Old friends lie Beyond the Brooklyn Sky

Michael Hilliard Mulcahy’s play, Beyond the Brooklyn Sky, deals with the generation that emigrated from Ireland in the 1980s and returned, some without having fulfilled their dreams.

Produced by Red Kettle Theatre Company and directed by Peter Sheridan, the play, set in the present day, is character-driven, says Mulcahy. It has a cast of seven. The main characters are Jack Flynn, a pilot, and Brendy, who has set himself a challenge.

Jack has fulfilled his ambition to fly a single-engine aircraft across the Atlantic, from New York to Farranfore Airport, in Co Kerry. The play is set in Brandon, in Co Kerry. “A group of friends who went to the States reunites in the local community centre where they misspent their youth. They’re there to celebrate Jack’s achievement. It’s also an opportunity for the friends to catch up.” There are tensions, and rivalry between Jack and Brendy. One member of the group went missing in America. He is a ‘ghostly’ presence.

Brendy has his own expedition: to row for three months from Newfoundland, back to the Dingle Peninsula, in a custom-built boat with computers and safety devices. While Jack, an achiever, is a hero, Brendy is a source of worry.

“He’s a great seaman, but three months on the water is a long time. Brendy wouldn’t be wired-up as solidly as the Jack character. People are concerned about his mental state.”

Mulcahy, from Castlegregory, in Co Kerry, was inspired by a pilot called Jack Fitzgerald who flew small aircraft around New York State, having lived in Kerry for a number of years. In 1993, Fitzgerald flew a single-engine aircraft from the US to Ireland, stopping off in Greenland, Iceland, and the Hebrides to refuel. Mulcahy spoke to him, and learned about the mechanics of the flight and what the experience was like.

Brendy, keen to prove his mettle as a sailor, references famous explorers, including St Brendan, Tim Severin and Tom Crean. (Interestingly, Aidan Dooley, who wrote and starred in the one-man show about Crean, has a role in this play). Mulcahy’s play has been compared to Tom Murphy’s Conversations on a Homecoming, which is about a returned emigrant and his failure to make it in the US.

“I would be influenced by Tom Murphy, and also Brian Friel and John B Keane. And more recent playwrights have an influence, such as Marina Carr, Conor McPherson and Billy Roche. That doesn’t mean I’m not influenced by the likes of Tennessee Williams and Arthur Miller, as well.”

Describing Beyond the Brooklyn Sky as a traditional two-act drama, Mulcahy says he doesn’t necessarily want to continue writing ‘well-made plays.’ “I go and see young people making theatre. I’d like to do different things.”

However, Mulcahy, who also wrote After Sarah Miles, says there is no getting away from his Kerry roots. “It’s where I grew up. It has given me a way of working with language. I try not to write in a bland style. I use the vernacular and write about stories from home.”

Mulcahy, who is in his 40s, is acutely aware of the effects of emigration. He remembers his contemporaries going to New York in the 1980s, decimating the locality’s young population. His play has resonance today, “because emigration is happening again. But it was a darker time in the 1980s. There was no internet and no Facebook. When people went, they were truly gone.”

* ‘Beyond the Brooklyn Sky’ is at Cork’s Everyman from Nov 4-8.