Belfast Girls in Portland OR (and Pittsburgh, too!)

I’ve just come back from Portland, Oregon, having spent some time with theatre director Gemma Whelan and her fantastic Corrib Theatre Company. The company is currently staging my play Belfast Girls. It opened on November 17^th and closes on December 10^th.

I really enjoyed my time in Portland. It’s a small city, easy to navigate (I mostly walked) and full of interesting bookshops, cafes, bars and shops. It seemed to me to be a blend of Vancouver to the North and San Francisco to the South – though it very much has its own identity; “Keep Portland weird” is a mantra of this Pacific Northwest metropolis. It feels very “East Coast” and while I was there autumn was still in full swing, substantiating the claim that unlike other West Coast cities Portland has four seasons (the summers can be very hot). The tree-lined streets in the South East district were particularly beautiful; here red maples abound and houses and trees seem to live harmoniously side by side. (Where I live, neighbours have been known to take axes to trees much further from their houses than these tall beauties of SE Portland!) I spent many hours in the smaller Powell’s Bookstore on Hawthorne Boulevard, mostly reading the poetry from local small presses - and perused frequently in the area’s numerous vintage stores. It’s a city I could easily live in.

Back to the play. With Belfast Girls, Corrib have created a stunning production, one with the highest production values. Set, lighting, costume and music are all outstanding in this show. The cast is also wonderful. Shaking the Tree Theatre is an interesting space - in a warehouse in a formerly industrial area of the city and I very much liked the edgy, "laboratory" vibe. The reviews have been deservedly magnificent and here’s a brief summary of these so far.  Just to add – there was also a brief run of Belfast Girls in October, in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, staged by Ghostlight Theatre Company. This production also received a great response, some reviews from this also below. Photos by Adam Liberman.

PRESS LINKS – BELFAST GIRLS

PREVIEWS

BroadwayWorld.com
by staff
10/25/17

https://www.broadwayworld.com/portland/article/BELFAST-GIRLS-Begins-117-at-Corrib-Theatre-20171025

ArtsWatch – Drama Watch Weekly
by A.L. Adams
11/15/17

http://www.orartswatch.org/dramawatch-weekly-everyone-and-your-mother/

OregonLive.com
by Amy Wang
11/16/17
(BELFAST GIRLS is the weekend pick!)

http://www.oregonlive.com/art/index.ssf/2017/11/st_lawrence_string_quartet_belfast_girls.html

BroadwayWorld.com
Staff
11/17/17
(photos)

http://www.broadwayworld.com/portland/article/Photo-Flash-Historical-Drama-BELFAST-GIRLS-Makes-West-Coast-Premiere-20171119

REVIEWS

Dennis Sparks Sparks Reviews
by Dennis Sparks
11/20/17

https://dennissparksreviews.blogspot.com/2017/11/belfast-girlscorrib-theatrese-portland.html

“McCarrick has written a powerful play of the endurance of the human spirit.” 

“Whelan has beautifully balanced the wide stage…”

“…the whole cast is first-rate, one of the best ensembles I’ve seen!”

BroadwayWorld.com
by Krista Garver
11/21/17

https://www.broadwayworld.com/portland/article/BWW-Review-Corrib-Theatres-BELFAST-GIRLS-is-Full-of-Fascinating-History-Could-Use-More-Emotion-20171121

“It's a fascinating history - one I hadn't heard before - and McCarrick's script does an excellent job of bringing the women's stories to life.”

“One crew member who provides an unexpected dose of emotion is Anthony Arnista, the lighting designer. I'm often guilty of not noticing the effects of lighting on my experience of the play. But the lighting here is beautiful, especially the scenes in which it's used to evoke the passage of time. Arnista's work, combined with Sharath Patel's sound design, often made me feel sad and a little homesick, just like the women on the boat.”

“If you like plays that use individual lives to illuminate a piece of history, you'll like this one.”

Judy Nedry Reviews
by Judy Nedry
11/21/17

http://www.judynedry.com/belfast-girls/ 

“I found this play fascinating…”

“Fantastic... abounds with growth and hope and spirit in the face of adversity.” 

“…the story abounds with growth and hope and spirit in the face of adversity.”

“…the story of “the other” in our midst, and how society responds to someone who doesn’t fit the expected mold. It’s a story of how cruel governments, religions, societies, and individuals can be to their fellow human beings.”

ArtsWatch
by DeAnn Welker
11/23/17

http://www.orartswatch.org/belfast-girls-its-about-time/

“Corrib Theatre's resonant staging of a play about women escaping the Irish Famine rings true amid today's sea change of women's rights.”

“…these five fiery female characters – are particularly prescient today, amid a sea change in women’s rights, particularly the right to be free of sexual abuse, assault, and harassment. But we all also know that time can’t come soon enough.”

“Corrib Artistic Director Gemma Whelan’s direction is deft… every actor carries her weight and rises to the occasion – and Whelan has assembled a cast fully capable of doing that and more.”

“Anthony Arnista’s lighting work is marvelous throughout, setting the tone and moving things along between and during scenes…”

“…this fine production of a particularly resonant story about women trying to overcome their stations in life – and ultimately finding that the hope lies in the journey more than the destination, partly because there aren’t the same problems on a ship full of women that there are in the world filled with men.”

"Anya Pearson brings a fierce strength to Judith that helps audiences believe these other strong women would look to her as an adviser. Dwyer is funny as Ellen, but also brings a depth and compassion that this character and others will need before the play is through. Edelson plays the outcast country girl with anger simmering from beneath the surface, important to set up her eventually lashing-out at her dorm mates. Groben brings a sweet innocence to Molly that you will root for and believe in, just as Judith does. And Olsson almost steals the show as Hannah, whose grief is never raw but always inside, just out of sight, where she more readily admits to lust or hides behind her quick wit."

EDGE Media Network
by Meg Currell
11/27/17

http://www.edgemedianetwork.com/251166

“Jaki McCarrick plumbs diverse human frailty with her five women in the crucible of small quarters. The five each come to the ship from different paths; workhouses, poorhouses, fleeing horrors of the famine. All hope what they find at the end of the three months at sea is better than what they left.”

“As usual, women bear the brunt of the brutality of famine and economic strife. "We (women) are as the peat: to be used up and walked on." Hannah (Summer Olsson) and Jane (Hannah Edelson) bicker as siblings scrabbling over petty morsels, a duo that starts in lighthearted banter. "She never said no to an urge in her life," says one to the other. "Your mouth could fit a whale in it!" These two trade some of the brightest lines in the play, underpinned by a vicious anger that multiplies as the strain of the journey destroys camaraderie, leaving claws and teeth.”

“A study in human behavior like "Lord of the Flies," "Belfast Girls" trains a magnifying glass on women's history, using the additional lens of Irish diaspora.”

“The strength of this play is in the lyrical writing, supported by convincing accents among actors whose confidence grew as the show went on. At its apex, the story is marvelously dispatched, its themes of self-determination and futility wrestling to mutual destruction.”

Review for the PITTSBURGH run of Belfast Girls

"A terrific ensemble of five young women carries this charming, funny, dark, and thoughtful two-act play by Jaki McCarrick, one of Ireland’s literary stars. Historically, the five represent some 4,000 young women who were shipped to Australia to provide wives to the predominantly male population there. The formal program was designed to reduce the workhouse populations and provide escape from the devastation of Ireland’s four-year potato famine (1845-49). The solution of shipping young women out conjures Ebenezer Scrooge’s suggestion that those who would avoid the workhouse might simply die to decrease the surplus population."

http://www.pghintheround.com/belfast-girls/