Drug users find their future in the theatre
It’s the follow-up to their acclaimed 2012 show, The Last Ten Years.
Staging events from the Dublin lockout of 1913, A Hundred Years Ago features songs and ballads, and brings to life the Dublin spirit of that time. “It’s a mix of vaudeville and burlesque,” says Michael Egan, drama co-ordinator at RADE. “It’s bawdy and fun. While we depict the drudgery of life in the tenements, we also try to capture the humour that people in the city have always turned to.”
RADE's 'A Hundred Years Ago' opens tonight.The food kitchens, proselytizers and Monto girls...Main Space | 7.30pm | €10/8
— Smock Alley Theatre (@smockalley) September 3, 2013
New lyrics are applied to old melodies like ‘Mrs McGrath’ and ‘Foggy Dew’. “Artist Malcolm MacClancy did workshops with the group, discussing the issues and events of the lockout,” says Egan. “He took down lines from the general conversation, and then, later, fashioned songs from it. So, among the group there’s a great sense of ownership of the songs.”
Working on the play has also forged a sense of place in the participants, who can look to their own backgrounds for a personal history of the lockout.
“You start digging around and you find out that someone’s grandfather worked at Guinness’s, or someone’s granny worked in Jacobs’ factory,” says Egan. “And some of the group might never have heard who Jim Larkin was, because most of our participants are very early school-leavers. So when they find out that they even have a link to it, they realise they have an investment in this city. And that’s not a platitude. It’s something that they actually know. And that’s what citizenship is, as well. It is an ownership of the streets around you.”
RADE emerged from a project that Egan, a professional theatre-maker, undertook with drug users at the Merchants Quay Project in the 1990s, and it has been running for a decade, in the Liberties. Each year, Egan and the new participants identify a theme, then immerse themselves in learning and in creative workshops. Each day begins with tai chi. “That’s our base,” says Egan. “It tunes us in and calms us down.” The creative work that follows is about people finding their voice.
“We develop a humongous amount of writing,” says Egan. “Some of it might have very weak spelling, but we don’t get into that. We’re not interested in the rights and wrongs of composition. It’s the voice. You do start hearing a really authentic voice, and, year-in, year-out, I find each voice is unique.”
This year’s theme is the lockout and, in addition to developing their latest theatre production, the group has participated in weaving a commemorative tapestry of the lockout.
“There was a time when there was absolutely no interaction with people with substance addiction,” says Egan. “It was: ‘lock them up’. It was one shoe fits all: ‘find abstinence and then we’ll deal with you’. But, now, there’s an engagement going on and people are being recognised for what they can do, rather than for what their ‘problem’ is.”
* A Hundred Years Ago runs at Smock Alley theatre, Sep 3-5, www.rade.ie.
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