Sex & drugs & writing plays

It’s summer. And even those of us who adore theatre sometimes stop and think do we really want to go into a dark auditorium on a warm, bright evening? Joe Pernhall accepts this fact. But he has no problem whatsoever suggesting that readers of hotpress, in particular, just might say “yes” to that question when it comes to his play Love and Understanding, which gets its Irish premiere in Dublin’s Project Theatre on June 18th. At least, he hopes “young audiences” will go to the play because “they, primarily, are the people who have really gotten what it’s all about.” So what is it all about? Friendship, betrayal and substance abuse, basically. And it’s partly based in his own experience.

“This play is the kind of thing you don’t see that often in theatre” he claims. “In the sense that its about ordinary people doing what ordinary people do these days. Travelling, drinking, shagging, seeing friends and occasionally taking some pretty strange drugs. This character, Richie, goes off to see the world, back-packing. Drifts around nebulously and comes back with a morphine habit and a taste for Ketamine, which is a heavy tranquilliser. It superseded Ecstasy, in the clubs, so kids started taking it but what it’s actually used for is to subdue people having epileptic fits. It’s a very dangerous drug. So when he comes back from his travel he goes to stay with his best and oldest friend who happens to be an anaesthetist and who can get his this drug and other drugs, readily.”

Did Joe ever try Ketamine?

“No. A friend of mine did and he swore by it, but, y’know, drug takers tend to be liars. But the play came about because this friend of mine was doing Ketamine and this other friend of mine was an anaesthetist. And the two met and one wanted the drugs off the other, though, of course, he didn’t get them for him. But we were all kids together and it was, in parts, very funny and horrifying. That was about five years ago, in London. That was the genesis of one idea in the play. The genesis of another idea, is that the play is about a love affair. This anaesthetist and his girlfriend have a good relationship, until this guy turns up and blows it all wide open. He makes his life look dangerous and sexy, travelling all round the world, and lies about being a bit of a writer and a journalist. So, to answer your original question, as to why young people might like it, the play deals with a very modern dilemma. As in, is my life boring? Should I go off to Ibiza, South America, Thailand, throw away the career or stay here with the girlfriend, do Law, Accountancy or work in a shop.”

And, yes, at 33, these questions did once concern Joe Pernhall himself. He choose to travel the globe, work as a journalist, covering rock music then crime and – like the character in his play – used these lines to impress and chat up people. Tellingly, however, not many theatre companies were impressed when he first did the rounds with Love and Understanding about five years ago. And though Pernhall won an Olivier award for his most recent play, Blue Orange, he still cites this work as one of his favourite plays.

“Love And Understanding was overlooked for all those mainstream awards. It was performed off-Broadway, off the West End in London but that has its own prestige” he explains. “The whole appeal of the play is going into a little theatre, with about 60 or 80 people and looking at, ten or fifteen feet away, three young people having this extraordinary hour and 45 minutes right before your eyes. Which involves drink, drugs, nudity, smoking in bed, philosophy. But it’s not the kind of play that’s going to win major awards. Yet that’s part of what I love about it. It’s become a major success all over the world and largely because the audiences – mostly, as I say, young people – have made it such a great success. So it must have something that reflects truthfully on the lives of kids in the ’90s, or whenever.”

Better still, Joe Pernhall believes that the Purple Heart theatre company, set up only three years ago, to stage Irish premiers of contemporary international plays, “are the perfect company to stage this work.” Why?

“They did my other play, Some Voices, and I’ve seen dozens of productions of all my plays and the best have been by the Royal Court in London and by Purple Heart. They just get the work so right. And John O’ Brien is a genius as a director. And I’m going to try and get him work in London because his work deserves to be seen far farther afield than in Ireland.”