O’Kane the able

March sees Deirdre O’Kane take to the stage in Druid’s production of My Brilliant Divorce, which will receive its Dublin debut in the Gaiety. Written by Geraldine Aron and helmed by renowned director Garry Hynes, the one-woman comic play sees O’Kane essaying the part of Angela, who has recently been deserted by her accountant husband for a younger woman.

According to the press release, Angela finds herself “adrift in a sea of weird sexual encounters, sneaky solicitors, phone-in counsellors, a bad case of hypochondria and the spectre of poverty.” Funnily enough, this sounds almost exactly like being a music journalist.
“Lucky you!” chuckles Deirdre, when this point is made by your correspondent.
I don’t know about that – you still have to deal with the hypochondria and the spectre of poverty.
“Well, there has to be a downside,” she reasons. “You’ve still got the sexual encounters!”
How did Deirdre become involved with the play?
“Garry sent me the script,” she explains. “She just rang me and said, ‘Have a read of it and see if you like it.’ It wouldn’t be everyday that you get the call from Garry Hynes, her being the great and mighty woman of theatre that she is. So, I was kind of excited even before I got it. And then I really, really liked it. I knew it was a piece that would suit me, and that I’d be good in it. That and the fact that Garry was going to direct it were the big draws.”
My Brilliant Divorce actually did a tour around the country last year, although its Dublin run was delayed when Deirdre became pregnant. How did she find playing the part of Angela in the stint she completed?
“Well, when Garry approached me, she said, ‘Let’s do this small first’,” replies Deirdre. “She’d done it before – she directed Dawn French in it in the West End. But that was quite a different beast. Not that it’s not funny – the play is hilarious – but there are very poignant moments in it. At the end of the day, Angela is heartbroken. Okay, she makes a funny thing of a tragic situation, but she is getting divorced, and her mother dies. She’s in the depths of despair at points, and I really wanted to hit those. I didn’t want it be ‘Look at this hilarity’ all the through; I wanted to hit those sad moments.
“So I think it’s quite a different show, and also the West End version was a very big production. There were fireworks, a big set, voiceovers and music, whereas this is really going back to the basics. I do all the voices, there’s a very simple set and there’s nothing extra. So it’s a very different show, but I think Garry really wanted to do it small first to see if we could get it right, basically. And we thought, ‘Look, if we get it right, then we’ll take it where it deserves to go.’ Or not, you know?”
How did Deirdre find working with Garry Hynes?
“She’s a bit of genius. I mean, this play is light for Garry. She loves the Long Day’s Journey kind of plays and the huge pieces of writing. This is a comedy, but at the same time, it’s very hard to get this piece right. There were small things where we decided, ‘Let’s not go for all the gimmicks, and this and that.’ There was a telephone in the bloody play that was doing my head in; there were all these endless phone calls, and we found ourselves thinking, ‘What are we going to do? Are we going to have a phone on the day?’ She ended up just making me speak into a plastic cup, and then we set them all around the stage.
“It was a tiny, simple thing, but it was a moment of genius. That’s just one example. Obviously she’s used to solving those kinds of technical problems, but I’m used to doing everything myself as a stand-up, so I was thinking, ‘That’s just a brilliant touch’. Those are the little details that set her apart.”
Given that My Brilliant Divorce is a one-woman play, performing it must be quite draining.
“It is,” agrees Deirdre. “You’re very, very intensely focused for that 90 minutes; your brain just can’t stop. Usually in a play, when somebody else is speaking you can have a moment where you kind of go off. In this, you can’t go off for a second, because you’re fucked if you do. So from that point of view, it’s an exercise in serious concentration.”
Is it hard to remember the text?
“Well, that’s just your job,” responds Deirdre. “I guess when you’re learning it, every now and again you might use word association. And certainly the direction you’re moving in can help. I really did a lot of learning before I got into the rehearsal room, because I knew that I just wouldn’t have enough time to learn it. But once I had actions – things to pick up, places to walk, lights to switch on – they place episodes.”
Though Deirdre spent several years as a stand-up comic, she is now busy working as an actress and has no plans to venture back out on her own as a solo performer. Did she just get tired of the relentless grind of stand-up performance?
“I just don’t think I want it enough,” considers Deirdre. “If you want to do stand-up very well, your commitment has to be huge. And I did give it my all, but now I really want to act again and do other things. It’s too distracting – if you want to do a stand-up show, you have to write it, and kind of produce it, and do the press and get out there on your own. Fuck it, I just want to work with people again. I’m sick of my own company!”

Druid’s production of My Brilliant Divorce by Geraldine Aron runs at The Gaiety Theatre (March 9-14) and at The Ramor Theatre Cavan (March 6-7). See www.druid.ie