Cork play makes debut in New York

The American premiere of Cork writer Conal Creedon’s play, The Cure, takes place at New York’s Green Room Theatre on Sept 9 and will run for at least a month.

It’s part of Creedon’s trilogy of plays, The Second City Trilogy, commissioned by the European Capital of Culture in 2005 and first produced at the Half Moon in Cork.

Creedon, who is currently nearing completion of a novel, says that if it wasn’t for Michael Mellamphy, a Cork-born actor based in New York, his trilogy, published in book form, “would be sitting in a drawer”. Mellamphy has starred in the New York productions of the other two plays from the trilogy, When I was God and After Luke.

“His father came to my plays in Cork and bought a copy of The Second City Trilogy which he sent to Michael,” says Creedon. “In 2009, Michael contacted me asking if he could put on When I Was God in a small venue in New York. I was delighted and the play did really well. The producers from the Irish Repertory Company saw the play and they put it on with After Luke in the Irish Repertory Theatre.”

The production was nominated in a number of categories at the New York First Irish Theatre Festival Awards with the director, Tim Rudd, picking up the award for best director. The Cure is being staged as part of this year’s festival.

This one-man show spans almost 100 years. Set during the height of the Celtic Tiger, its backdrop consists of cataclysmic events in Cork history — the burning of Cork by British forces during the War of Independence and the closure of the Ford and Dunlop factories.

“The character in The Cure didn’t benefit from the boom at all. The guy is of an age and background where he doesn’t have a place in that society; he’s like a dinosaur. All these people with laptops and belly-tops and bottled water, he doesn’t understand any of that stuff,” says Creedon.

Creedon says that being an artiste in the current climate is really no different to what it was like during the boom years. “Publishers and theatre companies aren’t taking risks. But it doesn’t stop me. I just keep getting the words down. I was as poor during the boom as I am now. That’s not me complaining; it’s just reality. The job is great. I’d like to make money but for someone like me, I’d have a better chance of winning the lotto.”

Creedon’s forthcoming novel is one of at least three that he is working on. “They’re all set on Christmas Eve. They are about the same core characters that would have interacted with or known each other 40 years ago. They have a shared history.”

Creedon could be said to be pursuing art for art’s sake. “I don’t project to the point of seeing my novels on book shelves. That’s a whole different beast. The real joy for me is the scribbling down of the stories. I haven’t shown my novel to anyone. I’ll wait until it’s finished. The thing about writing a novel is that when you start, you’re making no inroads at all. But once you get going, it’s addictive.”