Pat Kinevane on bringing his one-man show from New York to Cork

The Cobh actor and writer tells Marjorie Brennan the intimacy is 'more textured and much richer with a Cork audience'

Mon, 24 Jun, 2024 - 21:30

Marjorie Brennan

Pat Kinevane's brilliant storytelling skills are to the fore as he regales me with tales of his recent US tour. The Cobh actor and writer did a three-week run of his one-man show, King, at a theatre on the East Side of New York, and while he was delighted with the rapturous reception from audiences, it was some other infamous residents of the city who left their mark.

“Coming home at night, what I noticed was the rats, they were everywhere. The stage manager, Michael, he’s this tough New Yorker, he was saying to me ‘you just gotta fucking toughen up, you clap your hands, and you stamp your feet and the rats will run away’.”

Kinevane won’t need to worry about such things when he performs King on home ground at the Cork Arts Theatre this week. The Olivier Award-winning actor has been touring with his one-man shows — Forgotten, Silent, Underneath, and Before — since 2006. While he is accustomed to being alone on stage, he says the shows are very much a team effort, with the theatre company Fishamble and director Jim Culleton instrumental in their success.

“Even though they are performed by just one person, I don't feel that they’re solo. I never feel alone because when I’m bringing the piece, it's top heavy with a lot of creativity from other people,” he says.

In King, Kinevane plays Luther, an agoraphobic Elvis impersonator who struggles with the vicissitudes of living. It is a play that lends itself to a venue like the Cork Arts Theatre and will also very much resonate with local audiences, says Kinevane.

“I love that place, it’s very intimate. And I love doing King in an intimate space because that gives it a completely different quality. The fact that Luther is from Cork means that intimacy is even more textured and much richer with a Cork audience. They get every nuance.”

As evidenced by his US tour, which also took in LA and San Francisco, Kinevane’s work also touches a chord with international audiences. Before the US, he was performing in Serbia, and when we speak, he is preparing for shows in Germany. He is planning to perform some sections in German, as a mark of “courtesy” to the audience. This search for a connection is a constant in his work.

“People are the same the world over. I consider myself a worker like that, I’m outside of the artiness of it all. I’ve always been like that, my job is to go and tell the story. But the contract is that the audience are willing to go with it. So there’s that lovely unspoken trust there. And I looking forward to that exchange, that energy. Thank God people really go with it and they come on the ride. That’s something that I will never stop being thankful for. It’s an extraordinarily fortuitous thing, that I can still work and that people respond to the work, to my little view of the world. That is very healing for me.”

Kinevane, who is based in Dublin, has been working in theatre for 35 years and considers himself fortunate compared to those in the business now, who face challenges he never experienced.

“When I started off, I was able to move to Dublin and work in the Abbey and the Gate and all the places I wanted to work in. I was staying in flats and bedsits and it was easy for me to pay my bills on an actor's wage. You were watching actors in the old Abbey repertory company, and there were more opportunities to learn on the job. It was far easier to make work and to take risks.

"Now I just feel so sorry for young artists in their 20s. They’re not getting those experiences, the rites of passage that we had. I’m very fortunate because I have a history with Fishamble and they have been so good to me. It’s very, very hard when people are trying to live and on top of that they’re trying to pay exorbitant rent.”

However, Kinevane says that it is good to see the arts scene thriving outside of Dublin, in places like Galway, Limerick, and Cork. He is looking forward to spending time with family when he returns to Cork for King.

“I’ve got brothers and sisters in the city and in Cobh, and nieces and nephews. My amazing momma is still down there as well, and I’m looking forward to seeing her. I am surrounded by supportive family, it makes me feel secure.”