As the debut of his latest theatre production approaches, Liam McCarthy finds himself in an unfamiliar predicament, trying to ascertain his location within the theatre on the premiere night. “Being situated in the lobby would be horrendous. Am I to take a seat among the spectators, feeling apprehensive? Often, I would be found either regulating the audio table or engaged in some behind-the-scenes activities,” he admits.
Lime Tree Theatre’s scheduling of McCarthy’s dramatisation – Jilly Morgan’s Birthday Party, a fresh take on a Chekhov short tale set in Limerick city, is uplifting news for all those involved in theatre. After spending a decade penning plays and repeatedly choosing to self-produce his scripts, McCarthy now finds himself able to invite an organisation with substantial resources to join the venture. Both gaining a venue’s interest and successfully securing the necessary financial backing have at last come together in perfect harmony.
“With regards to personnel and backing, the disparity is immense. Suddenly, the issue of engaging a photographer for the promotional poster arises. I’m no longer calling my graphic designer friend at the break of dawn to assist me in modifying a text type,” he affirms. This is a stark contrast to earlier times when he was singularly accountable for virtually every aspect, including recruitment of cast and creatives, securing a location, locating a rehearsal space, and promoting his play. Once during a visit to the Brighton Fringe festival, he was left tending to the restrooms a mere few minutes prior to the event’s commencement. (“If not me, who else?” he muses.)
McCarthy refers to some of his initial pieces as apprentice plays, typically centred around bizarre interactions amongst strangers. In A Talent for Lying (2014), a tale of two writers unfolds, one contemplating emigration from a depressed Ireland and the other deciding to stay, they cross paths in a café, sparking a fantasy of their respective futures. Fast forward to 2017, Network Diagnostics painted a picture of an evolving relationship between a couple who connect on a social network. In these plays, characters often indulge in fanciful thoughts, an element that appears to echo throughout the narrative of Jilly Morgan’s Birthday Party.
The playwright expresses gratitude for the individuals involved in his beginning works, however, he likens them to poor former relationships, ones he’d rather not recall. He admits that theatre can be odd and often involves a level of public embarrassment, leading him to muse on the ease of writing a book or a poem, which could be gently critiqued by loved ones as opposed to an unforgiving public. He takes issue with the vulnerability demanded by speaking his truth on a public stage.
The previous day, he watched in awe as another playwright calmly analysed a script, a state of tranquillity he envies, recognising his own propensity towards anxiety. He expresses the conflict between his ambition to produce a play and the self-doubt and apprehension that invariably accompany it, acknowledging the paradox.
In 2016 he was selected to take part in Fuel, a residency programme for artists at the Druid theatre, leading him to apply for financial support and schemes to improve a play’s script and possible attract a production company through organised readings. Many of these initiatives were affiliated with established theatre companies, providing openings to write with Edinburgh’s Traverse Theatre, create new content as part of Branar’s Meitheal programme and enjoy a residency at the Irish Cultural Centre in Paris.
Reflecting back, the playwright appreciates the slow journey. He mentions his one regret of being too hasty to push his works into production. His past experience taught him the importance of the back-end process, understanding the value of taking time out to write and come back with renewed perspective to conduct a week-long workshop. His plays require time to develop, a fact he didn’t recognize when he was 21 and believed he could write a play in two days and be hailed a success. He acknowledges this as a significant shift from his past perspective.
McCarthy confesses his admiration for other dramatists who have managed to craft superb and thought-provoking theatre pieces during their relative youth. He specifically praises the Royal Court Theatre of London where young playwrights like Lucy Kirkwood, Simon Stephens, Lucy Prebble and, Sarah Kane have all produced extraordinary scripts while still alarmingly young. However, he notes that youthful ambition isn’t always sufficient, expressing his disappointment at works he’s come across by young playwrights that didn’t quite hit the mark. He muses that perhaps, attempting to write about regret and serious life decisions at the age of 21 might not imbue the stirring depth it should.
In a tale by Chekhov, it is suggested that a kissed shared could be a case of mistaken identity, and McCarthy’s play does not bring much clarity to this issue.
Discussing his own work, the piece McCarthy takes the most pride in isn’t a fully completed play, but a “20-minute” segment from Alya: Falling, a dark comedy that debuted in 2015. This piece, although not perfect, was later refined and appeared in the Traverse program. Speaking on the trajectory of his career, McCarthy mentions that it hasn’t been a smooth, consistent improvement, but more akin to a chaotic rollercoaster ride.
At a certain point, he started doubting whether the plays he had written for different programmes and residences would see light of the stage. “There’s a danger of getting stuck in a cycle of improvements. Endlessly workshopping and garnering opinions can stifle the piece. There’s a point when the play simply needs to be shown,” he confides. The play he believed had the potential to break this cycle was titled Mam and Love and Woo, a family drama set against the backdrop of Limerick’s alarming suicide rate. Despite him managing to bring in a prominent director, as he half-jokingly says “I might as well have tried to get Martin Scorsese,” the Arts Council unfortunately turned down the funding application, which greatly upset him.
[Lucy Caldwell has a rather philosophical take on writing short stories – she views them as a manifestation not of thought but of its progression, a sentiment she claims to have garnered from Chekhov.]
“Shortly, he started to pen a fresh theatrical script, having received some financial backing from the local arts academy. During his exchange year at the University of California, Berkeley, McCarthy signed up for a course with Anna Muza, a specialist in Russian literature, where he stumbled upon Chekhov’s The Kiss, an enthralling short story. This tale recounts the experiences of a socially awkward soldier who feels alienated from all forms of intimacy and receives an unexpected kiss from a mysterious woman, living in the fantasy of that episode thereafter. (“When you’re attracted to someone, it’s as if you’ve gone mad,” McCarthy comments.) McCarthy and director, Joan Sheehy, conducted a script reading for Jilly Morgan’s Birthday Party which was well-received by the Lime Tree staff. To McCarthy’s astonishment, a subsequent grant proposal to the Arts Council was approved. Everything began to align perfectly.
The performance is built around an incident at a Limerick party in 1983 where a man and woman share a clandestine kiss during a blackout. In Chekhov’s tale, it is revealed that the kiss could be a product of mistake; the woman believed the soldier was someone else. This aspect remains unclear in McCarthy’s play, which delves into the complexities of romantic obsession. “We all probably have a Jilly Morgan,” McCarthy says, “Perhaps they became your soulmate, or were a fleeting infatuation. I find it a highly relatable, authentic initiation into discussing challenging male behaviours.”
The original short story spans a few months, concluding with a moment of revelation that breaks the soldier’s fantasy. Interestingly, the play unfolds over 40 years, with the main character Jack, portrayed by Pat Ryan, blind to the soldier’s revelation in Chekhov’s tale. A character named Sarah (played by Georgina Miller) appears to challenge Jack’s perspective and provides a balancing viewpoint on adult partnerships.
This hints at a more complicated reality than what is seen in imagination. McCarthy notes, “I’m aiming to show how we permit such conduct. He’s somewhat obsessive, he pursues her, and it’s just above what is acceptable. When it comes to men’s violence against women — and I am very conscious that I am a man discussing this — the threshold for police interference has to be extremely high.””
Jilly Morgan will be celebrating her birthday at Lime Tree Theatre, located in Limerick. The celebration starts from the 2nd of May, Thursday, and will run until the 11th of May, Saturday.