WexFour

Written by John Banville, Eoin Colfer, Billy Roche, Colm Tóibín
Directed by Ben Barnes
Performed by Andrea Irvine, Don Wycherley, Eleanor McEvoy (music)

The CCI is delighted to host an evening of staged readings of new short plays by four internationally renowned Wexford writers. Four short plays were specially commissioned by the Wexford Arts Centre to celebrate their 40th anniversary in 2014:
Prince Charming and the Dame by John Banville
My Real Life by Eoin Colfer
The Dog and Bone by Billy Roche
Erosion by Colm Tóibín.
They all traverse familiar territories of loneliness and loss; of spirited humour in the face of adversity; of hope and belief in a better future, against the odds; and the resilience of the human heart.

Eleanor McEvoy, one of Ireland’s most accomplished singer-songwriters will perform a musical interlude.

“A good mix in the four pieces from the wonderfully lyrical voice of Tóibín to the dry and sardonic wit of Colfer, the uniquely Roche turns of phrase and refinery of Banville’s voice.” The Wexford Echo

“The description of waves that recall ‘a hollow curl, like a pulling in of breath, and then a folding back’, announces the delicacy and interiority of a prose piece, where a cliff-top home, and a life, are gradually wearing away...Billy Roche’s monologue The Dog and Bone is a sophisticated piece with a light touch, conveying enough substance to sustain a full play. Andrea Irvine plays one unhappy point of a love triangle, a woman isolated and exiled, who might have stepped right out of Arthurian fable or Greek myth, or from down the road. That is Roche’s speciality, whose theatre has most honoured Wexford – letting us see legend in our lives. My Real Life, Eoin Colfer’s offering, is a quirkier and somehow darker piece in which Don Wycherley plays an MS sufferer, determined to die by his own hand, while dictating his own scabrous eulogy. It’s equal parts earthy authenticity and absurd fantasy. John Banville’s surprisingly knockabout piece, Prince Charming and the Dame, stages a backstage breakdown during a pantomime, lampooning theatrical hierarchy and happy-ever-after narratives. “I can’t go on.” “Oh – yes – you – can!” The Irish Times

After performance talk with critically acclaimed writers/playwrights Billy Roche and John Banville with Director Ben Barnes, Former Abbey Theatre Artistic Director.