David Hennessy spoke to the cast of a new Irish play that is set for The London Irish Centre, the Edinburgh Fringe Festival and its first airing over in Ireland at Smock Alley in Dublin.
Inspired by real life events, A Silent Scandal tells the story of the suppression of a scandal in an Irish boys school.
Using Irish talent based here in London, it was written by Meade Conway and is directed by Sally Hennessy.
The cast includes Ben Carolan (Sing Street and KIN) Senna O’Hara (Ann, the film about Ann Lovett), and actor-comedian Eoghan Quinn.
Eoghan Quinn plays embattled headmaster Brenndan while Seanna O’Hare plays Miss Turley who slowly but surely realises something is wrong. Ben Carolan, who has known Brennan longer than Turley, is reluctant to believe what she says as Mr O’Toole.
A Silent Scandal already played at The Old Red Lion Theatre in London in February but has been updated since then.
How has the play changed since we saw it at The Old Red Lion?
Senna: “Ben’s character has been fleshed out a lot.
“When I first read the original script, it was just a scene with me and Eoghan that we did at a scratch night and Ben’s character was then added in for the scenes either side when Meade was kind of finishing the play.
“I think that the extra time that Meade’s taken to write Ben’s character, it’s really fleshed out the character and I think that’s one of the largest differences between the last version of the play because whilst Ben did a fantastic job in the run in the Old Red Lion, I think script wise, he has a more to the character now.”
Ben: “Definitely, it gives me a lot more to work with.
“There’s a lot more depth to him and I think that the relationships between the characters- the relationship between me and Senna’s character and Eoghan’s character are a lot more fleshed out as well so it just gives us a lot more to go at when we’re rehearsing and hopefully when we put it on.”
Eoghan: “There definitely is more development and there’s a whole new act, which develops the plot out a bit further and provides a good bit of colour for us going into the final act.”
Are the themes coming through clearer? Are things that were hinted at in The Old Red Lion now a bit more palpable?
Ben: “I’d say that the themes are a little bit more clear cut but not too much, we don’t want to be on the nose too much about anything but definitely at the start, we’re trying to get more of a comedic side into it, a bit more of a lighter spin on it especially in the early stages of the play just to give it that kind of gradual fall down into what happens in the end, but the themes definitely are the same.
“They’re written more for us so we can perform them more clearly but the themes are the same throughout.”
Because it is very much about what’s unsaid and what’s under the surface, isn’t it? Although it’s a play set in a school, we never see a child. It is all back room chats and things like that..
Ben: “Something that we always talk about throughout is that we don’t want to spoon feed the audience, you want to leave it up to their imagination and leave it open ended and think of them as almost part of the cast, that they can fill in the blanks.”
Senna: “I think the whole point of A Silent Scandal is that you don’t know what’s happening and even when she knows, she doesn’t actually know.
“That’s the whole point.
“And it’s reflective of a time.
“The whole point of all of it is that no one knows what’s going on which is what made it so sinister.
“Because it’s easy to be outraged at something when you know what’s happened and it’s overtly horrible, but when it’s all this kind of grey area stuff, it’s harder to pinpoint, it’s harder to prosecute and it’s harder to get angry at it which is the whole point of the play: You don’t know what’s going on but you have the sense of foreboding throughout and when you leave, you know something’s going on but it’s easy to ignore it because you don’t know what.”
Ben:“ After we talked to people after the show, different people were saying different things that probably were going on and it sparked conversation between everybody what was actually happening or what might have been happening, but we don’t even really know, you know what I mean?”
You just spoke about reactions to the play at The Old Red Lion, what sort of reactions did you get? And were they different between Irish who probably sadly could recognise it all too well and those not from home?
Eoghan: “Yeah, there was definitely a strong reaction from Irish people.
“I think it did bring home a lot of recent Irish history and then it was interesting getting the reaction from people outside of Ireland which was a bit different, maybe not as familiar but nonetheless compelling.”
Senna: “It was nice. I had a friend come up to me at the end of one of the nights.
“And obviously in the rehearsal room, we discuss and we create this whole backstory for all of our characters which is never intended for the audience to know about, it’s just for us to flesh out when we’re acting and stuff.
“We had decided something with Sally our director in the rehearsal room that then my friend had come up to me and been like, ‘Oh, I thought about this’.
“And it’s like that was picked up on even though it was never said, it wasn’t verbalised, it was literally a look that they picked up on and then came back to us and so it was kind of lovely to see that kind of work, pay off then in the show.
“It seemed that we communicated what we wanted to communicate.
“Sally had a really wonderful vision of my character in particular as the woman in the play that seemed to be communicated when hearing the reaction, that what we wanted to come across came across.”
Ben: “Yeah, we’re trying to get stuff across that is very subtle and it’s very difficult to do sometimes, but working with Sally, she’s very clever and she knows how to get those little moments across and keep them subtle as well because you don’t want them overpowering anybody’s lines or you don’t want them taking people out of the play either.
“You want people to just have a little glimpse and say, ‘Geez, what was that about?’
“But Sally’s fantastic at just adding in those little layers.
“I think that’s what we’ve worked on now especially coming up to Edinburgh is we’re really just learning each act and making it deeper for ourselves and hopefully it will come across in the play but in a very subtle way as well.”
Senna: “I think he (playwright Meade) always wanted to take it to Edinburgh and we were all only too delighted to have the opportunity to go to Fringe.
“I think we were all very happy with where we left it in the Old Red Lion.
“I think if we had never performed this play again, we would have been very happy with how it went but it’s exciting to think that it’s going to grow and evolve into something else.
“I think Meade’s probably the same that he was like, ‘The Old Red Lion was fantastic momentum, a three night sold out show in London. That’s another one to tick off the list’.
“I think he was really excited then to go and rewrite the new draft and for us to get back in the rehearsal room and bring it that step further for Edinburgh.”
Ben you’ve been in big productions like Sing Street and KIN, how does this compare to those pieces, you’ve also not done much theatre before, is that right?
Ben: “No, this is the first play I’ve done.
“It’s completely new to me.
“I could barely walk when I when I met these guys and they’ve taught me everything, including Sally as well.
“I’ve learned everything off them since I met them but I’ve loved it, it’s a completely different experience.
“There’s something so organic about it and something so meaningful when you’re on these sets.
“It’s hard to find.
“You develop relationships with people and connect with people sincerely and working on something that you all care about, I’ve found it on this and I’m very thankful that I did.”
And Senna, you were in Ann, the harrowing story of Ann Lovett. Is this project similar at all?
Senna: “It’s similar in the sense that they’re both kind of dealing with the knock on effects of the kind of ‘hush, hush’ culture of Ireland, but stage and screen are so vastly different and the experience of doing it is also vastly different.
“In a way, this is kind of the most play play I’ve ever done.
“This is much more kind of a classic play in the way it’s written and I kind of enjoy that.
“I also enjoy kind of playing up and playing older.
“I think, especially on screen because it’s much more realistic, I get cast as teenagers a lot so it’s kind of fun to be playing above my age.
“And I think in terms of compared to Ann, Ann was a very intensive kind of two week shoot that was quite intense for everyone working on it because the story was so heavy whereas this is obviously spread out over months and we’re obviously a very tight kind of group of just like the three of us and Sally in the rehearsal room and because it’s over a longer period of time, it feels less heavy than when we were doing Ann.
“Also, because it’s not a direct true story, we’re able to inject a lot more light heartedness into the rehearsal room.”
Eoghan, you have done a lot of comedy, is this also a change of pace for you? Is this unlike anything you’ve ever done?
Eoghan: “Totally, yeah. It obviously is very different to comedy. There’s no two ways about it.
“But working with Sally, Ben and Senna is brilliant because they’ve all done a lot of different things so it’s very useful for me having them because they’ve got such range so you can really draw on that.
“It is a welcome change, I do really relish that opportunity to expand the type of performance that you can give.
“There’s some things I think in comedic performance that are similar with timing and I suppose projection and things like that.
“But actually, it’s a very different role. I haven’t really done anything like it.
“It’s really, really a welcome opportunity.”
It was the chance to play older characters that really struck a cast that is in its early 20s.
What was your first reaction to reading the play? Do you remember what about it grabbed you first of all?
Ben: “My first thought was that I wouldn’t be able to do it because, like Senna said, I do get auditions and play parts that are younger people, so when I first got it and I was reading for a teacher I was like, ‘They must have sent me the wrong script or something like that’.
“I genuinely didn’t think I’d be able to play the part but after I met with the guys and everything like that, it felt a bit more natural and fell into place but initially, I was kind of in shock.
“It was like, ‘I don’t think I’ll be able to do this’.”
Senna: “I had the pretty much exact same thing as Ben.
“I was reading through the script Joe had sent me- Joe O’Neill from the Irish Creative Collective.
“He sent me on the script and he was like, ‘Sally would love you to do this part for scratch night’.
“And I was like, ‘Yep, perfect’.
“But I was reading it and I was the same as Ben in the sense that I was like, ‘I can’t see this at all for myself. This is not my casting. This is a grown woman. She’s like 40’.
“But fair dues to Sally. She saw it for Ben and she saw it for me and credit to Sally’s vision because I couldn’t.
“If I had read the script without Sally being like, ‘No, I want you to play this part’, I wouldn’t have seen myself at all in the role.
“Credit to Sally for that one really.”
It’s probably no different for you, Eoghan..
Eoghan: “In any bit of theatre I’ve done, I always play the bad guy or the fool. It’s one or the other so in that way, it was maybe a little bit less of a shock.
“I knew I wouldn’t be the good guy, that’s for certain but it is a really great script.
“It’s nearly a year now since myself and Senna first performed it.
“It has just flown by.
“And you learn more from the script, the more you kind of live with it which is rare.
“It’s a huge credit to Sally that you really grow in the character and you learn more about your character the longer you do it.
“It’s nearly 11 months now we’ve been with this script and this director.
“I still feel like, in a way, we’re scratching the surface but that speaks to the writing and the direction and the cast.”
Would you like to see it go on again and get a further life beyond even the planned dates?
Senna: “Yeah, I’ll be doing this role until I’m actually the age of the character by the looks of things.
“Yeah, I think we’re all really, really excited for Edinburgh.
“It’s going to be great, great fun. I never thought at this stage in my life that I was going to be performing in Edinburgh Fringe.
“I think I’m taking it one show at a time at the moment.”
Eoghan: “It’s such a dream to go and perform in Edinburgh.
“I did perform in Edinburgh about two years ago, I did improv there so what a world of difference, it couldn’t be more different this time.
“I’m really delighted to be going with the play and I think audiences are going to really like it.
“And as Senna said, it’s just one of those opportunities as an actor, you just can’t say no to.
“So I’m really, really looking forward to the opportunity.”
Ben: “It would be an honour to do the play again.
“I’ve loved working with these guys and we’ve had a great time doing it.
“If we get the chance to put it on again, I wouldn’t be saying no.”
A Silent Scandal is at London Irish Centre on Thursday 25 July, at Greenside George Street in Edinburgh for the Edinburgh Fringe Festival 12- 17 August and Smock Alley in Dublin 2- 4 September.