Frigid Festival Previews
Tag: Travels to a Foreign Land
The Surprise
Author: Martin Dockery
The Surprise is a comic, true monologue about a man exploring the expansive ruins of an ancient, powerful world as his own small world — his family, his girlfriend — is busy collapsing into a set of equally spectacular ruins.
What exactly can we rely on in today's world with its rapidly dissolving foundations? As our nation threatens to crumble into ruin, and our sense of national identity begins to fray, we are faced with either radically accepting and reorienting, or giving ourselves over to history.
These days, particularly, we like to think we at least have our family to rely on. But whose family is truly reliable? The Surprise is the funny story of trying to keep it all together as everything falls apart.
Martin Dockery, creator/performer
The Giant's Causeways
Author: Nora S. McLaughlin
Can the friendship between two boys, one Catholic, the other Protestant, stand up to the political, social and religious struggles surrounding them in Northern Ireland during the 60's and 70's? The Giant's Causeways takes the audience on an emotional journey through this friendship as the boys deal with death in many ways, figure out just how many Causeways there are and how many potatoes is a lot of potatoes. It's a story with a touch of magic that's unique to Irish tales. Directed by Jill Harrison and featuring James Fauvell and Thomas Hodgskin.
The struggle of the Catholics in Belfast, Northern Ireland, particularly during a time they call, the Troubles, is echoed in conflicts throughout the world: equality of rights, regardless of race, religion or social status. Though the roots of such struggles may differ, the effect on individuals, families and friends is universal. How can Americans connect with a struggle that has gone on in Belfast, Northern Ireland for over 30 years? The Catholics drew inspiration from Martin Luther King and the Civil Rights Movement, a defining moment in American history both then and now.
I wrote this play based very loosely on a story that my father experienced on his return back to Belfast, where he grew up. Writing and researching for this piece has been a four year journey into my family's history, the history of Ireland and what it means for me to be Irish.
Nora Sun McLaughlin, writer
