Hannah Morrish told David Hennessy about being part of the cast of new Conor McPherson play, The Brightening Air alongside Chris O’Dowd, Seán McGinley, Brian Gleeson and more.
The Brightening Air, The world premiere of a new play by Conor McPherson, opens at The Old Vic next month.
Conor McPherson is often described as Ireland’s greatest living playwright.
Conor himself is directing a cast that includes Chris O’Dowd, Brian Gleeson, Sean McGinley, Rosie Sheehy, Derbhle Crotty, Eimhin Fitzgerald Doherty, Aisling Kearns and Hannah Morrish.
The story follows a fractured family in 1980s County Sligo with three siblings fighting for the future of their family home.
The new production marks the first new play from McPherson since his Chekhov adaptation Uncle Vanya in 2020.
His Bob Dylan musical Girl from the North Country premiered at the Old Vic in 2017.
However musicals and adaptations aside, this is McPherson’s first new straight play since 2013’s The Night Alive.
Chris O’Dowd as Dermot, a man who returns to his family home in County Sligo during the ’80s to join up with his siblings – played by Brian Gleeson and Rosie Sheehy – who need his help in clinging on to the threatened house.
But an ex-clergyman uncle and sister-in-law are looking for their own answers so plans soon go awry.
It is a tale of fate, family and unseen forces in an Ireland very different from how we know it today.
Hannah Morrish plays Lydia, the unhappy wife of Chris O’Dowd’s Dermot.
She has previously performed in the West End, at the RSC and the National Theatre.
Her theatre credits include The Merchant of Venice 1936 (West End/RSC); The Confessions (European tour); Antony and Cleopatra (National Theatre); Julius Caesar, Titus Andronicus, Coriolanus (RSC); The Darkest Part of the Night (Kiln); All’s Well That Ends Well, Cancelling Socrates (Jermyn Street).
On television she has appeared in Call the Midwife and Father Brown.
She took time out of rehearsals to chat to The Irish World.
How are rehearsals going so far? Does it get a bit intense?
“It does get a bit intense.
“The way that it’s written, you can’t miss a beat.
“There’s so much going on and it’s also quite physical, and very funny, so technically you’ve gotta just be really, really on it.
“And also because there’s eight of us as well, there’s lots of pieces when all eight of us are really all speaking over each other, so it’s good. It’s a lot going on.”
What’s it like to be part of such a cast? Obviously there’s such big names in there, is that a lot of fun? Is that overwhelming? What’s that like in the rehearsal room?
“It’s an amazing cast.
“Everyone is completely phenomenal and Conor’s written eight- It feels like there’s eight instruments and everyone is so different and sort of playing their own instrument.
“And yeah, it has to be a very funny rehearsal room, I think, because there is so much pain in the play and it’s very sad in a lot of places, and there’s a lot of desperation in the play and so the comedy that’s already in the text but also that is just in the rehearsal room, is really fantastic and really it allows us to be very open which is great.
“There’s a lot of laughter in the rehearsal room, as you can imagine.”
You mentioned pain there and I’m guessing a lot of that pain comes from your character or is belonging to your character, because she comes seeking a miracle, doesn’t she?
“At the beginning of the play, she’s married to Dermot, the oldest of the three siblings, the three McFadden siblings, played by Chris O’Dowd, and she is very much still in love with him after being with him since she was 16.
“And he has fallen for someone else and she is desperately trying to get him to stay and will go to any lengths to try and get him to stay.
“So it’s quite a desperate place that she’s in at the beginning of the play, and throughout the play.
“And yeah, we see the lengths that she goes to and what that does to everyone else in the play.”
A big theme is the supernatural, the unseen forces, and Conor McPherson is so good at those elements, of course…
“Yeah, he’s so good at the supernatural and the mundane living right next to each other.
“That’s what I think this play is so full of, is the total, everyday, ordinary but right next to it, there’s the extraordinary, and neither is ever given too much weight.
“It’s not like we fall into something that’s suddenly very mystical.
“There’s none of that.
“It’s just as in life, there are things we can’t explain and the beauty of Conor’s work is allowing the space for that to be explored on stage.
“This play is full of that and it’s great as an actor to play with.
“In terms of folklore, it’s so rich.
“It’s the fears that these characters may have, or the lengths people will go to when they’re desperate.
“But the folklore is definitely an important part of it but also very normal as well.
“It’s at no point suddenly disconnected from the everyday.
“It’s just part of the belief system or the normality of the day to day with everyone in this house.”
Have you long been a fan of Conor McPherson?
“Yeah, I read most of his work at drama school and then I saw Girl from the North Country and just totally, totally fell in love with his writing seeing it performed as well, and then read this and totally fell in love with it.
“It’s an amazing play and again, it’s so rooted in character and reality but with this sort of transcendent thing as well that he just has in all of his plays, something that is totally otherworldly.”
Of course it must be great whenever you get to do a brand new play, and I bet it’s great as well when you get to do the work of Conor McPherson but what a rare thing to do a new play by Conor McPherson.
Is there a special energy about that?
“Yeah, sometimes if I think about it, it’s a bit overwhelming in the rehearsal room because it’s mental to be originating a role that he’s written.
“But he’s so warm and relaxed in the rehearsal room and it’s just very playful and like any other rehearsal room.
“Yeah, if we thought like that, I think we’d all get totally stuck because it is amazing but you have just got to come to it like anything else and have the freedom to play.”
What is it like to work with Conor himself as director?
“It’s so brilliant because we’ll be working through a bit and then he’s like, ‘Oh no, say this’, or, ‘Add that little bit in’, or ‘cut that’, or whatever, and just off the back of what we’re all doing in the room.
“It’s amazing seeing his brain as a writer work as well and shape and shift things.
“And also because he knows the play and he knows the world so well as a director, he knows where to lean into a moment or when just to skate across it.
“It is like a piece of music and he’s sort of conducting it in a way that only he can as the writer.”
You just mentioned Chris O’Dowd, what is it like to work with him?
“He’s fantastic and very funny, as you would imagine.
“I’m desperately in love with him and he is desperately in love with someone else and that could be a very painful thing to explore in a rehearsal room but Chris just is pure joy and brings a lot of laughter into the rehearsal room which is really, really great.
“He’s been doing comedy forever so he’s sort of improvisational.
“There’s a lot of improvisational play between everybody in the rehearsal room.
“That’s my favourite kind of working.
“It’s not super rigid.
“There’s lots of laughter and silliness.”
As big as some of the names and profile are, is it a case of when you’re in the rehearsal room, the egos are left outside and you’re all in it together?
“Yeah, totally that.
“And that’s the sort of magic of a rehearsal room.
“It’s so great.
“We all just want to tell us this amazing story that Conor has written and trying to work out our individual bits in it.
“And it’s just a lot of hard work and focus but also just a lot of ease because, I think, with something like this, there’s got to be a sense of coming to it with a lot of openness.
“So it’s a very open, supportive room which is great.
“This is a very Chekhovian play.
“It’s full of yearning and it’s eight people in one crumbling house.
“There’s lots of nods to that kind of theatre but it’s incredibly modern and fresh and strange.
“I’ve always wanted to be an actor and have done a lot of Shakespeare, which I’ve loved, but it’s so great doing new writing, especially working with the writer in the room as the director, because it’s so free to play with the text in a way that can be harder with Shakespeare.
“This is my first Irish play.
“I auditioned for drama school with Brian Friel’s play Lovers so that was with an Irish accent.
“I just totally fell in love with that speech.
“I just worked really hard on the accent and just knew that that was the one that I wanted to do.
“And it worked out.
“It’s an amazing play.
“This is my first professional play with an Irish accent.”
Is it kind of full circle in a way then?
“It is full circle.
“It’s nice, actually, to think about it like that.
“it is 13 years later but it’s lovely to think of it like that, finally doing an Irish play.”
You’re from York. Is there any Irish in the family background? Any Irish blood?
“Our great, great grandfather, apparently, yes, was born in Ireland and then ran away to sea when he was 13.
“But that’s all we’ve got.”
Back to the play what do you think the setting of 1980s Ireland gives it, perhaps some nostalgia but, as times then were different, does it add something to the circumstances?
“Well, it’s a memory play as well and there is a real sense of it not really fitting in any time and the history laying on top of everything else so there’s a lot of talk about all of the different generations that have lived in the house, and the feeling of all of the generations that are to come.
“The play feels like it’s about time repeating on itself, and that time specifically, I guess, in the 80s, you’re just on the cusp of a huge change in Ireland but everywhere in terms of jobs and technology and whatever.
“It feels like suddenly the old ways are moving and changing and so much of the play is about who stays in the family home and who leaves and searches for a new life, so it feels like to be set then is right on the cusp of a big shift throughout the country as well.”
Is that where some of the sadness comes in? Because not everyone can move on. Your character sounds like she cannot..
“Yeah, very much so, she’s stuck.
“As with so many extraordinary characters in those sort of unrequited love positions, there’s no getting out of it.
“There’s no fixing it.
“We know these people.
“They’re people that will stay in marriages even if that love isn’t reciprocated.
“There is a deep sadness in that.
“But a lot of characters in the play are longing for something that they will never get and seeing them come around to the fact that maybe things will never change and then the difference of when someone does decide to leave, what that does to the whole community.
“There’s so much in the text about the landscape and the earth and there’s something very stagnant about these people, that they’re set in their ways as well.
“They’re very rooted to the land until things do shift which is very painful for everyone.”
A big theme is family and those delicate bonds..
“Yeah, absolutely and they’re all really intertwined throughout so many years.
“They don’t all like each other.
“That’s what they know.
“And so when those bonds start to crack or shift, it’s existential, it’s the feeling that your life is over.
“I think that’s what Conor is really playing with in this crumbling down house.”
Is forgetting (and its necessity to survival) a big theme of the play?
“Yeah, the centre of the play is the beautiful character of Billie played By Rosie Sheehy.
“Billie is such a specific character in that she has so much directness and focus and her heart is so open and she really remembers things.
“And actually what a lot of the characters in the play need to do in order to survive or to move forward is to forget things and I guess that’s such a huge part of what the play is about: Do you forget things and move on or do you really face the reality of the situation and the fact that you love who you love and embrace it?
“The decision of that, whether you go one way or the other, that’s where a lot of the pain comes.
“It’s so rich in terms of everyone’s storyline.
“Uncle Pierre, who is played by Seán McGinley, comes back into the family home with his own desires or needs and slowly everyone begins to be aware of what that is.
“Everybody has their own desire, their own thing that they need.
“It is effectively eight stories beautifully interwoven all over the space of a few days really, in this family home, and that’s what Conor is so good at.
“I saw Uncle Vanya.
“It’s the way he gives space to all characters and all of their individual pains and longings.
“He’s a master of it.
“There’s occasional nods to Conor’s earlier plays as well.
“But I’ve never read any play like this.
“It is very particular in its tone and in its message and in its strangeness and in its beauty.
“It’s just a very, very beautiful snapshot of a family over a week or so.”
You mentioned coming in to chat that it was rather intense. I was wondering, does it get a bit draining? Does it take a lot out of you when you’re working on it day in, day out?
Or is the comic relief enough to alleviate that?
“It’s one of the most joyous rehearsal rooms I have ever been in.
“And we are all saying that all the time.
“It feels like such a joyous space.
“But because you’re constantly putting on layers, you’ll do a scene and then go back to the beginning and then keep on putting on another layer, another layer, until you’re holding all of the subtle nuances between each character and the stories that are all being woven at the same time.
“It’s not necessarily that physically exhausting although there is quite a lot of physicality to the piece, but there’s so much going on.
“It’s such a rich play so it’s a bit knackering in the best way.”
Back to Conor McPherson as a writer and a director, do you really see why he’s as revered as he is?
“Yeah, he’s magic and such a brilliant director with actors.
“He knows exactly what actors need.
“I’d believe he was an actor as well.
“He gets the rehearsal room and gives such like space to really explore and play and play in a way where you can, you can really go to the extremes and push at all the edges and yeah.
“And he comes with so much joy as well which is fantastic.
“He’s the first one to crack a joke and he’s an amazing, amazing director.”
The Brightening Air runs 10 April – 14 June at The Old Vic in London.
For more information and to book, click here.