Carolina Performing Arts hosted a question and answer seminar in the Center for Dramatic Arts with the Gate Theatre of Dublin.
The LAB! Hours session gave Carolina faculty, students and the public an opportunity to engage with Gate actors Rosaleen Linehan and Owen Roe, who both performed in Samuel Beckett’s “Watt” and “Endgame” at the Historic Playmakers Theatre this weekend.
In a familiar and witty tone, Linehan and Roe reflected on the challenges and rewards of stage acting, particularly in Beckett’s plays.
Roe said the stylized silences in Beckett’s scripts frustrated him most. Linehan, an animated, expressive woman with a gleaming gaze, struggled to keep her face blank and speak in monotone.
But Beckett’s difficult lack of naturalism has never dampened their spirits.
“Endgame was an enlightenment to me at quite an advanced age,” Roe said.
The actors encouraged students to consider Gate and the historic Trinity College in Dublin for study abroad.
Roe described the scenes surrounding the Gate and Trinity as vibrant and “happening” places for youth as well as historically important. The Gate was the first company to present performances of all of Beckett’s stage plays.
Notable actors who began their careers at the Gate include Orson Welles, James Mason and Michael Gambon. Roe recommended reading and watching “A Whistle in the Dark,” by Tom Murphy, an Irish dramatist who has worked with the Abbey Theatre in Dublin.
Dublin has a history of literary talent that resonates still, the actors added. Everyone carries a pen or laptop.
“The old joke,” said Roe, dryly. “‘I’m writing a book…’ ‘Yeah, neither am I’.”
But Linehan cautioned students not to expect fortunes from stage acting.
“As you can see, we didn’t come here in our furs,” she said merrily. Nor was it a guaranteed jumping-off point to Hollywood celebrity.
Though the Dublin streets are filled with “poor” people, the people have authentic passions, Linehan said, and she could not imagine anything more satisfying.
She recalled someone’s description of her as “an eternal schoolgirl,” always learning, with or without formal training. In her youth, a banker unexpectedly sponsored her university education, but her father expected her to study politics and economics. Much later, she would sit by the stage, riveted by her fellow actors.
She wondered, “How do they do that?” and figured it out for herself.
Read more about Gate Theatre’s performances this weekend from staff writer Sarah Haderbache “here”:http://www.dailytarheel.com/index.php/article/2011/11/beckett_1102.
To get the day's news and headlines in your inbox each morning, sign up for our email newsletters.
