Professional Theatre makers in a rural context are to the best of my knowledge few and far between in Ireland. We tend to be more so artists in the community doing individual projects, teaching drama or directing School shows and performing in larger urban contexts as part of well-established groups with annual funding or individual artists coming together for a specific project, which requires a good network and level of trust.

Possibly because there is less call for theatre or lack of audiences but in any case what I’m trying to establish in a rural community context is an artistic residence and performances that will make it a viable self-sustaining possibility for me to invite groups from a creative Europe project on theatre and landscape to come and tour along The Wild Atlantic Way, along the western coast of Ireland.

The non prophet organisation and festival, which I set up and run began because I’d prefer to live in a smaller community close to friends and family and nature where I feel most at home.

I’m trying to understand human behaviour mostly and my reaction to it and my journey, not only towards my inevitable death but towards consciousness of the meaning of life, which I feel is reflected in our relationship with our natural environment. This is why I’ve become more interested in merging outdoor theatre and outdoor education and why I did a course last year to become a mountain leader so I could take people on trails and tell them the story of the places from a theatrical and environmental perspective.

I find that no matter where I go after a short period of time I need or want to be on my own or perhaps in the company of a good friend, which in a way nature, trees and landscape are for me.  So I’ll go to a festival or put on a performance and I get a real buzz from the atmosphere and depending on the company and how I’m feeling I’ll either hang around or get back to nature and familiar surroundings away from civilisation and the noise. I’m not great in crowds or at small talk so I often need to get away and write or take pictures or video footage just to be a silent observer on my own for a while or near the sea or in the countryside.

I have a fascination with trees and landscape or their relationship with us. How we use wood, how we shape it to suit our needs and how the natural landscape is often an escape like theatrical entertainment or other products of the leisure industry from our mundane, civilised lives in urban spaces.

What I’ve discovered about myself is that I don’t want to be chasing my tail all the time and worrying about the future and my life as an “artist or artivist” but doing something creative that reflects the ethos of The Non Prophet Organisation and that is reflected in the creative process as opposed to the finished product.  That is to create socio-ecological entertainment that isn’t too complicated or expensive in the sense of using up valuable resources, time and energy entertaining audiences. And I’d like to create more so positive stories about our environment reflected by the creative process and my own performance footprint as a human being.

So after many years abroad, working in a media company trying to fit into the leisure industry I returned to the west of Ireland and my hometown where I’ve started to work in a community context to create performances that are still of a dramatic nature but in alternative or more site specific spaces such as in a pub or in parks or the local library and for free. I’m working towards creating site-specific or personal projects that are of interest to me and what I think I should be making, even if they are difficult to achieve. To give you examples of what I mean by that I am working as an artist in the community doing research with the Parkinson’s community in Mayo to create a piece that addresses what it’s like to live with this disease as my father has Parkinson’s so it’s something I can talk about from personal experience.

That’s not to say that I don’t try to please or create a large audience in the usual way by advertising performances, etc but as I usually don’t have a budget or the money to pay for more professional productions I make do with what resources I have and any money or benefit in kind I get and accept charitable donations or sponsorship.

I don’t incur too much debt but I’d like to actually be in a position to pay myself as well as others to do what I’ve trained and dedicated a part of my life to and to do it on a scale that would generate more participation from the rural community.

Last June on Midsummer I ran the first edition of the Non Prophet Organisation’s community festivals with very little money, but support in kind from the Local Arts Office and Chamber of Commerce. We put on Shakespeare in the Park A Midsummer Night’s Dream with amateur performers from around Mayo and with The Men’s Shed as the mechanicals and stage crew. (Ask do people know about the men’s shed)

I also invited Ala from Galway who perform Augusto Boal’s forum theatre and who did a piece on Fracking, which has been introduced to rural Ireland recently. The Feedback from participants and the public was positive although once it was over I ended up feeling somewhat burnt out producing, directing and performing and stepped back from playing too many parts in a subsequent production in a neighbouring town’s sculpture park. I felt like I was not getting the proper support or commitment from my cast who seemed to me to be too self-conscious and not able to take direction as well as missing rehearsals.

To give you an example: A lot of time was spent explaining the meaning of the text. I love being a dramaturg. It’s like being a detective discovering what the playwright might have meant and the background of the story’s protagonists and how it is still relevant today. So though the cast were coming to grips with the text some weren’t putting in the time to learn lines and lacked the courage perhaps to make creative choices for themselves of trust in the creative process. They wanted to be told where to stand and how to deliver the lines rather than try and find their own empathy and emotional truth. It seemed to me that they didn’t mean what they were saying. I didn’t and don’t care so much whether people knew their parts by heart. I wanted to reveal the creative process to the audience rather than have them regurgitating lines and putting on seemingly flawless performances. That’s not what theatre is about for me, which is why I let the players and spectators participate at the level they wanted to. They could come and go as they pleased, take direction or not but the show goes on whether we’re ready or not.  So I give a lot of freedom but demand a lot of self-responsibility from performers and audience alike. I want both to see performances for what they are, which to me are like questioning or talking to ourselves about our actions and behaviours and that of the labour and leisure industry which goes on continuously without really questioning in which direction are we going as products of our natural and cultural environment. I don’t want to feel that I have to perform or conform to consumerism but work and play in ways that leaves a positive taste and trace for people to emulate.  

I don’t know if my directing or approach to working in a community context is always appropriate however over all I was quite pleased with what we achieved at the festival with very little support from other theatre makers in the community.

There seems to be a lack of trust among the artists in the community or competitiveness so we don’t really help each other. I do get involved in other productions in town and am currently in one. I commit to small parts in musicals with the musical society and other local amateur productions and often end up getting more than I want unless I insist that I don’t have the time, which I don’t as I’m dedicating my time to the Non Prophet Organisation and making it a viable business. However I hope with time and support we'll develop as a community and I'll be able make this organisation serve the purposes for which I set it up.