Since it opened in 1931, the Park Performing Arts Theatre on 32nd Street in Union City has attracted a wide range of talent and viewers. This week, the theater is bringing in talent from as far away as Northern Ireland to perform The Guildhall Clock, a play written by Irish playwright Eddie Kerr, on Oct. 27 and 28.
“This was an opportunity for us to show people what we can do,” said Kerr about coming to the United States to perform his play. “This is all new contemporary drama from Ireland. Not remakes of the classics.”
The play’s cast consists only of four women, three of whom, Bronach McGready, Christine Miller and Carmel McAfferty, have come here from Ireland to perform their roles. The fourth actress, Theresa O’Rourke, lives in New York.
“Two of the cast members have never been to the United States before,” said Kerr. “So we are trying to keep our feet on the ground. They are really caught up in the touristy thing right now. It is really exciting for everybody.” The play toured Ireland when it was first written in 1997.
“The audience shares in a rollercoaster of emotions,” said Kerr. “They can cry with the actresses, but also laugh.”
“Even the critics liked it,” Kerr added.
Breaking stereotypes
Kerr, who lives in Derry, Ireland and has been writing for the past 14 years, focuses his pay around the Guildhall Clock that adorns the top of the city hall in Derry that imitates England’s Big Ben, and can be seen from all parts of the city. The play is set in 1994, during the early days of the peace talks in Ireland. The clock is used to bring four women from different sides of Derry together to discuss how their lives have been affected by the political power that has taken over the city.
“The clock is used as a focal point or magnet to bring women together who appear to have nothing in common but find out that they have so much in common,” said Kerr, who explained that the four women are of different social class, age and personal experience.
While Kerr describes the play as an expose of where Ireland is as a country, he said that the point of the play is “to hear each of their stories and to see how they have been involved or not involved in what we call the troubles, the political situation.”
However, Kerr said that the play is not completely a political play.
“It is political with a lowercase p,” Kerr said. “It is not party politics. It is not a soap box play.”
He added, “We live in a society of political animals. It is that sense of where you are from.”
While the play is set in Derry, Kerr said that the play could be set anywhere.
“The play can be set anywhere, even in Union City,” said Kerr. “It just happens to be in Ireland, and a specific place in Ireland.”
However, the essence of the play is not about politics at all.
“The essence of the play is about stereotypes about the Irish, but also the perception that the Irish have about each other,” he said.
Visiting the states
While this is only Kerr’s second play performing in the United States, he is not a stranger to the area. Kerr has worked with The Governor’s School for the Arts at the University of Kentucky’s Louisville campus for the past two years, an annual statewide program for high school juniors and seniors who aspire to be artists.
“Over the last two years I have worked with more than 7,000 students,” said Kerr, who will be holding workshops with Union City’s high school students on Oct. 23.
“Young people are the same all over the world,” said Kerr about working with kids outside of Ireland. “They are in different contexts.”
Kerr has also designed a curriculum to help young people with problems using the creative arts and uses this curriculum with the Artemis Project, a young people’s interactive arts program for disadvantage children, where he serves as Project Director in Ireland.
“The project tries to use creative arts as a means to coming to terms with their problems,” said Kerr, who explained that the project teaches coping skills and helps young people develop self-confidence.
Other works
Kerr has written a total of 14 plays, but is probably best known for Packie’s Wake, Northern Ireland’s longest-running play, which explores the notion of death and the Irish wake when a man has the opportunity to attend his own funeral.
“The Irish wake is one of the focal points of Irish tradition,” said Kerr, who explained that the dead spend three days at home with the family where they eulogize and feast on behalf of the deceased.
Packie’s Wake came to the United States in March at the Helen Hayes Performing Arts Center, 117 Main St. in Nyack, N.Y.