Dublin Theatre Festival 2013: The Bruising of Clouds, by Fishamble: The New Play Company

First week of rehearsals for Fishamble: The New Play Company’s The Bruising of Clouds. Jim Culleton, Director, fills us in on the progress so far

The team at Fishamble has just completed our first week of rehearsals for The Bruising of Clouds by Sean McLoughlin, also known as Sammy Gleeson. Sean/Sammy is fascinated by names – even offstage characters in the play, who are not mentioned by the onstage characters, have been given names by him. Furthermore, the play is full of fascinating insight into who we are, what we believe in, and what identity means, so the fact that the playwright is changing his name seems strangely appropriate!

Seana Kerslake and Ryan Andrews

The first week of rehearsals began with a read-through and we invited the Friends of Fishamble and some Friends of the Dublin Theatre Festival to attend and were delighted that they did. This initial reading is nerve wracking, as the whole team is gathered, and most people are hearing the play for the first time. So it was a great relief when our guests laughed and cried and gasped in horror during it.

Then we started exploring the play, reading it, discussing it, and getting a sense of the world that the characters inhabit. The actors – Ian Lloyd Anderson, Seana Kerslake and Ryan Andrews – are terrific, and there is a great rapport between them. We have had a very enjoyable and productive few days teasing out the characters’ motivations and perspectives on life, as we try to get under the surface of their actions and understand them fully. The playwright is also making some final changes to the text as he hears it, and we realise that a little more or less dialogue may be needed at certain points. This work has an extra deadline, as the text needs to be submitted to New Island, the play’s publisher, by the end of August.

This first week has also allowed us to make some final decisions on the set, about whether it would be advantageous to see the characters offstage or not, a possibility which has been presented by Sinead O’Hanlon’s very clever set design, which manages to be both naturalistic and abstract, all at once. On Friday afternoon, the Production team – Des Kenny, Paula Tierney and Richie O’Sullivan – delivered some props to the rehearsal room, including a fold-out sofa bed, a furry monkey, and a wooden Buddha, so we look forward to working with these next week!

Jim Culleton, Director of Fishamble’s The Bruising of Clouds

For more about Fishamble, click here

Images by Nasrin Saadat