Julie Kelleher returns to Cork with tale of Newfoundland links
Cork woman Julie Kelleher is director of the Mermaid Arts Centre in Bray, Co Wicklow,. Picture: Darragh Kane
Julie Kelleher, the Cork woman who is artistic director of the Mermaid Arts Centre in Bray, Co Wicklow, is directing a play for the first time since leaving the Everyman nearly three years ago.
Found by Aideen Wylde was inspired by the author/actor’s connection to Newfoundland in Canada, and is a Brokencrow production in association with the Everyman and Clonmel Junction Arts Festival.
Kelleher says she is hugely excited about the play, a five-hander with Wylde in the lead role of Eileen. “She goes from being someone who is invisible, a bit bland, unable to register with people to becoming the hero of the story,” says Kelleher. “On one level, it’s about a woman’s journey of self-actualisation. On another level, the show is I think a real argument for the value of folklore and oral heritage.
"The mode of the play is very much storytelling and song. It’s a collection of stories that spark Eileen’s imagination and send her on a quest. There’s the story of her voyage across the sea and the people she meets in the place where she lands. It’s called Old Lost Land and is an imagined version of Newfoundland.”
Wylde, who is from Clonmel where the play will be staged in July, has been interested in Newfoundland since she was a child. Her father, who worked as a camera man with RTÉ, was involved in the making of documentaries about the Canadian province. The accents of people from there used to intrigue Wylde when she answered the phone to them. They spoke with Irish accents.
“So much of the Irish cultural tradition is preserved in Newfoundland but the sense of Irish there doesn’t have the same traumatic underpinning that it has here," says Kelleher. There is something really joyful about this sense of the culture reflected back. The play is really a fun thing even though it’s sometimes dark and scary. But there’s lots of magic and joy in it.”
There is a strong tradition of oral storytelling in Newfoundland. “The play comes from a place of really deep research and love for the place. There’s live music in it as well. It’s the kind of play that really gets me excited. It’s like an invitation to the audience to come and imagine along with us, to almost join in. To me, that’s the most exciting thing theatre can do.”
Kelleher is on her own journey in the arts. She has recently completed the CLORE fellowship programme, a professional development programme based in the UK for cultural leaders from all over the world. She received a bursary last year from the Arts Council to take up the Jerome Hynes Fellowship which funds Irish people to do the programme.
“On the programme, you’re encouraged to focus on what makes you really authentically yourself and to bring that to your leadership role, whether it’s running a venue or a rehearsal room. One of the things I’ve been thinking about myself is having access to my own creativity, being able to express that in some way. I realise it makes me better at what I do because it’s a nourishment.”
The CLORE programme included talks, workshops, training around conflict resolution and self-directed work. “You also get seconded to another arts organisation to give you some perspective. I went to a venue called New Diorama in London. It’s a small fringe space, an 80-seater theatre. They produce new theatre, a lot of devised work rather than playwrights’ work. The focus of the fellowship is around leadership so it’s broader than artistic practice. I got to see all facets of what Diorama does and designed a programme for artists who were sent away on a retreat for three days.”
Currently rehearsing Found in Clonmel, Kelleher says: “While there’s great value to be had from watching Netflix or theatre on screens, there is something quite thrilling about the connection that’s possible between people in a room when there’s that sense of crackle in the air. That sort of work sets my heart on fire.”
- Found is at Graffiti Theatre as part of Cork Midsummer Festival from June 23-25; and is at Clonmel Junction Arts Festival on July 1-8; www.corkmidsummer.com
