Drama
PERFORMANCE: STUART PARKER
Description:
Retrospective
Saturday 2 November 2013 marks the 25th anniversary of Stewart Parker. A scholar, poet, playwright, and music critic, he was a founding member of the Belfast Group and wrote extensively for stage, radio and screen.
Like J. M. Synge, he was cut down at a tragically young age whilst at his height of his powers, but he has bequeathed us all a body of work that establishes him as the most innovative and important playwright to have emerged from Belfast, and one of Ireland’s greatest twentieth century playwrights.
To commemorate Stewart’s 25th anniversary by celebrating his work, QUB Drama, with the kind support of BBC NI and Literary Belfast, will host a retrospective of Stewart’s work for stage, radio and screen to demonstrate Stewart’s extraordinary artistic achievement.
As part of this retrospective, QUB’s School of Creative Arts is delighted to be introduce the “The Annual Stewart Parker Memorial Lecture”, in honour of Stewart’s artistic achievement, and which will be delivered by the renowned actor for stage and screen, Stephen Rea: a long-time close friend and collaborator of Stewart’s.
The ‘Annual Stewart Parker Memorial Lecture’ will be delivered each year by a distinguished artist or intellectual from the field of Theatre, Film, Music and Sonic Arts to reflect both the School of Creative Arts multi-subject composition, and Stewart’s extraordinary eclecticism.
Venue: Brian Friel Theatre, QFT and BBC
Booking info: Free
PERFORMANCE: PRATT’S FALL, BY STEWART PARKER. A REHEARSED READING
Description:
QUB Drama Students, directed by Mark Phelan
Pratt’s Fall by Stewart Parker. A Rehearsed Reading. Having found an old map which seems to prove that the Ireland’s St Brenda had discovered America, George Mahoney seduces Map Curator Victoria Pratt with it.
Venue: Brian Friel Theatre
Booking info: Free
PERFORMANCE: SANCTUARY
Description:
The fourth original Playhouse, Theatre of Witness production
In co-operation with Holywell Trust illuminates the stories of those in exile, those seeking safe haven, and those who have created oases of peace and healing in Northern Ireland.
The performers include refugee and asylum seekers from countries of war, as well as those who have sought or offered refuge following sectarianism and/or violence. Sanctuary also highlights moments of ordinary and humble peace building.
Sanctuary is created and directed by Teya Sepinuck, with music by Brian Irvine, puppetry by Aja Marneweck and film by Declan Keeney.
To book a tickets contact The Playhouse Box Office on 028 7126 8027
Admission is Free - please book seats to avoid disappointment. Each performance will be followed by a light reception
Oct 29th - 30th / 7:30pm
Venue: Brian Friel Theatre @ 7:30pm
Booking info: Free
PERFORMANCE: NORTHERN STAR
Description:
Directed by Frankie McCafferty
Northern Star is one of the greatest masterpieces of modern Irish drama, a play in which Parker’s biographer, Marilynn Richtarik, observes, the artist sought to articulate ‘a creative space between unionism and nationalism’ to prove ‘the possibility of a shared culture in Northern Ireland.’ Set in Belfast’s ‘Golden Age’ of the late 18th century, when the city was hailed as the ‘Athens of the North and was a harbinger of radical thought, Northern Star explores the life, death and legacy of Henry Joy McCracken, the leader of the United Irishmen in the 1798 Rising in a play that challenges nationalist and unionist notions of the past, to reveal how the origins of militant republicanism - in one of those ironies of Irish history - lay in the same protestant community that has inveighed against its modern manifestation.
Venue: Brian Friel Theatre
Booking info: Free
PERFORMANCE: STEPHEN REA
Description:
The Inaugural Stewart Parker Memorial Lecture
Saturday 2 November 2013 marks the 25th anniversary of Stewart Parker. A poet and playwright who wrote extensively for stage, radio and screen, Stewart Parker is the most innovative and important playwright to have emerged from Belfast and one of Ireland’s greatest twentieth century playwrights. As Stewart’s work spans Theatre, Film and Music, the School of Creative Arts at QUB is delighted to be introduce the “The Annual Stewart Parker Memorial Lecture”, in honour of Stewart’s artistic achievement. The inaugural lecture will be delivered by the renowned actor for stage and screen, Stephen Rea: a long- time close friend and collaborator of Stewart’s.
Venue: Brian Friel Theatre
Booking info: Free
PERFORMANCE: ICEBERG
Description:
By Stewart Parker (Radio Play)
Iceberg relates the purgatorial plight of two shipyard workers, Danny and Hugh, a Catholic and a Protestant, killed in the construction of the Titanic - Belfast’s ‘ proudest offering to the Empire - and to the world!”, and whose ghosts wander the fateful ship’s decks on her maiden voyage.
Venue: Brian Friel Theatre
Booking info: Free
PERFORMANCE: I’M A DREAMER MONTREAL
Description:
By Stewart Parker (Radio Play)
Parker’s play “I’m a Dreamer, Montreal” won the Christopher Ewart-Biggs Memorial Prize. It was commissioned by BBC Radio 3 in April 1975 and televised for ITV Playhouse in March 1979. Set in Belfast, it tells the tale of music librarian, Nelson Gloverby, who lives in a dream world. A Showband singer by night, he is unconcerned with audience irritation at his inability to stick to the proper lyrics and is innocently drawn into the brutality of the Troubles when he meets siren Sandra Carse.
Venue: Brian Friel Theatre
Booking info: Free
PERFORMANCE: THE TRAVELLER
Description:
By Stewart Parker (Radio Play)
Stewart’s last and darkest radio play, featuring Donal McCann in the lead role as (mad) Sweeney, a frustrated travel writer on the cusp on a nervous breakdown, is a beautifully crafted work that’s described as a ‘secular travesty of Dante’s inferno’. First broadcast in 1984, it also features a young Ian McElhinney.
Venue: Brian Friel Theatre
Booking info: Free
PERFORMANCE: A BETTER BOY: A DRAMATIC MONOLOGUE
Description: by John Wilson Foster performed by Ian McElhinney.
Lord Pirrie – one of the most successful businessman of his era – has condescended to grant an interview to a young journalist eager to hear his memories of Tommie Andrews, the “better boy” of the title. Andrews was the great man’s nephew and co-designer of the lost Titanic and who shared the fate of his creation.
It is 1917, before Pirrie is called upon to take charge of British merchant shipping during the Great War while still firmly at the tiller of Harland & Wolff, the world’s biggest shipyard. It is still his heyday and the interview is conducted in his lavish Surrey mansion in a saloon underneath the mansion’s man-made lake, an irony that like the lost ship goes unremarked. A celebrated public speaker, Pirrie soon takes charge of the interview to give his own side of the Titanic story.
Pirrie is no shamed Bruce Ismay, however, this master- builder and irresistible salesman, famous for his prodigious memory and eye for detail, finds himself on a journey of self-discovery that finally admits doubt, resentment and even sorrow. The dramatic monologue has a performance time of roughly 50 minutes
Venue: Brian Friel Theatre
Booking info: Free
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