Exclusive Q&A by Brad Balfour
The Irish Repertory Theatre’s latest production, “Irishtown,” straddles between the Rep’s usual fare and the more experimental and innovative works that signify Origin 1st Irish kind of theater. So inclusion in Origin’s month-long fest of all things Irish theater, was not only appropriate , but it spotlighted its freshness.
As a result of being part of 1st Irish, “Irishtown” came away with two awards and lots of attention. One of its ensemble, Kate Burton, was chosen for Best Female Actor, and Nicola Murphy Dubey wound up in a tie for Best Direction, an honor she shares with Hannah Ciesil, the director of the comedy “Breezy Point.”
As directed by Dubey, the story goes something like this: “The Irishtown Players, a celebrated Dublin-based theatre company, have started rehearsals for their new play. After the astounding success of their last production, the company is scheduled to open on Broadway, with the same visionary playwright at the helm. However, trouble arises when the actors decide she’s going too dark, too experimental, and… not Irish enough? Taking matters into their own hands, the company fights to restore the Hibernian flair.”
“Irishtown” explores the commercialization of a culture and invites audiences to experience the fragile creative process and the potential collapse of a collective.
Dubey is an Irish Director/Actress/Writer who has co-founded of On The Quays Productions, a New York based international production company. She is a graduate of The American Academy Of Dramatic Arts NY conservatory acting program, and received her MFA in Directing from The Lir, National Academy Of Dramatic Art, Trinity College Dublin.
On the heels of its debut, Dubey called from Dublin and we spoke about the process of creating a new work with actors and playwright et al.
Nicola Murphy Dubey: Though I’m based in New York, I’m here in Ireland doing rehearsals with Kwaku Fortune for the Black Wolfe Tone, which is the next Irish Rep show that I’m working on. We go into previews on the 1st of May, and then open on the 8th.
Q: Did you have this job at Irish Rep before you presented this production to them? How do those things coordinate?
Nicola Murphy Dubey: I started in the role of Director of Audience and New Play Development in 2023. We were talking about different shows that I would have recommended to Ciarán and Charlotte over those couple of years, and “Irishtown” was one of those plays.
We first did it as a reading as part of our New Works Festival in the summer of 2023, and we really liked it, We did a workshop of it in July of last year, and then, obviously, we’re in production with it now. So, it’s been about a two-year journey with us.
Q: How did you find the writer?
Nicola Murphy Dubey: I’d known of Ciara Elizabeth Smyth’s work just from being in Dublin. I had read a couple of her early plays, and thought she had a really unique and comedic voice. Ciarán and Charlotte had tasked me particularly with trying to find a comedy, because there’s a lot of dark stuff at Irish Rep. I just thought that she had a really great comedic voice. I read “Irishtown” and thought it would play really well for our audiences.
Q: It’s a question of, is there really Irish theater, or should there be Irish theater in a more serious way? Is it necessary to be Irish theater?
Nicola Murphy Dubey: You’re posing the question of what makes an Irish play? This play asks that question, but does it answer it?
Q: Should there be an Irish play? Modern Irish play.
Nicola Murphy Dubey: Irishtown is asking that question of, what is modern Ireland, and what is a play that represents modern Ireland? How do we meld that with this really rich traditional heritage and culture that we have, but also tell new stories? One of the things that I really loved about this piece, was that it’s interrogating that question of what makes an Irish play?
Is it enough to just be an Irish playwright and to not be talking about maybe any of the things we stereotypically think of when we think of an Irish play?
I think that’s interesting as we move into a new Ireland, post-Catholic Church, post-abortion referendums, marriage equality. We’re living in a different world now, and so what is it that we want to say, I guess, is kind of the question.
Q: Another thing about Irish playwrights and Ireland in the past, was dominated by men. A lot more about Ireland today is dominated by women. Certainly it’s good to have an Irish play asking the question, is there an Irish theater by an Irish woman?
Nicola Murphy Dubey: Definitely. That’s obviously something that I’m quite passionate about my work [showcasing] uplifting, underrepresented voices. I’ve worked on a lot of — really, in fact — all the plays I’ve directed at the Irish Rep, by chance, have all been by women. A lot of them have dealt with some very heavy subject matter, like a lot about sexual violence towards women, stuff like that.
One of the things I loved about this particular play was that we don’t get away from that completely. However, it’s a different way of looking at it. It’s a really funny play, and I think promoting female comedic voices is really important to me. We don’t have to, again, tell stories in the same way or repeat the same kind of narratives.
Q: Do you think that funny female voices say funny things differently, or they say different things are funny?
Nicola Murphy Dubey: I suppose a little bit of both, because it’s a different perspective on things and I think it’s important to be hearing things from that perspective as well.
Q: This obviously revolves around male versus female, but there’s also female versus female in this play. How did that informed it or change it, that there’s also a conflict between various couples of women and their sexual relations, in a way, that’s kind of showing that it isn’t only the men that are bad.
Nicola Murphy Dubey: Exactly. Another thing I love about this play is that there is a same-sex female relationship, there’s sort of a little love triangle that happens, and it just happens. It’s just part of the story, it doesn’t have to say something overtly about sexuality, about being male or female.
To your point, it’s like, it can happen to anyone, in any given circumstance. That’s also something that I love about it, is that it’s just there and just part of the story without having to hammer anything home too much.
Q: On the other hand, it also shows that there’s equal amounts of dysfunction on any front male or female, because when we realize the real story is of the guy, that turns it all on its head again.
Nicola Murphy Dubey: love that little end moment where it also humanizes a lot of the story and it brings us into a real space for a moment, but it maybe isn’t what audiences are expecting, At least I hope that’s not what audiences are expecting, so it comes as a surprise at the end.
Q: When you talked to the playwright, she gave you the script, what questions did you have of her, or did you have any?
Nicola Murphy Dubey: We were lucky because it’s a world premiere, it’s never been done anywhere before. We had Ciara with us from day one of rehearsal right up until opening, and that was with the support of Culture Ireland who helped us bring her to New York from Ireland. We had Ciara in the room with us quite a bit, for rehearsals, we did some cutting and editing as time went on.
We tried to have, ironically, like art imitates life then imitates art, we wanted to have the script locked by week two, so we did a lot of table work, script work in the first week. Of course, there’s things that come up, even in previews, that you might want to slightly change or edit, so we worked very closely from day one on this.
Q: You met with her and went over the script; were there things that you had to question then, that changed in the process, or it was all through the table reads and all?
Nicola Murphy Dubey: I think one of the things that came up as we started working on it in the room together was the style and tone that we wanted to achieve. this is obviously like a heightened comedy, but there’s also the interpersonal and the human relationship aspect that is involved in it too,
We didn’t want to lose that, so we had a lot of conversations about that and questions that I would have of Ciara that she would have also had of me. I think going into it, we were pretty on the same page about most stuff, which is important in any kind of creative endeavor, especially when it’s the first time that you’re doing something together, There’s no blueprint to work off of. It’s never been done before, which is both really exciting and also kind of terrifying, because you’re learning everything in real time.
Q: In doing this production as a world premiere, what is it like to get interviewed, which can changes your perspective even further.
Nicola Murphy Dubey: I suppose, I had no choice but to let go. I had to literally leave and start another project, but I will say that, I still read all the rehearsal reports that our stage manager sends out after every performance. I have a great assistant director who will sit in a couple of times a week when I’m not there, just to keep an eye on things. Then when I go back, I’ll probably check in every now and again. you really do have to let go, because it’s no longer really about you.
It’s about this group of actors being able to make it their own. It’s also about the audience and the relationship with the audience. Especially in a comedy, the audience is so important, because they’re the other character that you’re feeding back off of and that have to be very aware of. you don’t want to run over a line. If there is a laughter, a moment of laughter, you also don’t want to be anticipating a moment of laughter either.
I think you have to get to a place where you feel like you’ve done as much as you can do. Then you have to trust that it’s going to now be your work that will remain and it’s just going to become about the people that are coming to see it.
Q: Is it meant to feel improvisational? When you were creating or rehearsing it, were there improvisational moments or moments where you could say, okay, you could do, when that happens, you can do a gesture this way or that way. Did you have the freedom to do that?
Nicola Murphy Dubey: There were things that just happened in the room that we were like, oh, that’s great, let’s keep that and you have to be open to that as a director, because you might not have the best idea in the room. Sometimes somebody else has that idea and you have to be able to say, oh, great, let’s go with that.
There definitely were moments that we just tried things and the actors came up with something that ended up staying in the show. There has to be some… I’m a big believer that within structure there’s freedom. There has to be some kind of structure to the chaos.
Otherwise, it’s just complete and utter chaos and people have to feel comfortable within it that then they can make choices with things. I feel like we struck a good balance with that. Over time, it just continued to grow as people got more comfortable with it.
Q: With the directors and the writer and yourself, did anybody make a list of what they thought really is an Irish play or what makes a play Irish?
Nicola Murphy Dubey: The characters have their own ideas about that. There’s many different things that got brought up. There’s a whole scene where they’re brainstorming about it. You also have Schaefer’s character, who’s played by Saoirse-Monica Jackson, who has these moments of insight, then she sort of pulls back on it.
Obviously, Aisling, Brenda Meaney’s character, has her own perceptions of what it makes. I don’t know that we, as the creative team, really delved into like looking outside of that. We just wanted to play with what was in the text and see where we could go with that.
Q: I guess Kate Burton wouldn’t be, but is everybody else in the play is from Ireland or some weren’t from Ireland and grew up as Irish-Americans?
Nicola Murphy Dubey: Kevin Oliver Lynch, Saoirse Monica Jackson were the only two that were born in Ireland, that grew up in Ireland. Brenda Meaney, both of her parents are Irish. She spent a lot of time in Ireland. She’s pretty Irish. Then obviously there’s Kate. She’s Welsh-American. Angela, who plays Poppy, is American, but she’s an English character.
Q: I found that particularly funny, the idea about the English. Something came up where we were joking about English versus Irish with regard to these nuances compared to American versus either side. Do you feel that because the Irish Rep has a unique audience, they’ll get it? Or is it more something that will be revealed to them?
Nicola Murphy Dubey: I definitely think that there’s different things for different audiences, right? There’s the sort of theatre-going audience that also is part of the theater world. There’s a lot of little things there that they would really know about the rehearsal process and the interpersonal relationships that are kind of little Easter eggs for them.
There’s also the Irish side and the Irish-American side of it. There’s a lot of different layers, but my hope would be that if there’s things that people don’t know that the humor is still so that it’s still enjoyable.
One of the things that was really important to me, because another side of my job at Irish Rep is audience development, was trying to engage new theater-going audience members and younger audiences who would really find something accessible about this particular play.
Q: What was the process of casting? You had Kate right there, so you’ve been dealing with her, and then Brenda’s been around town. She’s been in the Irish Rep a few times. How about everybody else?
Nicola Murphy Dubey: We went through a casting process for it. I didn’t know Angela Reed before the casting, but she came in and blew it out of the water. She was so perfect for the part. Brenda, I do know. We’ve worked together a little bit in the past. Kevin was actually a part of the first workshop that we did last summer. He’s one of the only people that had a relationship with the play before. Then we had sent the script to Saoirse-Monica, because we were just like, “oh, wouldn’t she be perfect for the role of Siofra?”
Thankfully, she really enjoyed the script. We had a great meeting with her. And similar thing with Kate, you know, we had sent her the script, and she really responded to it. So we were really lucky that we got all the people that we wanted for the parts.
Q: How did you decide what parts were good for each of them?
Nicola Murphy Dubey: We lived with the script for a couple of years, and so we had a good idea of who these characters were and who we thought would be good for them.
Q: You thought Brenda would be the petulant one or something. She was good at petulance.
Nicola Murphy Dubey: She’s good at many things, you know. I think there’s a lot of layers to that character. She’s a great actress. The thing is, we needed people that were really great actors but also could play the lightness and really get behind the comedy of it too. That’s a huge thing.
I’ve learned that approaching comedy is actually a bit harder than drama. You really have to have a team of people that are willing to just dive in and be brave. It can be very scary not knowing if you’re going to really get perceived or hear the feedback that you want. If you do or you don’t, you have to be able to keep going and keep playing the truth of the moment.
Q: Even in a play that’s comic, you still have the straight players versus the comic voices. How did that define itself?
Nicola Murphy Dubey: In some ways, Brenda’s character, Aisling, was playing straight, as in, she’s thinking that all these people around her are insane, that they’re not understanding her play. That in and of itself is funny, when you have that pushing up against something else. That’s where the conflict is. That’s where the drama lies. That’s also where the comedy lies a lot of the time too.
Q:How did it feel for Kevin to be the lone guy in the production?
Nicola Murphy Dubey: You’d probably have to ask him to get a real honest answer about that. It’s really interesting because very often it’s the opposite. There’s a lot of plays, particularly Irish plays, and we joked about it in the script where there’s loads of men and very few women. It’s quite an interesting dynamic to have that role reversed. I think he loved being around all the women.
Q: You’re working on another play. What’s it about? Tell me more about it. This way we get a preview in advance of that one. How different is the process of working on that one with this one?
Nicola Murphy Dubey: I am currently working on “The Black Wolfe Tone” which is a one-man show written by Kwaku Fortune. That came through our transatlantic commissions program. It’s a co-production with Fishamble in Dublin. It’s different in the sense that it’s just the two of us. We’re here in the room with our stage manager.
There’s three of us working on it all together, which is quite different than having five people in a room. We’re really locked into that. We’ve also been working together on this for quite a while, for the past three years. It started as a short play and now it’s a full length piece.
It deals with a young man’s battle with mental health issues and growing up mixed race in Ireland, questioning his Irishness, society and stuff like that. It’s a really special piece. We’re very excited to have it at Irish Rep. We’re going to be in the studio. We haven’t had a show in the studio in quite a while. It’s exciting to be back in that space again.
Q: You’ll be downstairs. Is it comic or is it serious?
Nicola Murphy Dubey: I would say it’s a little bit of both. It’s not in the same realm as “Irishtown” in terms of comedy, since it deals with some darker subject matters, like all Irish plays. There’s a bit of dark comic humor in there too.
Q: The whole point of the play is that there’s a play being written based on a real event. What is the real event that influenced her? Was it an experience she had with creating a play or an experience she had that’s the same kind of narrative that’s in this play? There’s a layer upon a layer upon a layer. A playwright is writing a play, a comic play about her experience in theater. Or is it a comic play about her sexual relationship scenarios that lead to the play that’s about doing a play about a play? Does that make sense?
Nicola Murphy Dubey: It’s a response to the commodification of Irish culture and just kind of seeing the plays that have kind of been put out and also as a female playwright, the kind of things that you’re maybe sometimes expected to write versus maybe what you want to write about. You’d have to ask Ciara really to get a real succinct answer on it, but from talking to her, I think those are some of the sources of inspiration.
Q: Did you know that she wrote a play about making a play, but she also wrote a play about making a play about sexual interaction that then became a play that fell apart? There’s a certain irony to all that.
Nicola Murphy Dubey: Of course. You ask all those questions and interrogate a script at the beginning of a process. I know that we were both very interested in the aspect of modifying culture and how that’s perceived and what people assume makes a successful play.
Q: Answer the ultimate question. What’s true about it? In other words, is it about somebody’s sexual assault? Is it about a play that fell apart? Where did it come from?
Nicola Murphy Dubey: It’s exactly what I told you, that it’s about watching some plays that are being written about Irish culture.
Q: You never asked her where it first started?
Nicola Murphy Dubey: that’s where it first started — watching other plays that were being written that maybe had more of that feeling of commodifying a culture. She wanted to write something about that because it’s interesting.