them,” he says.

“You can read the facts and look at things historically and politically but it is finding the people in the stories, unravelling that emotion. I think when you sit in a theatre and you see a show, you see yourself up there. Sometimes when you read articles about the Magdalenes or any other event, you don’t put yourself in the picture; I think theatre brings it to a human level. How would I act in that situation? How would I feel if this was happening to me?”

Mephisto Theatre Company brings ‘Eclipsed’ to the Town Hall Theatre from Wednesday 21 to Saturday 31 August. Tickets, priced at ˆ18/ˆ15, are available from www.tht.ie or by calling 091-569777.