Hilary Fannin and myself are stationed in the Abbey Theatre’s cafe, where work is ongoing on her radical interpretation of Maxim Gorky’s Children of the Sun. Fannin once enquired at the theatre box office about how to become an actress, despite having no professional credentials at the time. The suggestion given to her was to draft a letter to the administration. She confesses that such institutions once felt inaccessible to her.
Nowadays, Fannin is a distinguished playwright, having written an emotionally stirring memoir titled Hopscotch as well as an evocative novel, The Weight of Love. She is recognised for her warmth, wit and nuanced view of creativity and existence – an admirable trait considering the unhappiness that art imparted upon her in her early years.
Speaking about her upbringing, Fannin shares, “There was a significant discord between the lives my parents led and the lives they covetted.” Her mother gave up her pursuit of art to become a singer, while her father dreamed of being a painter, but was forced into the advertising industry during the 60s due to financial challenges. This tug-of-war between aspiration and harsh reality also impacted Fannin and her three siblings.
Tensions within the family were heightened due to her father’s infidelity and general life dissatisfaction. Fannin particularly notes the pain her mother suffered, trying to reconcile her real life with the life she had always dreamed of.
Despite his imperfections, Fannin’s father held a special place in her heart. He was an alcoholic and art was his outlet of choice. His idea of father-daughter time was taking young Fannin to the National Gallery of Ireland, but he also involved her in his extramarital affairs. “Who didn’t we see today?” he would cryptically ask. Fannin, despite everything, remains fond of her father. “Today would have been his 99th birthday,” she says. While she did her best to be the ideal child he desired, she admits to having suppressed parts of herself in his presence.
Faced with hardships of destitution, disregard and ultimately being ousted from home, the Fannin siblings grew up much “like weeds”, as an adorable aunt of theirs would frequently say. All Fannin offspring stopped attending school, except for Hilary who received her Leaving Certificate, then spent several years waitressing and in childcare occupations. Her break came when, as a classroom aide in Cork, she enrolled in a Fás programme. Proving adept in a spatial-reasoning test, she was guided towards a professional development course. This led to her creating an imaginary theatre company, aptly named Wet Paint.
Given that her mother was involved in informal theatre, Hilary found theatre to be a familiar territory. As she puts it, she desired “some recognition of her spirit”. Upon her return to Dublin, she started drama classes at the Oscar theatre school, encouraged by an advert she had read. She found the experience gratifying. Together with David Byrne, Owen Roe and Michèle Forbes, Wet Paint became a tangible reality. She found herself involved in an array of plays, relishing the experience of dissecting and rebuilding plays by authors Dermot Bolger, Michael Harding and Tom McIntyre. Nonetheless, it hadn’t crossed her mind to consider writing.
Until the point when she recalls, “I witnessed a play written by Pom Boyd sometime towards the late 1980s or early 1990s. I’ve been acquainted with Pom for a while. When you see someone who’s at the same stage of life as you are and they’ve achieved something, it makes you have faith in your own capabilities. It felt like breadcrumbs had been left in the woodlands, guiding me somewhere I needed to be. Later on, I started writing. I have a mental and physical space now, someplace to secure myself.”
Fannin’s journey into the realm of writing commenced under the mentorship of Bernard Kops, an impressive seasoned writer at City Lit, a further education institution in London. At that period, she was living with Giles Newington, her current spouse and co-author. Concurrently, she was employed as a waitress in Brixton, while also featuring in an Irish sitcom, “Upwardly Mobile”, portraying the character, Pamela.
Just prior to the arrival of her first child, Peter, she accomplished the writing of the play, “Mackerel Sky”, which was staged at the Bush Theatre. She concedes that there were reflections of her own life in the play, which resulted in her father, Bob being perplexed. He was present in London to witness the performance, albeit somewhat intoxicated. One significant character, Steph, possesses a large cardboard representation of her absent father. Upon failing to reach his hotel room, Bob slept in the corridor. The ensuing day in Dublin, he expressed his bewilderment about the play to Fannin’s brother.
There are countless accounts of artists struggling to juggle their role as a parent. Fannin’s father was a cousin of Nuala O’Faolain, who wrote down her own experiences with parental neglect in her biography, “Are you Somebody?” The recent novel by Anne Enright, “The Wren, the Wren”, tells a similar tale of a family struggling at the hands of artistic aspirations. Fannin recalls her childhood being strewn with such men. This harmful influence of male artists and their perception of ambition ending with parenthood was omnipresent. Their version of art equated to a lack of education and money which led to unaffordable losses like their house.
As she kickstarted her writing career along with starting a family, it’s understandable why Fannin feared her work might harm her children.
She came to realise that it was feasible to have both a family and a passion for art, without neglect or cruelty being a necessary result. “Hearing Marina Carr and Anne Enright expressing similar views, about how they integrate their writing into their daily lives, reassured me. I’ve always been able to write while going about my everyday life, whether it’s looking after my children or participating in my local community… My writing approach is like solving a puzzle. I don’t sit down in silence for eight consecutive hours to write. During a tough period in London, my brother, who also has two publications to his name, advised me to write for an hour each day. ‘Just one hour a day for a year will give you a total of 365 hours of writing,’ he told me.”
She dismisses Virginia Woolf’s notion of needing a room of one’s own for writing. “I have a room,” she clarifies, tapping her head, “it’s right here. I can write anywhere.”
Taking a sarcastic tone, she states, “I live in Bayside. Ivory towers don’t exist here.”
Her talent as a playwright became well-renowned and she has written numerous plays. Post ‘Mackerel Sky’, she penned ‘Sleeping Around’ alongside Mark Ravenhill, Stephen Greenhorn and Abi Morgan. Subsequently, she wrote a social commentary play called ‘Doldrum Bay’ – about two men in advertising, “a world that reminded me of my father’s life.” More recently, she began writing a personal column. “I have no inhibitions in speaking openly about any topic,” she expresses, “There is nothing that I feel the need to conceal. I made the conscious decision not to write about my children. However, writing about my past, my parents – Bob and Marie, and my brothers and sisters, sits well with me.”
By the time her childhood memoir ‘Hopscotch’ was released in 2015, her father had passed away. As her mother read the manuscript, her brother Robert was at her side, prepared to answer any queries she may have had. Nonetheless, no changes were requested, with her mother asserting, “No, this is Hilary’s story.”
Fannin explains that sharing her story was a freeing experience, suggesting that it was essential for her personal journey to figure out what transpired. She penned her book, The Weight of Love, that won the much-coveted John McGahern Book Prize. The tale, although it captures an imaginary love triangle, is grounded in personal memories. Fannin shares her memories of spaces and spots she resided in, such as flats in King’s Cross, the melody of piano from a basement flat and washing lines.
She decided to relocate her character Ruth through a sequence of specific places and to do so, she revisited London. She retraced all the routes that Ruth would have travelled as well. She spent time observing people at a café and taking notes and found this experience quite joyful.
Children of the Sun’s production symbolises the 40th anniversary of the theatre firm Rough Magic. Fannin remembers how in awe she was of the company in the 1980s and that she found them to be quite formidable. Lynne Parker, the company’s creative director at the time, initially commissioned the project as part of the Compass new writing initiative, based on Olga Taranova’s translation.
Central to Children of the Sun is a group of individuals going about their lives, blissfully unaware that the haven they are accustomed to is collapsing and that external factors are about to take control. Gorky, the author, composed this in just nine days while incarcerated in St Petersburg in 1905. Fannin substantially reworked the narrative, characters, and dialogue, and likens the process to playing with dolls and their garments.
As the numerous homework tasks continued to pile up, Fannin found herself diving deep into the world of science – specifically, time – for a key character in her play. With the help of Trinity Professor Iggy McGovern, an exceptional individual, she began developing the character’s fear, exploring the strange and terrifying concept of black holes.
Last autumn, however, an unexpected obstacle appeared. Fannin was diagnosed with not just one, but two types of cancer – ovarian cancer and lymphoma. The outlook was grim, and she was immediately confronted with the daunting prospect of dying. Following a major operation in November, which included a radical hysterectomy and a splenectomy, Fannin received promising news. Her ovarian cancer was reconsidered as a stage 1C from stage 3, thanks to the doctors catching it before it spread.
In a twist of fate, it turns out that Fannin isn’t the only one in her family battling cancer. All the Fannin siblings share this daunting health challenge. Thus, revealing a familial connection to cancer. Fannin equates this to an outward manifestation of generational trauma. Now, she’s taken up genetic testing to determine whether there’s something in their lineage passed on from her father’s side.
Notwithstanding her condition, Fannin is currently undergoing chemotherapy and remarkably, hasn’t allowed her diagnosis to hinder her work. In fact, she managed to complete the play in December, still immersed in its development amidst her treatments. Death-defying support from Rough Magic and the Abbey has been nothing less than extraordinary, according to Fannin. Struck by a sense of gratitude, she continues to focus on her work, letting her mind wander away from her illness until it’s time for her self-administered treatment each evening.
Is she emotionally dealing with this trial? “Recovery cannot begin if undergoing chemotherapy, as someone told me,” she asserts, “Hence, I believe the emotional processing has yet to start.”
Did she pen down anything about it? “I am sure in due time, I will write about my experience in some way. However, that’s not going to be immediate”, she reflects. “I had taken notes throughout. Control is the essence of writing. It allows you to command and maneuver your past, it enhances forward thinking with lucidity… It resonates with my concept of an internal room I had mentioned earlier. I self-based myself within… Thus, in the face of cancer, I have a notebook and voice notes prepared.”
Fannin asserts that the liberty to write is a benefit that should be made accessible to everyone. That’s precisely why she has an inclination towards engaging with the youth via the charity for creative writing, Fighting Words. “They are so receptive, possessing an array of gorgeous ideas.” She envisions coaching the suppressed grown-ups or refugees in larger quantities. (She shares an account she got wind of from a young medic from Syria.)
Things on Fannin’s end are quite personal. She entered college for pursuing MPhil in creative writing from the Trinity College Dublin after reaching her 50s. Even her kin started his college journey at a later stage of his life. “It took us several decades to muster up the confidence to access [that world]. When I joined Trinity at the age of 54 or 55 and saw the available opportunities, I was not only taken aback but also deeply infuriated… I had always felt out of place, believing that this world belongs to others. It shouldn’t ideally be like that.”
She detests the novels that don’t touch upon financial aspects and how people fund their expenses. She surmises that the ease of access to fund impacts who gains the chance to narrate their stories. “I have a friend who instructs widely in a creative writing programme. She voiced her concern that their class witnesses a very limited diversity. Where will the novel voices originate from?”
Fannin has another novel in progress, with her mantra being to produce work that is candid and authentic. She observes that elements of her personal life keep seeping into her fictional narratives. In her book named ‘Children of the Sun’, Fannin depicts characters who are on the brink of eviction. She recognizes a recurring theme in her work – a phrase attributed to her father, referring to her brother as a ‘wart on his palm’. Despite trying to detach herself from the emotional baggage, the phrase seems to resurface consistently in her writing, implying that it still affects her deeply.
When probed about how her bout of illness got reflected in her writing, after pondering over it, Fannin disclosed an instance from her play where Protasov, the scientist character, starts to disbelieve the existence of alternative dimensions and emphasizes the importance of cherishing the present, which is a sole soothing embrace for all our disappointments. This realization, she admits, is deeply tied to her personal experiences.
Fannin’s ‘Children of the Sun’ commences at Abbey Theatre in Dublin as a part of Rough Magic’s 40th anniversary, starting from Thursday, April 18th, with sneak peeks from Saturday, April 13th. The play will continue until Saturday, May 11th.