Dear Cathy,
It’s 10.30pm on Tuesday night. I have just finished your recent email. You are now on the way to recovery. You are here now as you should have been and will be until the day you die. So whilst I struggle slowly onward and upward, you are already there.
Love Deborah
Kilkenny Arts Festival is the best place to go in August, the whole team there make every visit one to remember. A special thank you to Tom Creed for programming us for the second year in a row. Nestled in The Barnstorm Theatre we welcomed great houses for every performance and had an incredible post show discussion on the 13th, lots of tears! Below is an extract from The Kilkenny Festival Blog which gives a good insight into our experience of the festival and the reaction to the show:August 11, 2011
It’s getting closer to the point where ‘Una McKevitt’ may well be considered a brand of theatre as opposed to just being one of Ireland’s most promising theatre makers. She’s spearheaded a form of documentary theatre like the aforementioned Victor and Gord and the acclaimed 565+ that presents real people and real stories with all the trappings of theatre.
The Big Deal is another slice of real life that’s just as happy, sad and original as her other work. It tells the story of Cathy and Deborah. Both of whom were previously men suffering from gender identity disorder. In this case, the identities of the real Cathy and Deborah are protected and the roles are played by actors with the stories coming straight from the personal diaries and first person accounts of the subjects. They talk of their hopes, their dreams, their backgrounds, their families and in lots of detail, their transformations. The procedures of gender reassignment surgery are graphically described. So much so that I spent the entire 60 minutes with my legs locked into crossed mode. Gentlemen, be warned.
The most poignant moments for me were when both women address their relationships with their children and their former partners. It’s very emotional stuff and really makes you question notions of gender in parenting and what it is that makes a parent. Speaking of those trappings of theatre, there’s a minimal but effective set and splashes of pop music interludes. Speaking of which, (apart from impeccable taste) I really love how McKevitt makes these musical pieces feel spontaneous and refreshingly underrehearsed as if they’ve just happened out of nowhere.
The Big Deal is a unique and challenging piece of theatre. It’s also an opportunity to see one of Ireland’s best and most progressive theatre makers present her newest work. If you’ve never seen a play in The Barn (and they don’t come all that often) it will also give you a chance to see a play in one of Kilkenny’s best unsung theatre venues.
While I’m here, I’d just like to take the opportunity to coin the phrase ‘McKevittesque’. I’m confident it will get a lot of good use in the next few years.
John Morton
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