Jersey actors to work on Westmeath accents for new play by Yvonne Heavey

Eilís Ryan

A group of actors in Jersey is likely to soon start seeking out the services of an accents coach – so they can sound authentic when they perform a new play – ‘The Wake of Yer Man’ – by the Rochfortbridge-born and Jersey-based writer, Yvonne Heavey.

Yvonne was commissioned by the Jersey Art House to write the play, an adaptation of the book of short stories she released last year, a cross-over between autobiography and short-stories, all built on the memories emanating largely from her experiences growing up in Derrygreenagh Park and Rochfortbridge, but also from Mullingar.

“The Art House really loved the short stories and because of my winning the Jersey Festival of Words they’ve given me a grant to put a play on here,” says Yvonne.

The play is to première on March 17 of next year.

As part of the application process, Yvonne prepared a “foundational script”, which incorporated The Wake of Yer Man and also other stories out of a total of 25 that Yvonne has written about her childhood in ‘The ‘Bridge’.

The competition was keenly-contested, so Yvonne was thrilled to be named as the grant-winner, and already, there is a director on board, and the casting is under way: “We’ve had all the auditions, and now we’re moving into callbacks,” she says, adding that it is likely the cast will be a mix of professional and accomplished amateurs.

“I have a month’s deadline to do more edits on the script, then I go to workshop with them – and when a cast comes together it’s a different energy, but there’ll be a big shout-out that we will need a voice coach for the accents because they’re brilliantly-talented actors, but they will have to work on their Westmeath accents!”

It is, she adds, a role that can be fulfilled remotely.

Fans will get the chance to watch the production evolve and develop, as alongside the play, a mini docu-series is being filmed, showing the play along its journey “from page to stage”.

Clips can be seen on the Facebook page ‘The Wake of Yer Man’, and the finished documentary is to include footage from last summer’s Westmeath launches of the book.

In time, Yvonne hopes to see the play tour: the director has connections with theatres in Berlin and Paris, and Yvonne hopes that it will be staged in Ireland, either at Mullingar Arts Centre or at a theatre in Dublin.

Yvonne is not allowing herself get to excited about it yet, but there is talk that the play may become precursor to a film: people have been loving the short stories, there is great affection for and interest in Ireland in Jersey, and the play is being seen as, to some extent, a teaser aimed at tempting some sponsors to come on board for the film version.

Jersey, Yvonne’s home for 23 years now, has, she says, really embraced her in a massive way over this play: “They’re really expecting something quite great for it,” she says, adding that it is a massive project.

Yvonne is finding the process of writing a play to be “incredibly different” to writing a short story. Fortunately, however, one of her strengths is in handling dialogue: “It’s a hard process but it’s a brilliant process and I love it; I can see the characters. It’s written to the extent of being a foundational play, and so it’s all just in editing now, editing is the hardest part of it.”

The actors getting involved are also excited: “A lot of the actors over here have said: ‘you know what? We’ve never worked with a writer before because what we normally do is we get given a script and told ‘just do this and play it this way, but this we’re seeing it from the page to stage which is very different, it hasn’t happened before over here’.”

Yvonne hasn’t lost touch at all with Westmeath: she is home around five or six times a year, and he next planned visit is at the start of June, when she intends launching a new book, ‘Page to Stage’, with the hopes that the books will help subsidise the cost of staging the play.