The sisters are doing it for themselves

Last issue we looked at the highlights of the ESB Dublin Fringe Festival but some of the productions already have a life beyond the festival, such as Tall Tales Theatre Company’s production of Susan-Lori Parks’ Pulitzer Prize winning play, Topdog/Underdog.

It opens at the Project on October 3rd where it will be staged until October 23rd. This play is also the first in a series of productions that will be staged by Tall Tales under the title Women Writing Worldwide which focuses exclusively on, you guessed it, new plays by women writing worldwide. So what compelled Deirdre Kinehan – Artistic Director of Tall Tales and co-author of Tall Tales’ Fringe Festival success Rum and Raison last year – to take on board this project?
“It’s widely accepted that there are far more Irish men writing for the stage than women and that applies all over the world so we decided we would try shift the focus to some wonderful female playwrights we’ve come across,” she replies. “Tall Tales have, traditionally, focused on female writing but this is the first time we’ve worked out a series that is designed to shift the audience focus and the theatre world’s focus onto female writings. But this was not a founding concept of Tall Tales, it is one that has just emerged.
When we started out we were all about access and about involving people who weren’t involved in theatre in our productions but one of the groups we worked with were females groups and that fed into previous productions, like a series called Womanly Whims. However, this is a conscious decision to move the whole focus wordwide. And it will consist of new plays and, in tandem with that, a series of initiatives that will bring on board women who are currently writing in Ireland.
“But it’s not exclusive, it’s not a strictly feminist take on theatre, it’s just trying to get people interested in the work of female playwrights. For example, out of 257 productions of new plays in Ireland since 2000 only 64 can be credited to female playwrights.”
That said, Deirdre is really eager to emphasise that this series will not be exclusive to women, nor will the plays necessarily focus on feminist issues. Topdog/Underdog is a case in point.
“We don’t want to exclude anyone, least of all the men who work on our productions” she explains. “For example this play is directed by Karl Shiels, a very talented male actor and director and it’s about two black American men. It’s more that we are trying to get people to look at the work of female playwrights, pure and simple. As in this play. We just thought to ourselves, ‘Who are the great, contemporary, female playwrights writing around the world?’ and one of the first names we came up with was Susan-Lori Parks who was the first Black American to win the Pulitzer Prize for drama. And she really is an exciting playwright.”
And what’s exciting about Topdog/Underdog?
“It’s hard to pin it down to one issue” Deirdre replies. “Basically it’s about two guys living in a flat in New York and they are brothers, and it’s very dark, gritty, funny. Yet it deals with their constant battle for supremacy and it all centres around a card game called the Three Card Monte. But one of the characters, Lincoln, was a shithot street hustler who had everything – the women, the money, the lot. But one of his friends got killed during a hustle so he abandoned that life and now he works in an amusement arcade as a dress-up Abraham Lincoln character.
“Now Abraham Lincoln is, of course, the American President who is associated very much with the attempt to emancipate black people and he was assassinated by a character called Booth while he was watching a play. So Lincoln whites up his face, wears a top hat and sits there in the amusement arcade and allows people to pretend to assassinate him. Isn’t that a great idea?”
It is.
“Absolutely, and because it ties in with the fact that his brother’s name is also ‘Booth’, it works on so many levels. But above all, it’s powerful writing. In the sense that it’s very hypnotic, poetic and rhythmical. Susan-Lori Parks actually plays guitar herself and is very interested in music and it shows. So we think there is no better play to kick off Women Writing Worldwide than Topdog-Underdog.”

Topdog/Underdog runs at The Project from October 3 – 23rd