Kildare playwright courts controversy
Seanie G Clifford, playwright
THIS week a Newbridge-based playwright will stage a play in the Smock Alley Theatre — that has only taken 13 years to complete!
S.D. Clifford (Seanie), is a 49-year-old writer originally from Killarney who has been living in Kildare for the last three years since moving from Berlin, and he is patently not afraid to big up his work.
“For the first time since was performed in Paris on 5 January 1953, we will all have something to be proud of when talking about Irish Theatre in the 21st century,” said Seanie.
“This will welcome in a brand-new epoch for Irish theatre, moving it away from the ‘car crash’ that is the ‘Theatre of the Deluded’ in the Abbey, Gate and Druid."
His play is entitled , it runs for a little over an hour and premieres on Wednesday 26 March.
“ is about grief and the struggle a man has to get through and keep up the face,” said Seanie.
“I was lucky and I was able to express myself from an early age, but for many men the struggle with living, the struggle with loving is massive,” he said.
“I’ve been working on this for 13 years, but my last one , I was working on it for 20 years.
Seanie shares his time writing with his other gig, writing technical CVs.
“I have travelled the world writing CVs, so between them both I make a living,” he said.
This summer he will do a one-week residency in the St John’s Theatre in Listowel, Co Kerry where his first play aired in 1999.
“I was then mentored by Brian Friel, and that was helpful, it was great, and he encouraged me to go to Paris or Berlin,” said Seanie.
“Berlin was great, and when I got there you could rent an apartment for €250 a month.
“It was a prime set-up for creatives, but Paris was way too expensive, and not conducive to writers."
He was a tad critical of the indigenous scene.
“Theatre in Ireland is in a terrible state, too much wokeness, nothingness, directors getting humongous amounts of money, and living La Vida Loca,” he alleged.
“The Abbey got €9.5m this year and that’s a lot of money.
“They decided to put on a Brendan Behan play, take all the male actors out, and replace them with non-binary female actors!
“Taking all the masculinity out of an extremely important working class Dublin play, there’s no reason for it.
“The Druid and the Gate could be doing a bit more too,” he said.
The Druid (Theatre in Galway) recently put on a Sean O’Casey trilogy and they took out the ‘Sean’ and put in the word ‘Druid’!
“Since Greek time a playwright’s name is always on the bill.
“They got rid of Michael Colgan out of The Gate, hunted out by ‘Me Too’,” he alleged.
“He used to get Pinter over, and two or three times a year you would get a great play … now it’s a watered down version of The Abbey,” he said.
He continued: “I don’t need a pat on the back. I’ve put on plays where nobody was there, I’ve put on plays that I thought were brutal, but ended up on the front page of a German newspaper.
“I look to create new characters with substance, that people can get to know, and I will continue to go to the theatre, because each production is new, with a new team."
.
