Unfinished business

'Latch', a play performed at an incomplete housing estate outside Cork city, makes for an unsettling experience, but that's the whole point, writes BRIAN O'CONNELL

GIVEN THE seemingly insatiable appetite for off-site and site-specific theatre in Cork, perhaps it was inevitable that Cork Midsummer festival would be one of the first events to spawn a theatre show in a partly finished housing estate.

Latch, a new play about about a "haunting vision of suburbia through the eyes of a child", previews in Cork from tonight and has been more than two years in the making by the up-and-coming theatre company Hammergrin.

The audience witnesses the journey of a young boy, nicknamed Latch, who spends his evenings outside his home waiting for someone to return. Only 18 audience members will be able to view the production each night from the windows of unoccupied houses in one part of the Harbour Heights Estate, in Passage West, outside Cork city. The action will take place outside, on a communal green area and in fields once earmarked for further development and now inhabited by livestock.

The production team are careful not to describe the development as a ghost estate. The area is well presented and maintained, particularly given the low rate of occupancy in some parts of the development. But, as a setting for exploring the disconnect between childhood and adulthood, between what children want and what adults provide, it is a well-chosen and entirely relevant backdrop. Adults may have paid the financial price for miscalculating the required scale of construction of this housing estate, but the next generation have inherited these estates as backdrops to their childhoods.

The writers, Sara-Jane Power and John McCarthy (who are a couple off-set with plans to marry this summer), are very much on the same script when it comes to discussing the production, often finishing each other sentences, or taking on concepts and expanding on them almost in relay.

“The first draft we had last year was exclusively set in a fictional town in 1950s America called Agony, New Mexico,” says McCarthy. “We had to come back after a reading of it and ask ourselves what was the question we were trying to ask?”

Power picks up from there: “Then we sat down and rebuilt it and tried to see what defined us. We had this random idea of going for a sense of abandonment and we starting thinking about ghost estates.”

“It became about who would imagine such a place,” McCarthy continues, “and what would a young person think of today as a fantasy world. We also became conscious of how much of our subconscious is steeped in America. The ghost estate has always been there, where it is a living estate.”

“It is not overtly about ghost estates though,” says Power. “We were thinking of doing a show about that, but it is not really about that anymore.”

“I think it is like reversed engineering,” says McCarthy. “The original draft planted a seed and that spawned a whole new show. The basic story is about a boy, Latch, locked out of his house, and he is a loner on the estate where no one else his age lives. The audience will be watching it from inside the houses.”

“Latch symbolises the passage of youth into some kind of fall of innocence, and corruption,” says Power. “We like the idea of watching something and standing by and not doing anything.”

The production requires 24-hour security to protect the set, and some lighting and sound challenges need to be overcome. The audience will hear the action through the use of speakers and microphones, and the sunset will be used as part of the production to help light the action.

Hammergrin have form in using natural terrain and dwellings for their work: their last play, Hollander, transformed a house into a set at Cork's North Mall, complete with fake rooms and walls. It received Arts Council funding and an Irish Timestheatre award nomination for best production in the process.

But what is so wrong with the traditional stage?

“We’re just drawn to the experience of off-site work,” says McCarthy. “We’re not against regular theatre. For this show, really we were drawn to the element of authenticity of the timeline outdoors. We like the idea of Latch in his school uniform on the green as it gets darker and darker. We think it should be very unsettling.”

Later in the week, at the rehearsals for Latchat the Graffiti Theatre Company building in Blackpool, the assembled actors make up a strong cast: Raymond Scannell, Ciarán Birmingham (just back from America where he stars in the new HBO series Game of Thrones), Charlie Kelly, Róisín O'Neill. Latch will be played by two young lads, Ben Mulcahy and Doug Queally.

The rehearsal scenes have shades of film noir, Marvel comic heroes, inner-city Cork and some decent Columbo impersonations, while a feeling of danger is never far away. Power, who also directs the production, calmly reminds the cast of what their surroundings would look like, telling them to look to the hill behind or be aware of the houses in front.

The child characters seem to come out of the play far better than the adults, who are constantly stressed about things such as broadband or phone connections. There was a bleakness to it and a sense of disillusionment and mistrust with the environment adults had created. Add to that tone a partially occupied housing estate 15km outside Cork city, as daylight is fading, and it should make for an unsettling experience – which, of course, is entirely the point.

Latchis at the Harbour Heights estate, in Passage West, Cork, from Monday until June 26th; corkoperahouse.ie; corkmidsummer.com

Highlights Cork Midsummer Festival

Spiegeltent

The return of the Spiegeltent is one of the musical highlights of the year in Cork. In  previous festivals, the organisers managed a good balance between local acts and international performers. This year it will
include perfomances from Camille O'Sullivan, Cathy Davey, Jape and the West Cork Ukulele Orchestra.

Also taking part are the L’Orchestra D’Hommes-Orchestres, who perform Tom Waits, Mick Flannery with Katie Kim, as well as The Walls with Brian Deady.

Shows runs nightly from Tuesday to 25th, excluding Sundays.

Open-air opera

Fitzgerald’s Park is the outdoor venue for a live transmission of Puccini’s Tosca on a big screen direct from the Palau de les Arts Reina Sofía in Valencia.

The international cast is led by Oksana Dyka, Jorge de León and Bryn Terfel, together with the Orquestra de la Comunitat Valenciana and the Cor de la Generalitat Valenciana. The performance is conducted by maestro Zubin Mehta and takes place on Monday at 6.15pm.

Admission is free but ticketed.

Laurie Anderson at Triskel

Christchurch

The American performer Laurie Anderson takes to thewonderful surrounds of Triskel Christchurch on the final night of the Midsummer Festival on June 26th. Her work encompasses performance, film, music and installation, and this is her first Cork outing. Tickets are €35 and available from either the Triskel or the festival.

Family-friendly circus

Cirque Mandingue from Guinea perform Foté Foré (Black White), looking at life through acrobatics, dance and music. Nine performers take to the stage, using djembe drums, as well as some hip-hop and break dancing. Expect cartwheels, multiple back-flips and vaulting stunts. The performance takes place in Cork Opera House on Thursday and Friday. Tickets cost €18/€12 or €50 for a family ticket.

Corcadorca return

Now a regular fixture of the Midsummer Festival, Corcadorca this year presents Request Programme by Franz Xaver Kroetz. It's an intimate site-specific show held in apartment No 109 of the Elysian Tower. The show is non-verbal, drawing the audience into the world of its lone character, which is played by Ifta-winning
actress Eileen Walsh.

Capacity is limited so book early. It runs from Monday to July 7th (excluding Sundays). Tickets cost €20/€15.