Well, last night's reading of LEOPOLDVILLE in Belfast went very well indeed. It took place in a really beautiful building on Malone Road, Blick Studios, home to several art and graphic design companies. In the ground-floor room, in which we held the reading, an exhibition of the work of up and coming artist, Brian Mullan, was in situ. Mullan's work recalls the surreal cottages and landscapes of Markey Robinson - and is really great. In fact I recommend you get buying his work now before he hits the big-time. I'm saving my pennies already. So - for the reading - we had all this magnificent art on the walls before we'd even started.
The Belfast cast were, naturally, very different to the London cast. Richard Lavery, the director, made some excellent choices I think. James McAnespy played a really very unnerving and psychotic Devlin, but he gave him a tenderness also - which only added to the complexity of that character. Ryan Crown was absolutely brilliant as Joe, the off-the-rails brother of Mikey - who was played with enormous skill and subtlety by Shaun Blaney. Cormac Brown's Mansfield was pitch-perfect I thought; just the right amount of deep intelligence mixed with a weak will. Cormac really nailed that part I thought. Fra Gunn - a little young for Prentice - still brought a great humour and joviality to the part. David Bell was excellent as Gascy and I'm only sorry that I didn't have more for him to do. I see Gascy as quite a physical presence in the play - so in a reading he has less to do. Stage instructions were read with the right balance of detachment and involvement - by Chloe Smith.
I was truly knocked out by the talent of this group and it augurs very well for the future of Theatre in Northern Ireland that such young talent is sticking around and able to find work. The audience was small but responded very well to this challenging play. Accidental Theatre have several more play readings of new work coming up - all at Blick Studios. Check them out at:
www.accidentaltheatre.co.uk
The Belfast cast were, naturally, very different to the London cast. Richard Lavery, the director, made some excellent choices I think. James McAnespy played a really very unnerving and psychotic Devlin, but he gave him a tenderness also - which only added to the complexity of that character. Ryan Crown was absolutely brilliant as Joe, the off-the-rails brother of Mikey - who was played with enormous skill and subtlety by Shaun Blaney. Cormac Brown's Mansfield was pitch-perfect I thought; just the right amount of deep intelligence mixed with a weak will. Cormac really nailed that part I thought. Fra Gunn - a little young for Prentice - still brought a great humour and joviality to the part. David Bell was excellent as Gascy and I'm only sorry that I didn't have more for him to do. I see Gascy as quite a physical presence in the play - so in a reading he has less to do. Stage instructions were read with the right balance of detachment and involvement - by Chloe Smith.
I was truly knocked out by the talent of this group and it augurs very well for the future of Theatre in Northern Ireland that such young talent is sticking around and able to find work. The audience was small but responded very well to this challenging play. Accidental Theatre have several more play readings of new work coming up - all at Blick Studios. Check them out at:
www.accidentaltheatre.co.uk
Comments
Post a Comment