Go ask Alice

Alice Barry sure is taking a hell of a gamble calling her evening of theatre at Andrew’s Lane Studio Fodder! Fortunately, it’s actually an evening featuring two plays PamElla and Cat Melodeon and the latter was already a success at last year’s Dublin Fringe Theatre Festival. Meaning it’s obviously far from theatrical fodder.

Either way this production is sub-titled ‘A celebration of human oddity, resilience and love’ but PamElla sure doesn’t sound celebratory. Indeed, it’s described as “the story of a frustrated and lonely woman who embarks on an affair with her boss, hurtling them both towards an unpleasant end.” It’s author, Barry – who also performs the one woman show – also says the play “shows that the cost of a dismal childhood are all too frequently paid during the adult years.” So was that premise the genesis of PamElla?

“The root of the play is that I’m trying to get people to understand what influences a person to do certain things” she responds.”In this case it’s a mixture of this woman’s childhood and what life, in general, has thrown at her. For a start, her parents paid far more attention to her brother and, as an adult, is left with an inability to express herself artistically and emotionally. And this ill-effects her ability to form a working relationship with people. Whether that mean her brother, a friend or the affair she has with her boss. The focal point is that affair, because she really believes in it, and thinks they are going to end up happily ever after madly in love.”

Fair enough. But is it only the plight of the female that concerns Alice?

“Well, it is really only her plight I focus on, I must admit” says Alice. “Though you do end up seeing his reasons for rejecting her, as well. And, in lots of ways , the sympathy lies with him as well. And with his partner in the business.”

Cat Melodeon also deals with the “plight” of a woman, this time, an orphan, but Alice promises us it is “lighter” of heart and, ultimately, more comedic in tone.

“There is also comedy in PamElla but maybe there’s more room in Cat Melodeon to explore the comic side of such lives,” she says, adding that she’d describe both plays as “comic psycho-drama”. So, not comic drama for psychos?

“There’s a bit of that too!” Alice continues, laughing. “The difference is that Cat ends up taking her life and turning it into a positive thing. Even though her influences, too, go back to childhood. But it’s a much more Epic journey she takes, from childhood to adulthood and she manages to retain her strength and rise above it all.”

PamElla, as I say, is performed by Alice herself. She also directs the play. Cat Melodeon, on the other hand, is directed by Raymond Keane, founder and current artistic director of the renowned Barabbas theatre company. Diana O’ Keefe plays Cat and Jonathan Shankey plays all the other characters. It’s being presented by the Noggin Theatre Company.

“The actors are vital to all this,” muses Alice. “Jonathan plays eleven parts! So while he’s playing Kafka in a play at the Pavilion Theatre at the moment - Letters To Felice with three hours of dialogue! - he’s also rehearsing this one.”

Alice Barry, who directed Cat Melodeon herself last year, also admits that at the time she was “terribly hard” on her actors because she hadn’t played a “meaty role” in at least three years and “had forgotten how difficult it all is, really.” She’s referring to her role inThe Coleen Bawn at the Abbey.

As for Fodder? Well,”the one woman

show is first and that’s followed by Cat Melodeon so we hope to send people home with a sense of hope, a ray of light” says Alice.” And there are some magic moments in Cat Melodeon which, hopefully, will

also send people away with a sense of

transcendence.”

Fodder runs at Andrews’s Lane Studio October 30th-November 10th