From the Shoreto the Sea: Tramore Productions set to release new play
The Charter
July 16, 2007
Linda Browne
In her latest play, renowned local playwright Agnes Walsh tackles some heavy issues, but she insists that it’s not a sentimental production.
Walsh describes her play from Tramore Productions, First View of the Sea, as a mini-novel in which she tries to deal with the raw material of life.
“That’s what interests me. I guess in a way the raw material of life is kind of my palette to write from,” she says.
The play focuses on a mother, her two children, and the passing on and importance of oral traditions in their lives.
“The mother in the family is very old and her son lives with her. And she goes in and out of dementia. And so she really wants to pass on a lot of the oral history that she knows from the Bay, from genealogy and those sorts of things. And the son is kind of learning that,” Walsh says.
“And there’s a daughter that comes into it and she thinks that the son is encouraging the dementia, by going in to all of this old oral history with the mother. So basically, there’s a conflict of values going on, and it pretty much kind of shows up inside of the family structure.
“Often times, a lot of old people with dementia, all they really have is their past, is their oral history. And I wanted to play up the importance of that in peoples’ lives.”
Walsh hopes that each member of the audience will take something away from the production.
“It’s kind of a look at a life and it could be anybody’s life. But if people in the audience can’t identify with it, then I think at least it’s an investigation into the lives of others,” she says.
To read the complete article, click here.
In the Old Country of My Heart, Agnes Walsh's first book of poems, is available as an unabridged audio recording, read by Agnes Walsh with unaccompanied ballads by Simone Savard-Walsh and pump organ music by George Morgan, from Rattling Books.
