2012 Tag Archive

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November 15, 2012 • devious theatre

De Tempst

Or The Tempest if you like proper spelling and grammar. I’m very lucky and delighted to be making another directing contribution to this years TEXT | Messages in Project Arts Centre. This time I’ll be directing, yup, The Tempest.

TEXT | Messages is a brilliant project that gives directors a chance to take 160 lines of Shakespeare and do whatever you want with them. But the rub is, the lines must be consecutive and there’s no editing. So you need to roll up your sleeves and get nice and inventive! I’ve joined up with my muckers Stephen Colfer, John Doran and Eddie Murphy to come up with the goods on this one and we’ve put together a really nice tale of two drunken bog monsters who get kicked out of a Dublin nightclub and end up getting involved with a scheming native homeless man. So same text, different story. From our Dreamstuff days (which took its name from The Tempest funnily enough) to Devious Theatre’s Shakespeare In Bits battle rap in 2009, myself and the fellows have done an awful lot of Shakespeare tinkering over the years so it’s great to work with them on something new. Like last years version of Pyramus and Thisbe from A Midsummer Night’s Dream, we’ve come up with a similarly twisted take on The Tempest. And of course, we’re playing it for laughs.

We are only on for one night only… TONIGHT! So if you fancy it, you’ll get three ‘messages’ for the princely sum of €5. There are also two other nights, as lovingly curated and produced by Aoife Spillane-Hinks, Conor Hanratty and Megan Riordan so plenty of choice all round! Kick off is 8.15pm in Project Arts Centre and you can get more booking details here!

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May 26, 2012 • devious theatre

Sever The Head Or Destroy The Brain

It’s all kicking off for Devious Theatre’s production of Night Of The Living Dead.

After launching the production with a character poster for Babs back in February, we’ve just released the second poster. This time it’s Tom and Judy, the teenage lovebirds of the original movie. Played by Kevin Mooney and Aoibhín Murphy, our version of the characters have a lot more attitude. They’re also very Irish. Which explains the hurl. It was very hard to write an Irish zombie movie and not use a hurl as a weapon. It’s also a pretty handy way to sever a head or destroy a brain, which as the movie tells us, is the only way to kill one of the living dead. So yeah, there’s going to be a lot of that going on.

There’s also going to be a lot more character posters. Four more to be exact. Yup, we always do overkill on the posters but if there’s anything this play requires, it’s overkill. The concept for this poster was based on imagery from Badlands, Heathers and Natural Born Killers. Essentially, iconic movies about young attractive killer couples. It definitely makes an eye grabbing poster. I just hope we’ll be allowed put it up in public!

Night Of The Living Dead runs from July 24th – 28th in The Watergate Theatre, Kilkenny.

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April 10, 2012 • devious theatre

They’re Coming To Get You Barbara!

We’ve just launched the first teaser trailer for the upcoming Devious Theatre production of Night Of The Living Dead.

It sets out the stall for our version of the story which is coming from an Irish perspective in 2012. A really bad crisis happens and it gets worse and worse and people have to flee the country and it doesn’t look too rosy for the ones who are left behind. Sound familiar, right? We’re doing dear ol’ Uncle George proud and going straight for the socio political themes that made his original movie so vital. It’s probably safe to say that the characters will swear loads and drink tea too.

The trailer also provides a look at Connie Walsh playing the part of beleaguered teen heroine Barbara. The most iconic line from the original movie gets an airing here with Stephen Colfer uttering ‘They’re coming to get you Barbara!’ He’ll be playing the part of Barbara’s brother Johnny in this production.

We’ve also launched Night Of The Living Dead.ie just for the show and all its general production chronicing so check that one out if you’re inclined to keep up with our zombie struggles.

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February 14, 2012 • devious theatre, night of the living dead

Oíche Of The Living Dead

The next Devious Theatre production is going to be the Irish stage premiere of Night Of The Living Dead.

Yup, it’s set in present day Ireland. Nope, it’s not a musical.

Also, there’s not much Gaeilge in there… but we’ve a few fluent speakers in the cast so we may well try something out. The title of this blog is me combining the title and being Irish into one absolutely non catchy sentence.

Those are the answers to the main questions we’ve been asked since we launched the play in The Watergate Theatre on Saturday night. People have been really positive about it and have asked many probing questions about how we’re going to pull off a show with such a big cast and the logistical problems of a bloody, undead siege. We give that quiet, confident look that’s a good cover for the sheer terror you feel inside. Sheer terror aside we’re really excited about it and I think it’s going to be a great show.

Angela, Ken, meself and Dave: wine drunk.

Speaking of the sheer terror you feel inside, that’s what Night Of The Living Dead is all about. It’s been on the boil for Devious Theatre for a couple of years now. We had an eye on it as a modern Irish political allegory but always had that slight worry that if we did what is ostensibly a B movie in a modern Irish setting it would just seem kinda cheap and hokey (it still might). Then back in the year of 2009 we saw Conor McPherson’s version of The Birds, which showed us exactly how you nail a classic 1960’s horror in a modern Irish milieu. We were inspired. We were confident that we could make our Night Of The Living Dead just as relevant, tense, claustrophobic and bird free. Then last year during In The Future When All’s Well, we pulled the trigger on it and it went into active development around the time we finished Scratcher.

It ticks a lot of boxes for us. It’s got the arse on seats name value that’s really important right now and also allows us to explore relevant Irish themes that interest us. With this play we’re focusing on emigration, the destruction of the family unit and fear of government with a tag line that’s straight from the mouth of our beloved leader (“You are not responsible for this crisis”). Like the original, it tells the story of a group of strangers holed up in a house after the dead begin to reanimate and attack the living. In our version, it’s set on a ghost estate in the south-east of Ireland in 2012 as opposed to a rural farmhouse in 1968 Pennsylvania. We’re confident it’s going to be fresh, relevant and still be faithful to what George Romero and his collaborators cooked up in the late 60’s.

Of course, the zombie genre has been absolutely done to death (no pun intended) but in Ireland and on the stage, we’re confident that there’s a lot of fresh meat (pun intended, yeah. Sorry). I’ve been writing it with Connie Walsh since mid 2011 and I think we’ve done a nice take on the Romero story so far. Connie’s an extremely talented writer not to mention actess, as anyone who saw her in Shifting would attest. She’ll also be playing the part of Babs, of “They’re coming to get you Barbara” fame, for her trouble. You can read about our take on the character here. Here she is in Babs mode for the first of what will be a series of character based posters from Ross Costigan and Ken McGuire. Plenty more where that came from in the next few months.

The play will be running from July 24th – 28th in The Watergate Theatre, Kilkenny. We’re mad to take it to other counties but unless people give us money or physically harass their local theatres, we’re starting off simple with it for now. I’ll be posting about it here, but for most content, keep an eye on devioustheatre.com

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