Stage Door News
Stage Door News
Following a 26 year absence from Canadian stages, Ireland’s world renowned Abbey Theatre returns this September with their touring production of the Sean O’Casey masterpiece, The Plough and the Stars.
This new production, helmed by Olivier award-winner Sean Holmes, is part of the Abbey Theatre’s ‘Waking The Nation’ season, which commemorates the centenary of the 1916 Easter Rising – the first armed action of the Irish revolutionary period. The Plough and the Stars retells the story of this blistering, violent period of political upheaval.
In The Plough and the Stars the residents of a Dublin tenement shelter from the violence that sweeps through the city’s streets. A revolution that will shape the country’s future rages around them. What kind of Ireland awaits them?
Both the play and O’Casey himself are indelibly linked with the Abbey Theatre - when the play premiered on the Abbey stage in 1926, the audience rioted.
Over the decades, many directors have revisited this classic play presenting, on that very same stage, new productions and different interpretations of the piece. Now, 90 years on from its contentious premiere, the Abbey Theatre invites audiences to take a fresh look at this story of ordinary lives ripped apart by the idealism of the time, in the context of 2016, 100 years on from the events O’Casey wrote about.
Director of the Abbey Theatre, Fiach MacConghail said:
“We are proud to be able to bring our production of The Plough and the Stars to Canada and to return to the country after too long an absence. This play is inextricably linked with the Abbey Theatre and is an essential part of our understanding of 1916. With so many in Canada with Irish heritage, I would say Ireland and Canada are inextricably linked. As we mark the centenary of 1916, I believe it is important that we revisit the complex history of that time in order to understand who we are today. Like all great plays The Plough and the Stars is urgently concerned with its own time and yet it remains fiercely contemporary. To understand it fully we must approach it afresh and be surprising, dangerous… even radical.
“I’d also like to say a special thank you to Canadian Stage for their invaluable support in bringing this production to Canada. The Abbey Theatre has a history in Canada dating back over 100 years, and we couldn’t bring this production to Toronto this year without their assistance.”
The Plough and the Stars features a remarkable ensemble cast including Ian-Lloyd Anderson (as Jack Clitheroe), Tony Clay (as Sergeant Tinley), Lloyd Cooney (as Lieut. Langon), David Ganly (as Fluther Good), Rachel Gleeson (as Mollser), James Hayes (as Peter Flynn), Liam Heslin (as Capt. Brennan), Ger Kelly (as A Bar-tender), Janet Moran (as Mrs. Gogan), Ciarán O’Brien (as The Young Covey), Kate Stanley Brennan (as Nora Clitheroe) Nima Taleghani (as Corporal Stoddart, Nyree Yergainharsian (as Rosie Redmond).
The creative team includes Jon Bausor (Set Design) Paul Keogan (Lighting Design), Catherine Fay (Costume Designer), Philip Stewart (Composer and Sound Designer), Ronan Phelan (Associate Director).
This production first premiered at the Abbey Theatre in Dublin before embarking on a tour across Ireland. The Toronto stop is the first official stop on the North American leg of the tour, though the production had two sell-out performances in May at the Kennedy Center in Washington, DC, as part of IRELAND 100: Celebrating a Century of Irish Arts and Culture.
Tickets for The Plough in the Stars at the Bluma Appel Theatre go on sale to Canadian Stage season pass and single ticket holders today, and will be available to the broader public on June 28. Tickets are available from $29 - $99 at canadianstage.com.
An Abbey Theatre Production with the support of Canadian Stage
Photo: Ian-Lloyd Anderson and Kate Stanley Brennan. ©2015 Ros Kavanagh.
2016-06-21
Toronto: Dublin's Abbey Theatre visits Toronto September 14-18 with "The Plough and the Stars"