In Ireland, Dan Colley is making thoughtful, thoroughly theatrical shows.
The writer-director's new production Lost Lear was a highlight of the Dublin Theatre Festival. PLUS: Don't miss The Poltergeist at the Arcola Theatre.
Hello, and welcome to another issue of The Crush Bar, a weekly newsletter about theatre written by me, Fergus Morgan.
This is - thrillingly - the very first international edition of The Crush Bar. I spent last weekend at Dublin Theatre Festival for The Stage, seeing a selection of super shows, including Dan Colley’s Lost Lear. I met Dan for a pint or two in a pub afterwards, and chatted to him about the show, his career so far, and where he wants to go next.
It is a truly terrific show - imaginative and empathetic and theatrically inventive. If you ever get the chance to see it, you must. Better yet, if you have the power to bring it to the UK at some point, then you should, because it deserves as wide an audience as it can get.
A quick reminder that you can support this newsletter by becoming a paid subscriber for just the price of a cup-and-a-half of coffee a month, via the button below. And if you want to find out more about The Crush Bar - including promo opportunities - then click here.
That’s all for now. More from me at the bottom, but first a quick promo shout-out, followed by my interview with Dan.
Before this week’s interview, I want to quickly shout about a show currently on in London – the return of Wiebke Green’s award-winning production of the legendary Philip Ridley’s 2020 one-man play The Poltergeist, which opened at the Arcola Theatre earlier this week and runs until the end of October.
It was originally presented online from Southwark Playhouse in 2021. Now, it is back in person – produced by new company Flying Colours Productions with the Arcola Theatre - with rising star Joseph Potter reviving his extraordinary performance as Sasha, a once-promising artist now haunted by the superstar life he might have led.
The Stage’s Dave Fargnoli called The Poltergeist “moving and ferocious”, and iNews’ Sam Marlowe labelled Potter’s performance a “genuine tour de force” when it premiered 18 months ago – and The New York Times even made it a Critic’s Pick. Don’t miss the chance to catch it live for the first time at the Arcola.
After seeing two of his shows in the space of a few weeks, I have become a big fan of Irish theatremaker Dan Colley.
The first show, A Very Old Man With Enormous Wings, was an intriguingly ambiguous, breath-takingly beautiful, two-handed adaptation of Gabriel Garcia Marquez’ 1968 story of the same name, suitable for adults and children alike. Colley originally premiered it in Ireland in 2019, then took it to the Edinburgh Fringe in August this year. (My review of the show for The Scotsman is here.)
The second, which premiered at Dublin Theatre Festival earlier this month and is currently running at Bray’s Mermaid Arts Centre, is Lost Lear, an intricate, imaginative re-working of Shakespeare’s King Lear set in a care home, exploring The SPECAL Method – the experimental approach to treating dementia that involves playing along with a patient’s delusions rather than enforcing reality upon them – to devastating effect. (My review of the show for The Stage is here.)
“I do feel like I’m in a groove,” Colley says, when we meet in a Northside pub after a performance of Lost Lear. “I feel like there is some wind in my sails. I’m aware that things change, though. Right now, I’ve got something going, but that won’t always be the case. I’m prepared to be brutally out of fashion. I’m prepared to go off into the woods and build something else when I have to.”
Both A Very Old Man and Lost Lear serve as superb showcases for Colley’s show-making sensibilities: they are both deeply thoughtful, deeply empathetic, and darkly humorous; they both display a playful theatricality, incorporating live-streamed video, puppetry and more. Complicité is a major influence on Colley, as is choreographer Michael Keegan-Dolan’s now defunct dance company Fabulous Beast. “They are North Stars for me,” he says. “They are big heroes of mine.”
“I only ever really make stuff that I want to watch myself,” Colley continues. “Sometimes that is for eight-year-olds [like A Very Old Man], because I’m an eight-year-old at heart, really. I actually think you can get away with a lot when you say your show is for kids, because adults drop their cynicism and become a bit more vulnerable. I like getting adults and kids to meet somewhere in the middle like that.”
“In general, I am only interested in making shows that have to be theatre, in stories that have to be told theatrically,” he adds. “If something could have been a book, or a film, then I’m less interested. I’m interested in the event. I’m interested in the actors and the audience in the same room.”
“I am only interested in making shows that have to be theatre, in stories that have to be told theatrically…”
Colley, 35, was born and raised in Dublin, and started performing professionally as a child. At 10, he was in an acclaimed production of Waiting For Godot at Dublin’s Gate Theatre, alongside Barry McGovern and Johnny Murphy. “That shaped my young life,” says Colley. “I was drawn to things that were funny and weird. I became a bit of a weirdo for a while. School was boring as fuck after that.”
Other professional productions as a teenage actor followed, before Colley moved across the country to study English and Philosophy at NUI Galway. By the time he graduated, he had given up acting in favour of writing, directing and devising. “I wasn’t that good at it,” he says. “I was becoming more interested in the process of creative collaboration, and figuring out a way to do that.”
Colley returned to Dublin and in 2013 formed a theatre company with his childhood friend Matt Smith. Collapsing Horse – that was what they named their company – staged nine original productions, made ten radio plays, and toured to New York, all in the space of six years. “Are Collapsing Horse Ireland's most exciting theatre company?” asked RTE in 2017. Then, in 2019, Colley and Smith called it a day. A Very Old Man was the company’s last show.
“We had always funded our work project by project, but we had got to a point where we needed long-term investment to grow in the way that we wanted to,” Colley explains. “Unfortunately, it was a no from the Arts Council, so with great discussion and great friendship and great love, we said goodbye and went our separate ways as artists. A Very Old Man was sort of our swansong.”
Life as an individual artist seems to be suiting Colley if Lost Lear is anything to go by. He is right that he has support behind him right now, too: he is a member of Project Arts Centre, and a resident artist at Newbridge’s Riverbank Arts Centre. It is also an auspicious time to be embarking as an individual artist in Ireland: the Irish government recently launched the Basic Income for the Arts pilot scheme, which guarantees 2000 randomly selected creatives a minimum income of €325 a week for the next three years – and turns theatremakers across Europe green with envy.
“I applied, of course,” Colley says. “I was not chosen, unfortunately, but I am one of 1000 people in a control group, which I’m happy about. I’m happy about the scheme in general, too, because it is could totally change life for artists in Ireland. Of course, it is a great international PR moment for the government, but it is also real, too. It’s really exciting and really progressive.”
What do you want to do?
I love living and working in Ireland, but I love to internationalise my work, too. I loved taking A Very Old Man to Edinburgh, and I’d love to take Lost Lear there somehow, too.
I’d like to be able to do a mix of rep work, of bringing back my old shows, and of making new stuff. I’d love to keep myself and my collaborators employed, and keep us travelling, and keep our lives rich and interesting and I’d love the time and space to create new, ambitious shows with them, too.
What support do you need to get there?
If someone runs a theatre or a festival, they can come and see the show. They can talk to me and to Culture Ireland about booking it. If they don’t run a theatre or a festival, they can come and see it when it is in town and spread the word about it with anyone who will listen.
On a policy level, I’d like to see artists allowed more time to plan, and I’d like artists to have more certainty that there will be long-term, sustained support for them, so they can get mortgages and stuff like that. Stuff that was not unreasonable for the artists of my parents’ generation.
How can people find out more about you?
My website or my Twitter. I have a Substack, too, actually, but I haven’t put out many newsletters yet.
That’s it for this week. Next week’s interviewee is TBC, for various reasons. If you want to suggest someone to profile, then fire away. In general, I am always open to suggestions!
One final reminder about the various ways you can support this newsletter: you can share it with anyone you think might be interested, you can become a paid subscriber using the button at the top, or you can get in touch with me about using it for promotional purposes.
That’s all. Thanks for reading. If you want to get in touch for any reason, just reply to this email or contact me via Twitter - I’m @FergusMorgan. See you next time!
Fergus