Dublin actress Victoria Smurfit told David Hennessy about returning to the stage after 17 years for a modern retelling of Henrik Ibsen’s Ghosts at the Lyric Theatre in Hammersmith.
Dubin actress Victoria Smurfit is making her return to the stage after 17 years by starring as Helena in Ghosts at the Lyric in Hammersmith.
Smurfit, 51, came to prominence with her role in Ballykissangel back in 1998, she would then also make a guest appearance in Cold Feet.
From 2003- 2009 she starred in ITV’s Trial & Retribution.
Other screen credits include NBC’s Dracula and playing Cruella De Vil in Once Upon A Time.
More recently we have seen her on television in BBC’s Northern Ireland- based thriller series, Bloodlands and Disney’s hit Dame Jilly Cooper adaptation, Rivals.
Her current stage role represents a return to her very beginnings as actress as she trained at Bristol Old Vic.
Directed by the Lyric’s Artistic Director Rachel O’Riordan, the play is adapted from Henrik Ibsen’s classic play by acclaimed playwright Gary Owen.
O’Riordan and Owen coming back together reunites the team behind the critically acclaimed Iphigenia in Splott, Romeo and Julie and Killology.
Joining Smurfit in the cast are Callum Scott Howells (It’s A Sin) as Helena’s son Oz, Patricia Allison (Sex Education) as Reggie, Rhashan Stone (Tambo and Bones, Keeping Faith) as Anderson and Deka Walmsley (Roots, Look Back in Anger) as Jacob.
Owen’s version of Ghosts sets the story in present-day England. The play follows Helena, who has spent years managing her late husband’s legacy and is preparing for the opening of a children’s hospital in his name. When her son, Oz, returns home for the unveiling, his own plans bring hidden family tensions to the surface.
Victoria Smurfit took a break from rehearsals last week to chat to The Irish World.
How are rehearsals going?
“It’s extraordinary.
“It’s been an absolutely terrifying process because I haven’t done theatre in 17 years, so it’s been a fascinating rollercoaster reminding myself.
“I trained in theatre and I just haven’t been able to do theatre for so long.
“It’s an amazing process getting back to the beginning, getting back to grassroots.
“It’s fantastic.
“The theatre itself is stunning and the people are great craic.”
Wow, 17 years. Why has it been so long?
“Really I think the truth of it is probably being able to afford to do theatre because I was giving birth to and raising three kids and they’re expensive little blighters, so the predominant reason would genuinely be that.
“And also, I guess, the opportunity. You take the opportunities that come your way, and it didn’t really.
“I spent nine, ten years in Los Angeles and they do have a theatre culture there but it’s much smaller and so much harder to break into.
“I think it’s just been a confluence of events and I’m thrilled that Rachel O’Riordan asked me to be part of this.
“It’s the triumvirate of Gary Owen doing the adaptation and it’s a brilliant modern adaptation, Rachel O’Riordan who is a goddess and extraordinary at everything she does.
“You always want to know that the top of the tree is kind, talented and very special in the way they deal with people, because it means everybody else does.
“And because she’s so extraordinarily talented and open and honest and fun, it allows all the rest of us to be like that.
“And then you have the Lyric Hammersmith, it’s a beautiful place.
“It really is.
“It’s also got a reputation of having really diverse audiences and that will be a really exciting thing to be part of.”
You described joining this cast as being like ‘a wish I had not been brave enough to wish for but one I am thrilled has now come true’, is it a role you have always wanted to play?
“No, not at all.
“The dream coming true bit is really of being able to get back to the stage in a place where you feel minded and you don’t feel like an eejit if you’ve forgotten which way is upstage and which way is downstage.
“Because it’s been so long and to do a piece that’s so emotionally complex but also it’s fascinating to me that the things that Ibsen was talking about, so much of it is still relevant when you put it in a modern perspective.
“The script is genius but most importantly the people are divine.
“Every job you do, it’s the people first.”
Obviously this is a contemporary retelling of the story but has it kept all its themes of religion, euthanasia etc?
“Well, Gary has done a very clever thing and some of Ibsen’s themes he’s inverted.
“It’s not a classic scene by scene translation at all.
“It is very much how we now think of religion and what is sickness and where does it come from and that massive grey area in morality.
“And that’s true for all the characters so we’re having a real investigation of, ‘How grey will you go with your moral compass?”
Let’s talk about Helena. How do you see her as a character?
“Nobody in this play is a hero or a villain, nobody.
“Everybody is shades of and it’s on a sliding scale.
“And Helena, I think, makes an awful lot of decisions that work short term and those decisions that she makes are all kind of coming to fruition.
“I think the lid is being taken off the lies that we tell ourselves.
“It’s that thing of, you might not be a bad person, you might just do a bad thing.
“She loves her son so much and her overriding desire is to protect him and the way she protects him was not necessarily the right choice for him but it was the right choice for him from her perspective.
“So it’s all about perspectives.
“It’s all about the grey areas.
“It’s all about the decisions we make and the fallout.
“It’s all about where we lie, when you know you’re lying, when you don’t know you’re lying, why you’re lying.
“It’s definitely complicated but hopefully the work we’ve done will make it very palatable and digestible because human beings are complicated.
“We’re a mess.”
Do you think she’s changed? Has Helena’s character changed from the original for this modern version?
“I think it’s given her a broader scope of what is considered acceptable in a woman’s behaviour.
“But it’s amazing how some things don’t change.
“Some of her decisions were made 25 years ago and even from the 25 years ago, from her son being very little to now: Those perceptions and those moralities and what’s acceptable changes, and she’s playing catch up.
“She’s playing catch up.
“She’s definitely more of a modern beast than the original but the core elements are still very much there.”
Two big things in the story seem to be secrets and legacy and how secrets can destroy a legacy. Is that fair to say?
“Very much so.
“The reference of ghosts is the shadow of the ghosts from the sins of your father, the sins of your mother, and how they are handed down and how the ghosts of the decisions you’ve made and the repercussions, how they shadow your life.
“And how can you truly get out from under what has gone before you whether it’s on a DNA level or whether it’s on a reputational level?
“Can you get out from under what has gone before you?”
As we have both said, Helena is focused on protecting her son but what about protecting herself? Does that almost take a backseat?
“I think she’s quite performative in how she exists in the world.
“We all have coping mechanisms as human beings and hers are like that classic thing of, the tabletop is clean but the drawers are messy.
“She just shoves everything in a drawer to be able to make everything palatable for everybody else.
“She forgets to take care of herself.
“Through the course of the play all the lies, white lies, untruths, the narrative she’s given herself, the narrative she’s given her son, the narrative she gives the outside world: That all comes crumbling down and she finds the simplicity of truth.”
The play is well named because she is actually haunted, isn’t she?
“100 %, yeah.
“Everybody is and the spectre of her husband looms large everywhere.
“He might be dead and gone but his actions, his decisions, the way he wasn’t well has coloured everybody’s lives and she’s living under the ghost of her husband and trying to find a way out.”
You said before that it is amazing how some things do not change in updating a play from 1881. Does that mean this play, like Ibsen’s other play A Doll’s House with its message of female independence, was somewhat ahead of its time?
“I think human behaviour can change externally but internally, I don’t think it does very much.
“Ibsen was writing to shock society, he was writing to lift the rocks up and see what’s under them but under a veil of not discussing it on the nose because you couldn’t legally in the theatre back then whereas now we have a much more open modern perspective, where you actually want to discuss the tough stuff, you want to laugh at the wrong things, you want to have your morality challenged.
“It’s like this whole play is like a game of scruples.
“What’s interesting about doing something on the stage that deals with stuff that is quite taboo is that you get to kind of lift the lid on what some people might be thinking or how some people might cope.
“A lot of the time it’s not what would be correct in polite society.”
They’re long ago now but how did you enjoy previous stage work?
“I did a play at the Tricycle (now Kiln) in Kilburn called 10 Rounds.
“It was Edna O’Brien’s son Carlo Gebler’s play which was amazing.
“I really enjoyed that.
“That was a long time ago now.
“It(Ghosts)’s not my first play in London but it’s certainly my first play in 17 years.
“The last time I was on stage was at the Olympia with Pauline McGlynn.
“My son was only a few weeks old who’s now nearly 17.”
Did you always know you wanted to act?
“No.
“According to my mum, yes but I think I worked it out when I was doing A Levels and theatre studies A Level came to the school I was at and I did that because it felt like a less kind of tits and teeth way, jazz hands way of investigating the theatre,
“And I fell in love with it.
“Then my teacher at the time said, ‘Get thyself to drama school’.
“Once you get the bug…”
So then it was Bristol Old Vic. What was that like? Was it exciting? Was it scary?
“Yeah, it was amazing just being able to leave home and go and find out.
“I was about 18 and so at that stage, you’re just so gung ho and ready for anything and excited to learn and fail and work it out and live on smash and have a great time.
“I’m sure it was terrifying at the time but I loved it.
“I love a bit of fear.”
You recently led the crowds through the streets of Dublin as the grand marshal of the city’s St Patrick’s parade, what was that like as an experience?
“That was amazing.
“That was such an amazing opportunity.
“I mean, what an honour.
“What a day it was.
“I just loved it.
“I got to meet so many people.
“I got to feel the joy of just such pride in our country.
“It was just amazing.”
I wanted to mention Rivals especially as there’s a second series coming. What is it like being part of something like that?
“Yeah, we start very soon.
“It’s really, really exciting and I can’t wait to see everybody and to read the scripts and get back into Maud (O’Hara).
“I’m really looking forward to that.
“That will be such a treat.”
How have you found the reaction to it?
“Extraordinary.
“It was kind of a global phenomenon.
“We were just hoping not to be cancelled with all the outrageous things going on in it and wondering how people would take it but thankfully, I think everybody was so excited to have joy and fun and silly but It’s all very heartfelt.
“It’s very truthful.
“It’s highly entertaining.
“It’s a view into the 80s for the younger generation.
“My eldest is like, ‘Whoa. That’s what the 80s were like’.
“And I’m like, ‘Well..’
“And Dominic Treadwell-Collins and Laura Wade just wrote it so well.
“And I was always a massive fan of Dame Jilly Cooper’s books.
“I read all of them from the time I was 14 so to be part of it was just the most astronomical pleasure and honour I can’t even tell you.”
Was one of the best things about it that it brought you together with Aidan Turner again, you two would have acted together earlier on in your career..
“Well, it’s funny.
“We didn’t act together but we were in the same thing.
“We were both in The Clinic (RTE) but we were in different parts of the clinic.
“He’s always a delight to be around.
“He’s such a gentleman.
“He’s such a talent.
“And I think, as two Irish actors, we had sort of a shorthand so we could go and do all the crazy scenes and not worry about anything or think about anything, just get on and have fun.
“It’s always a delight to work with Aidan.”
You mentioned your oldest daughter Evie. She has been very open, even speaking on The Late Late Show about being affected by Macular Dystrophy which means her eyesight continues to deteriorate. You must be so proud of how she has faced that..
“Yeah, I am.
“I am endlessly proud of that kid and I also think it’s the ultimate contrary Irish woman: She’s told she’s losing her sight and she’s an artist!
“Yes, I’m so proud of her.
“She’s a great advocate and I love how she speaks up for the condition which not many people knew about- I certainly didn’t- so that other kids that are being diagnosed have someone they can go, ‘Oh, okay, well she’s doing well, so we’ll be fine’.
“And I think that’s really powerful.
“She’s a very powerful young lady.”
Back to the play we talked about some themes but one more I wanted to bring up was faith.
Does faith come up in Ghosts?
“Faith comes into it but it comes into it in a really interesting way.
“It’s at times subverted but it comes in a very interesting way.
“It does come in in much more of a modern lens rather than back in the 1800s, he’s using it in a very clever way.”
How are enjoying working with the cast?
“They’re amazing.
“I mean it’s such an ensemble piece and they’re extraordinary.
“They really are.
“We feel like a lovely little team.
“They’re my family now and I’m in awe of their talent.
“I just love coming to work every day.
“It’s fantastic.”
Since you are enjoying it so much does that mean there will not be such a long gap before you do theatre again? Will you do more theatre before too long?
“If I’m allowed, yes.”
Ghosts plays at the Lyric in Hammersmith until 10 May. For more information and to book, click here.
