THE PLAYBOY OF THE 'SUNNY' SOUTH EAST

PRESS RELEASE:

WYA welcomes back African Director BISI ADIGUN

WYA has for over 14 years run a summer theatre production with a visiting professional director. This year they are delighted to welcome back Bisi Adigun to work with them on their summer show. Bisi last worked with WYA in 2000 when he wrote and directed Moremi - The Goddess for the younger age group. This time he has written a new version of the Playboy story but set it in County Waterford today. It is a very funny version and audiences are bound to enjoy it. We will be working with the older age range (15 – 19 years) and the production (yet to be announced) will take the usual format - the young people work fulltime with the director for the month of August and the play is presented in early September in Garter Lane.

The cast of 25 teenagers are all really enjoying the process and the play opens on September 8th at Garter Lane Theatre. Bisi Adigun is from Nigeria and now lives in Dublin, where he is the Artistic Director of Arambe Productions and has recently co-written with Roddy Doyle the hugely successful new version of Synge's The Playboy of the Western World for the Abbey Theatre.

MESSAGE FROM BISI  (FOR PROGRAMME)

Why another version of The Playboy of the Western World? Well, I say why not. Ask any theatre director; he or she would tell you that a good play is very hard to come by. In my view, as a Nigerian dramatist and theatre director, J M Synge’s The Playboy of the Western World, is one of the best plays ever written.

I came across the play for the first time as a drama undergraduate student in Nigeria in the late 80s, but it was not until 2003 that I wrote an essay on how I taught myself how to laugh at Irish jokes in a book of essay, The Power of Laughter, based on a production of the play I saw in the late 90s that I realised that the play is truly a masterpiece.

A radio drama producer in RTE Radio once told me: “When you come across a play that has love, murder and a stranger coming into town in it, you are on to a winner.” No better way to describe The Playboy of the Western World. It is furthermore a hilarious play.

So when I was asked to source a play to direct with approximately twenty five teenagers in Waterford for their summer project, I suggested a number of ideas but The Playboy …. was my first choice because it is a play that is relevant to our modern time as it did when it was first written more than a century ago.

Inspired by the essay I mentioned earlier, I co-wrote, with Irish writer Roddy Doyle, in 2006, a modern version of The Playboy of the Western World with a Nigerian as Christy Mahon. However this modern version, which was commissioned by my theatre company, Arambe Productions and had a successful premier at the Abbey Theatre during the 2007 Dublin Theatre Festival, is set in Dublin (For more details on this visit: www.arambeproductions.com).

Waterford, I gathered, deserves its own Playboy so I suggested the idea of writing a fun adaptation of The Playboy to Ollie Breslin, the dynamic artistic director of Waterford Youth Arts, when he approached me to think of a play that would enthuse his group of teenage thespians. Typical Ollie, his response was: “Go for it!” And with, that I went to work.

Sometime in May, I came down to Waterford to meet the group of teenagers that have signed for the WYA 2009 summer project, armed with two scripts. The first is of Mathew Sprangler’s stage adaptation of The Kite Runner; the second is an eighteen-page new fun version of The Playboy that I had commenced working on. The group read excerpts from both scripts and the majority voted for the new fun version of the Playboy.

It was Ciara Dower (she is having her stage management debut with this production), who made the strongest case for this fun version of The Playboy. Her view is that it is fun and unlike The Kite Runner, a new version of The Playboy set in the sunny South East can only bring smiles to people’s faces and joy to their hearts; hence, the title: The Playboy of the Sunny South East. It is all Ciara’s fault.

I am grateful to Ollie for inviting me to, once again, come and work with Waterford Youth Arts after my directorial debut in Ireland with them in 1999/2000 when I wrote and directed, with the younger age group, Moremi: The Goddess, a play inspired by a Nigerian myth. I feel very privileged and blessed to have worked with this wonderful, energetic and talented group of teenagers. It has been a blast. I also want to say thanks to all the production crew. Without their support and creativity, everything there is, regarding this production, would not have been.

To you our audience, I say thanks for honouring us with your esteemed presence. I sincerely hope you enjoy the show as much as I have enjoyed writing and directing it. God bless you all.

I would like to dedicate this play and its world première to the fond memory of my father -in-law, Tom O’Flaherty who answered the call of out Lord on July 9, 2009. Dear Tom, this one is for you. Rest in peace.

-- Bisi Adigun, September 2009

MESSAGE FROM A WYA MEMBER  (FOR PROGRAMME)

I’ve been involved with Waterford Youth Arts for just under a year now and its one of the decisions in my life that I can certainly say has been a step forward not just in my personal life but as a potential career as well. I had done drama when I was younger but gave it up for a good few years, but through the De La Salle musical was drawn back onto the stage. So anyway I took the step and went along on a Monday night to WYA and it turned into a whole new world that opened up. As the months went on I felt myself getting closer into what in my opinion is not an organisation but a kind of family. WYA is not just a nice place where you can learn about the stage but is also a safe and friendly environment where you might even find out a little about yourself.

This Summer/Autumn project has been my first and is a great experience for anyone to take the part in. You work closely with a large number or people of different ages and have the opportunity not only to act in but also to take part in the production and your ideas for anything are taken on board and considered as much as any other person involved. Bisi is also a very interesting director to work with, the cultural differences do not get in the way  of the work that needs to be done and as he says himself "once you work you’ll never be the same again". It has also been a good way to learn a lot about his culture (he is from Nigeria) and he goes out of his way to make sure that he doesn’t offend anyone in his script or anything he says and makes sure we’re all okay and comfortable with what’s going on. Although he has his idea and he knows what he wants he will as I said consider other peoples ideas and he loves it when someone has an idea that can improve or make a line or action more interesting to us and our audience. I think its great to see the original idea (the script) and then see how it changes as the working of a play result in the end product. I hope ye all enjoy the show and that nobody has strong feelings against the colour orange.

-- John Doyle