MAEVE ON STAGE

The early eighties was a time of Boy George, Rubik's Cubes and 'Who Shot JR?'. This is the era director Jim Culleton has set out to recreate in Wired To The Moon, which plays at Dublin's Andrew's Lane theatre from March 5th-31st, then tours nation-wide for nearly two months. As with Culleton's previous adaptation, Troubled Hearts, this production is based on a series of short stories by Maeve Binchy, which focuses on "nervous brides, frazzled agony aunts, hassled dinner parties and manic staff rooms" and promises to be a "90-minute roller coaster ride" though the lives of its 36 characters, played by Noelle Brown, Sonya Kelly, Jenny Maher, Helen Norton, Arthur Riordan and Jasmine Russell. But do the six actors get 36 salaries?

"Thankfully not!" jokes Culleton. "But the whole thing is designed to take people back to the eighties when things were slightly more innocent in Irish society. And a lot of the stories that the play is based on were written by Maeve in the eighties so there will be the music of Boy George, Diana Ross, The Communards; all evocative of the time. In fact, not all the stories were written in the eighties - some were more recent - but when I adapted them I set them all in the 80s. I must have read hundreds of Maeve's short stories then choose six to show what life was like in Ireland twenty years ago."
Culleton insists that reading hundreds of Maeve Binchey's short stories was "not a gruelling task" but "totally enjoyable and left me feeling I could do a PHD on Maeve!" So, okay, what then does Jim see as the continuing core appeal of Binchey's writing?
"She's absolutely brilliant at observing the small things in life that are hugely truthful and that people recognise instantly," he suggests.
"So even though the actual, overall circumstances of the stories are different - in this play there are stories about people working in insurance companies, teachers and even journalists - the specifics she observes strike to the core. And she does that in a very funny and entertaining way, while managing to get at something deeper. There is, say, a lot of pathos in this play. Overall it's very funny but one story, in particular, deals with two parents separating and the story is seen through the eyes of their seven year old. That whole story is immensely moving. She can turn the knife when she wants to."
But this does bring us to a core question about Maeve Binchey. Many readers of hotpress, who were actually born in the 80s, might see Maeve as "old school" or "traditional" and unable to speak either for or to them.
"I'd say they're wrong, if they thought that!" Culleton responds. "Maeve Binchy has an amazingly ability to say something about human nature in an unchanging sense. Human nature doesn't change that much over a generation or two. Even though society does. And I believe she is incredibly insightful in terms of what really makes people tick. Whatever their age. The way Maeve does get inside the mind of a seven-year-old boy was a revelation to me because I thought 'these are not the sort of characters she usually gets engrossed in.' But she does accurately capture the feelings of that boy."
Jim Culleton even suggests that those who may be sceptical about Maeve Binchy along these very lines should come and see Wired To The Moon. Likewise, if they are coming to her work for the first time.
"People will be surprised by the array of characters in this play" he says. "And people who read the script were taken aback. Especially if they didn't know Maeve's work but had a particular view of what she's all about. Sceptical or otherwise. The play shocked or surprised them in many ways. So although we, obviously, hope the play will appeal to people who are fans of Maeve Binchy, we also hope people who might be sceptical about her work would find something in it they hadn't really noticed till now. That element of timelessness."