Aisling Kearns and Eimhin Fitzgerald Doherty told David Hennessy about making their West End debuts in the current production of Juno and the Paycock with big names such as Mark Rylance and J. Smith- Cameron.
Big names such as Mark Rylance and J. Smith Cameron are leading the cast of a new London production of Sean O’Casey’s Juno and the Paycock.
Tony and Olivier award-winner Matthew Warchus directs the piece from Sonia Friedman Productions with a cast that also includes the Irish theatre great Ingrid Craigie and Olivier Award- winner Chris Walley.
The cast also includes Paul Hilton, Anna Healy, Seán Duggan, Leo Hanna, Jessica Cervi, Caolan McCarthy, Bryan Moriarty, John Rice and Jacinta Whyte.
The Irish World spoke to Aisling Kearns, from Tullamore and Eimhin Fitzgerald Doherty, from Mullingar, who play the Boyle siblings Mary and Johnny and are both making their West End debuts.
Seán O’Casey was born on the north side of Dublin in 1880 and lived through troubled times such as the War of Independence and the Civil War.
O’Casey wrote three plays, known as his Dublin Trilogy, inspired by these times and the slum dwellers he was familiar with: The Shadow of a Gunman, Juno and the Paycock and The Plough and the Stars.
These plays are now considered to be greats of Irish theatre.
The story of Juno and the Paycock takes it audience back to Dublin 1922 and the Irish Civil War.
Juno Boyle (J. Smith- Cameron) is a beleaguered matriarch struggling to make ends meet and keep the family together.
Her husband, ‘Captain’ Jack Boyle (Rylance) fancies himself a ship’s commander but sails no further than the pub.
But an opportunity arrives that could take the family out of the hopelessness of their tiny tenement flat and the bleak times they are living in.
Smith-Cameron known for starring in the hit HBO series Succession.
Her portrayal of Gerri Kellman has won her a Golden Globe.
Among his many awards, Mark Rylance has two Oliviers and three Tonys as well as his Oscar for Spielberg’s Bridge of Spies.
The Irish World has seen Ingrid Craigie performing in recent years in Dinner with Groucho and Martin McDonagh’s The Beauty Queen of Leenane. She was also part of the cast for The Cripple of Inishmaan which starred Daniel Radcliffe.
Chris Walley is known for The Young Offenders and also won the Olivier Award for his work in The Lieutenant of Inishmore alongside Aidan Turner.
Aisling Kearns’ stage credits include The Long Christmas Dinner at the Abbey, Circle of Friends and The Lieutenant of Inishmore (both at the Gaiety) and Asking for It with Landmark Productions.
Her screen credits Barber with Aidan Gillen, the sitcom Faithless, Darklands and Fair City.
She can also be seen in the forthcoming Sherlock & Daughter.
Eimhin Fitzgerald Doherty trained at the Lír Academy, Dublin and this is an early role in a budding career.
How are you enjoying being part of Juno and the Paycock in the West End, and how it’s being received?
Aisling Kearns: “It’s been a surreal experience.
“It just feels like a step up from what I’ve done in Ireland before, getting to work with people like Mark Rylance, J., Paul Hilton, who has so much experience on stage.
“In the rehearsal period especially, you learn so much from it.
“It’s been great.
“I had a moment actually yesterday of just being like, ‘God, this is my job. How is this my job?’
“I’m so lucky to get to do this every night, and to work with the people I work with.
“It’s just been incredible.”
Eimhin Fitzgerald Doherty: “It’s a lot of fun.
“I’ve had such an amazing time.
“Ais is saying it’s been a step up from the work she’s done, it’s been a huge step up for me just coming out of drama school, just the pace and the quality of the work that we’re doing.
“It’s been really surreal and I’ve been able to really enjoy it. I always thought that I maybe wouldn’t do so good under that sort of pressure but everybody in the company’s been so lovely and so caring.
“Everybody really just cares about the work and so within an environment like that, you really can’t do anything but enjoy it.
“It doesn’t feel real at all.
“It’s just so surreal.”
Do you find yourself pinching yourself either in rehearsals with people like Mark Rylance or looking out at the crowd?
Eimhin: “I often look at the theatre.
“It’s such an ornate, beautiful space and every time we do our warm ups on stage before a show, that’s always where I take a little moment to soak it all in.
“It’s really something else.”
Are you the same, Aisling?
Aisling: “Yeah, absolutely.
“The history of that theatre.
“We had a chat before we started thinking of all the actors that have played that stage and the shows that have been on there.
“It’s just seeped in history which I think leaves an energy on the stage and is passed on to every show that comes on, then we’re picking up that energy and giving what we can for everyone that comes to see the show.
“It’s been incredible.”
Eimhin you have described this story as one of ordinary people living in extraordinary times..
Eimhin: “Sean O’Casey lived in the tenements and knew these people, they’re real reflections of actual people of the time.
“I think even though there never was a real Johnny Boyle, at least that we know of, there are people that were very similar to him and to every other character in this play.
“I think that’s what really gives it its rawness and its honesty, they don’t feel like characters.
“They feel like real people and it was such an unbelievable time of history.”
Aisling: “I think truth is such a valuable key to use when we’re playing with this as well.
“Like Eimhin was saying, they’re real people with true stories and although they are characters that Sean O’Casey wrote, he knew these kinds of people and he knew the struggles that they went through and how different people coped with different situations.
“It’s also special because it’s been 100 years since this play was written.
“We’ve so much respect for that and to be truthful to these people and especially telling this story in London, that makes it that extra bit special, that we’re sharing our history with these people and that we show it the right amount of respect that it deserves.”
I was going to bring up that it’s been 100 years. That shows that the play has 1) stood the test of time and 2) how real it is being written in the days of the civil war as opposed to being dreamed up after the fact by someone who wasn’t there.
It has a certain authenticity for that, doesn’t it?
Aisling: “Well, it was very brave to put on something like that so soon after it and with so many opinions on it, and blatant opinions.
“Mary has a line near the end of the play.
“She says, ‘There isn’t a god. There isn’t a god’.
“And that would have been a very brazen thing to say of the time, and very not ‘the normal’.
“Even if it was a thought you had, you would not say it out loud.
“For Sean O’Casey to write it and then put it on so soon after the war, it was just incredible and it shows how brilliant his writing is.
“It’s 100 years later and it’s still impactful because it’s still relatable.”
Eimhin: “My character Johnny, he’s awful afraid and it’s a very specific type of fear.
“A lot of characters in the play actually have this flavour of fear.
“I think it’s still really relevant today.
“It’s that fear of what’s happening outside and the unfathomable horror of a lot of these situations.
“And those situations are still happening all around the world today, and just because we’re a little further away from it now, it’s easier to kind of disconnect ourselves from it.
“But I think this play is a beautiful reminder of a time where those situations weren’t so far away and where they were actually right on top of us.
“100 years is a long time but actually in the scale of history, it isn’t that long and I think it’s a really beautiful opportunity for anybody, for all of us in the play, and hopefully people who come to see the play, to be reminded of a time where things were quite close to home.
“Just because they’re not close to home anymore doesn’t mean that they’re not happening.”
I think the Boyle siblings that you play probably between them symbolise a lot of the young people of the time. Mary has that hope while Johnny, who lost his arm in the war of independence, shows the very real cost of freedom or independence..
Eimhin: “Yeah, it’s a fantastic juxtaposition.
“I’d like to think that, at least for Johnny, that hope never goes and the real engaging thing I’d like to hope is watching that journey of somebody just desperately clinging on to that hope, even though the world is completely at odds against it.”
Aisling: “Absolutely. All the characters do have their hope for their lives and Mary’s is freedom but it’s not a political freedom, it’s a freedom from the life that she was born and raised in which wouldn’t have been a norm as well: To think that you could have a life outside of the life that you were born and raised in especially in a tenement.
“It was living in poverty and having dreams and hopes of life outside of that would have been kind of thought of as ridiculous because it just wasn’t the way it was, especially for women.
“It was just expected that you would get married and have children and continue like that but Mary has hopes and dreams of living a life outside of that and is invested in books that give her a view of what her life could be if she works hard for it.
“She stands up for the rights of workers and is very opinionated.
“I’d say she is now still but back in the day, I’d say she was an idol for some women going, ‘God, we can think outside of what we live in and we can work hard enough to have a better life for ourselves, to not allow the circumstances that you’re in to pull you back’.”
Is it that they both hope for brighter days, is that what your characters have in common?
Aisling: “Yeah, I suppose they both have hope in their own ways, but they’re also very different.
“I’ve really loved working with you, Eimhin.
“I met his Ma and I was like, ‘He’s literally turned into my actual brother. We’re literally killing each other’.
“I love when things like that happen. This natural relationship happens. Having that relationship off stage, it’s been brilliant because then when we get on stage, you have that energy and chemistry that, I think, comes across very truthful.
“Both the characters together are brilliant.
“It’s just a very truthful sibling relationship that he’s written.”
Eimhin: “Absolutely, I’ve loved working with you too.
“I think for the play to work, the audience needs to have hope that everything might be okay to really go on the journey not just with our characters but for every character in the play.
“There has to be hope that it’s going to be okay and either you feel a sense of relief if that hope comes through or you feel devastated if it doesn’t.
“And I think, especially in the current day, hope is still really necessary.
“I think this play is a great workout for empathy and for hope and to kind of reach down into your own feelings and relate to something that feels so far away, and then maybe realise that it isn’t so far away.
“This play, though it seems so outrageously theatrical, is really capable of touching home.”
Once again this is the story of the ordinary people who don’t get written about in history books..
Eimhin: “We’re not seeing your average protagonist or antagonist.
“It’s not a play about Michael Collins and whilst every one of the characters has their own individual involvement in the history, it’s a family and it’s the people surrounding that family.
“It’s a look into a community as opposed to a hero’s story or an anti-hero’s story.
“I think those are the people who get affected the most and are talked about the least in these war situations.
“Juno has a couple of lines where she lists all of the people who have been killed and maimed and affected and Johnny being one of them. Those are actually the people that can be easily turned into a statistic.
“They’re all real people, individual.
“It’s a really special story of people that could easily be forgotten but still have such an incredible story.”
What is it like to work with such high profile people as Mark Rylance and J.Smith-Cameron and then Ingrid Craigie who is Irish theatrical royalty and then Chris Walley known from Young Offenders but who is also an Olivier Award- winning actor. It’s quite the cast…
Eimhin: “It’s amazing.
“I wouldn’t have expected it but it really is amazing how, when you all get into the room together, how all of that outside stuff just kind of falls away.
“I found myself having to remind myself who people were the first couple of days of rehearsals.
“You would be looking around and you’re going, ‘God, remember who you’re in the room with’.
“I think it’s a real testament to the amount of care that people had, everything falls away, any sort of airs or notions or awards or past experiences and accolades. They really take a backseat, you sit in a room together and everybody’s kind of on an even playing field with one common goal of trying to work out, ‘How are we gonna do this?’”
Aisling: “All the egos are left at the door.
“You’re straight in like, ‘Well Mark, how are you?’: No big deal.
“And J, of course.
“I’d watched Succession so I was like, ‘Oh my God’.
“But she, again, is just so down to earth and a lovely person, a really lovely person.
“You mentioned Ingrid there. When we did the table read at the very start, everyone’s just kind of finding it a little bit and it’s kind of a weird feeling when you’re reading it and you’re going, ‘Oh God, is this it?’
“And Ingrid comes and does her part and we’re nearly all in tears.
“I was like, ‘This is the read through the play and she has us in bits’.
“She’s incredible. That’s what’s so great about working with people with so much experience and knowledge.
“You have to pinch yourself being like, ‘This is so amazing. I’m in the room with these people’.
“You have moments of it (pinching yourself) but then you do also have to put that to the side because they can get in the way.”
Eimhin: “I also think people we look up to or idolise or admire, people typically tend to have an idea of that person and in a rehearsal room, it’s a real vulnerable space and to really hit good, honest work and true work, you have to sit in your insecurities.
“And I think every actor has to do that whether you’re Mark Rylance or whether you’re just like me coming straight out of drama school, everybody goes through a point where it’s like, ‘Is this any good?’
“I think the idea that you might have of somebody versus the vulnerability of that person in a rehearsal room are always going to be so far away from each other so that you can’t help but just see them as a real person.”
Juno and the Paycock by Sean O’Casey is at the Gielgud Theatre, London until Saturday 23 November 2024.
For more information and to book, go to www.JunoAndThePaycock.com.
