Sunday, February 23, 2014

Three Men Talking About Things They Kinda Know About

Three Men Talking About Things They Kinda Know About

Centre Culturel Irlandais, Paris


21 February 2014



Talking about one's sensitive past is not easy doing, but somehow the three talented actors of this play pulled it off poetically and with humor. Stephen James Smith, Kalle Ryan and Colm Keegan offered an insightful and penetrating moment with their play, that they've been performing for three years now.

A simple setting of photographs surrounding them, the three men shared their past lives and family issues with a different kind of acting very specific to each one. While Stephen slammed his parts, sharing his difficult relationship with his father after he has seen him cheat on his mother and then leaving her, Colm talked with his strong and melodious Irish accent about the difficulty to have a child young, and Kalle with his more soft-spoken Americanized language related his overcoming of the pain of losing both parents. He may have been the most communicative emotionally speaking.

 
The actors happily answered to all of the questions asked by the public, and talked about how they had made up this play in the kitchen of one of them. They have come a long way since then, and on that matter their play might be adapted on a US stage with different actors, something they would be interested to see from an outside eye. They also shared their fear of not being understood by a French public, but were relieved when the first peals of laughter boomed out from the beginning.

During this 20-minute Q&A, the actors also emphasized how this was not a therapy-play: although these are all true personal stories, these issues have been resolved by now. It is not a cry of pain waiting for an answer from the love of the public, but a sharing of personal stories that can resonate in people who might have gone through similar difficult episodes. As Kalle puts it: the more specific the story is, the more universal it becomes.

This article was written for this blog only.

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