Her life through a Prism

Friday, January 25, 2013

Laoisha O’Callaghan has given an Irish twist to one of Wilde’s great English characters, writes Colette Sheridan

Cork-born actor Laoisha O’Callaghan, who stars as Miss Prism in a touring production of Oscar Wilde’s The Importance of Being Earnest, is playing her character as an Irish woman.

This is not based on any instructions from the playwright but is the result of O’Callaghan’s attempt to give her character a back story. And as the only Irish actor in this London Classic Theatre production, O’Callaghan is keen to put her stamp on the play, set in late Victorian England.

Director Michael Cabot spent time with O’Callaghan talking about the governess character, her origins and her history. Miss Prism is something of a contradiction, says O’Callaghan. “She seems to be very straitlaced and moralistic. But in fact, she is a woman with a past who has effectively been on the run for over 20 years. She made a dreadful mistake and is forced to confront it.”

Lady Bracknell recognises Miss Prism as the nurse-maid who, 28 years earlier, took a baby boy for a walk in a perambulator (baby carrier) and never returned. In her defence, Miss Prism explains that she absent-mindedly put the manuscript of a novel she was writing into the perambulator and put the baby in a handbag which she left behind her at Victoria Station in London.

The play’s denouement involves the actual handbag being produced by Jack, the elder son of Lady Bracknell’s late sister, proving that he is the lost baby — and that he is, after all, socially acceptable and a suitable suitor for Lady Bracknell’s daughter, Gwendolen. (It also turns out that Jack’s real name is Earnest, which causes him to say to Lady Bracknell that he realises for the first time in his life, “the vital importance of being Earnest”).

O’Callaghan, who played a prostitute, Aoife, in Fair City, reckons Miss Prism went back to Ireland when she realised her error. She sees Miss Prism as being of Anglo-Irish stock at a time when that sector of society had lost its power. “The only way she could support herself was as a governess. I don’t think she necessarily wanted to be a governess. But at the time, it was the only legitimate occupation for a middle-class woman who needed money. You get the sense that she would really rather have been writing novels. She has probably always been getting jobs as a governess and is very close to being found out but moves on to a new job.

“As well as having a past, she has a hedonistic streak. She is chasing Dr Chasuble who is a vicar. She’s desperate to marry him because, I suppose, he would give her respectability. Governesses, at the time, occupied the middle ground. They weren’t servants but they weren’t part of the family either. They were looked down on by Victorian society. It was a very lonely job. They had their charges and didn’t meet other adults.”

The Importance of Being Earnest – A Trivial Comedy for Serious People has as its themes the triviality with which society treats institutions as serious as marriage. It is a satire on Victorian ways. With its high farce and witty dialogue, it is Wilde’s best-loved play.

O’Callaghan is impressed with Cabot’s approach to the play: “He is very much of the opinion that we have to play the truth of it. We play it for real and not for laughs. Michael feels that if we believe what the characters say and care about them, then we’ll engage with their story and the humour will come with it.”

Superficial is not a word that O’Callaghan would use to describe this comedy. “There are a lot of important scenes in it where Wilde is exposing the hypocrisy of Victorian society, the nature of relationships and religious hypocrisy. He uses humour to make serious comment.

“To some extent, I think the humour is very Irish. People often talk about the play being typically English. To a large extent, the characters are typically English but there is that Irish humour underpinning it.

“It’s a social satire. It makes points about bigotry and about being judgemental. Miss Prism makes lots of religious pronouncements that don’t always make sense. Oscar Wilde was showing up religious platitudes that might mean nothing.”

In researching the play, O’Callaghan read De Profundis, Wilde’s essay on spirituality, written in Reading Gaol during his incarceration. “It’s so incredibly moving and heart-rending. I think Wilde is much more of a serious writer and thinker than people give him credit for. The witty epigrams can sometimes overshadow the serious things he has to say.

“In directing the play, Michael has grasped that. He is all about the truth in a play. He’s pretty ruthless about it and has an incredibly clear vision. When I was justifying playing Miss Prism as an Irish woman, I pointed out that Wilde was educated by governesses in Dublin and so it’s not inconceivable that Miss Prism could be influenced by them.”

O’Callaghan speaks in an English accent but says that to the ears of English people, she is regarded as having “a brogue”. A graduate of UCC, where she says spent more time acting in Dramat plays than studying, she is related to American vaudeville star, Trixie Friganza, whose real name was Delia O’Callaghan. Born in 1870, Friganza’s father’s roots were in Kiskeam in Co Cork, where O’Callaghan’s ancestors also hailed from.

“Dramat meant I got to experiment and was surrounded by like-minded people. Before I went to UCC, I was involved with the National Youth Theatre. Those experiences gave me confidence. I worked as a teacher briefly but my heart wasn’t in it.

“I started doing a post graduate degree at the Central School of Speech and Drama in London but I didn’t complete it. I began working professionally as an actress based in London. I literally boarded the plane with a straw bag that was falling apart and I hadn’t a bob. I suppose when you’re that young, you don’t realise the danger and risks of what you’re doing.”

O’Callaghan broke into fringe theatre, auditioning for everything that came her way. She says that being Irish in London was fashionable in the 1990s. The highlight of her career was playing the role of Maggie the Cat in Tennesse Williams’s Cat on a Hot Tin Roof in the West End in 2002. She played opposite American actor, Brendan Fraser.

“In the last while, I’ve been doing more telly. That isn’t by design on my part. It’s just the way things worked out. I did In Deep on BBC with Stephen Tomkinson and I was a recurring character in Doctors, again on BBC.

“I haven’t done any episodes with Fair City for a couple of years. But I haven’t been written out. I’d love to go back and play Aoife again. She’s a tart with a heart. It’s difficult to know if she’ll reappear. I’d love if she did. Who knows what will happen? She’s a very different character to Miss Prism,” says this versatile actor.

*The Importance of Being Earnest opening at the Everyman in Cork on Jan 29. For details on the Irish tour, see the company’s website www.londonclassictheatre.co.uk

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