"Theatre is where my heart is," says Lorcan ahead of Galway performance with Druid

Lorcan loves mixing the different acting forms but if he were to be confined to one for the rest of his days it would be theatre, even though it requires more stamina, he says.

Stamina is certainly required for 'A Moon for the Misbegotten', set in rural Connecticut the 1920s, in which Lorcan plays Phil Hogan, a widower, who is leasing a farm from James Tyrone, a troubled character, based on the playwright’s troubled older brother.

Eileen Walsh plays Phil’s daughter, Josie, who wants to escape from her Irish father’s domineering clutches, while their landlord is played by Druid regular Marty Rea. Cathal Ryan returns to the company as Josie’s younger brother, Mike while another Druid regular Rory Nolan plays neighbouring farmer, T. Stedman Harder. The production is directed by the company’s artistic director Garry Hynes.

“We have a powerful piece of theatre on our hands and I hope we serve the man well,” says Lorcan on a break from rehearsals in Dublin as cast and director prepare to move to Galway. There's a final week of rehearsals here before the 'tech' and previews.

Lorcan toured Australia with Druid in 1987 with 'Playboy of the Western World' and he worked with Garry Hynes on Tom Murphy’s 'Famine' when she was in the Abbey Theatre, but has never performed with the company in Galway.

He was on stage here in 2022 with Decadent Theatre, when that company staged its praised adaptation of Donal Ryan’s novel, 'From a Low and Quiet Sea', at Nuns’ Island for that year's arts festival.

Now he’s back, but because 'A Moon for the Misbegotten' is in the Town Hall, “I still haven’t got to perform in the theatre itself”, he observes of the Mick Lally. That makes it one of the few Irish theatres Lorcan hasn’t trod the boards of.

This is also his first time in an O’Neill play although he’s worked with pretty much every major company in Ireland and the UK, in plays by Frank McGuinness, Tom Murphy and Marina Carr, as well as the English classics.

As a teenager in Dublin, Lorcan was involved in amateur theatre, and became so smitten he decided to pursue it professionally.

“I was advised to attend drama school if I was going to act all the time,” he recalls. “There were no such things in Ireland back then.”

So, in 1980, he auditioned for London’s Royal Academy of Arts, one of the very few Irish people to take that fiercely competitive route back then.

It might have been unusual, but there were two successful Irish entrants that year. Cork’s Fiona Shaw, who has won multiple awards and featured in hit series such as 'Killing Eve' and 'Fleabag 'was a fellow student.

Lorcan’s own TV career includes 'Cracker', 'Ballyskissangel', 'Bloodlands' and, more recently, 'Leonard and Hungry Paul'. Films include 'Dancing at Lughnasa', as well as home productions such as 'Róise and Frank'. 'Lakelands' and 'Tarrac'.

But in 1980, that was all in the future. His decision to pursue acting was, he remarks, “a big risk”.

Apart from his mother “who was involved in the fringes of amateur drama”, Lorcan’s family had no involvement with theatre.

“There was a lot of music and my sister has taken up that baton,” he says referring to musician and composer Ellen Cranitch, who presents Lyric FM’s ‘Vespertine’.

Lorcan didn’t realise what he was letting himself in for when he applied to RADA, along with hundreds of other hopefuls from all over the world.

“There were 22 places in the class and I managed to slip in,” he says with a laugh.

Since then, “there’s been quite a few more who went there”. But then there were just two and, to the best of his knowledge, he and Fiona Show are the only members of that year still working professionally, a testament to what a tough career it is.

For the young Irishman who had never lived away from home before, these were exciting years.

“London was going through a big change. It was the punk era and Thatcher was in power. There was a lot of passion and energy, and I fed off that.”

There were challenges too and he recalls “doing an awful lot of growing up in the space of a few years”.

That involved the training at RADA, “where you had to be investigating your own soul and putting it out there”.

While his mother was more intrigued by his career than his father was, the older man, who worked in the civil service for 47 years, “rolled with it, not knowing it was possible to do acting professionally”.

When Lorcan applied to RADA, he was involved in the now-defunct Irish Theatre Company, doing plays like 'Our Town' and 'Enemy of the People'. Its director Christopher Fitz-simons, who also served as artistic director of the Abbey and Lyric Theatres, advised him to go train in London and then return.

“But I got sucked into the system,” he says with a laugh of staying in the UK.

After college, he began working with the renowned Citizens Theatre in Glasgow. As time went on, more roles came along, including in hits like, 'Cracker' and 'Ballykissangel'. Lorcan worked in Ireland too, and “had a foot in London and back here for 16 years”. Finally, he moved home.

Things have changed greatly in in the business since he started, and competition for roles has become more fierce.

“I’d hate to be trying to get started now,” he observes.

But there have been positives too.

“There is a lot of work and a lot of projects and more stuff is being made, due to streaming services. Ireland is flying as far as TV and film is concerned and you’d hope it’s reflected in people’s welfare.”

As for himself, there was never a real possibility of any other career.

Years after he’d graduated, Lorcan was at home with his dad watching an episode of 'Cracker'. When it finished, he asked his father, ‘what do you think?’.

His dad replied, ‘it’s good’, leading Lorcan to query, ‘do you think I made the right choice?'. Recalling his dad’s response, he laughs.

It was: ‘Yeah, but I wouldn’t have ruled out the mechanical engineering completely.’

His son had no doubts. “I’m absolutely thrilled I didn’t do that and I'm too old for it now.”

‘A Moon for the Misbegotten’ is at the Town Hall Theatre from September 14-26. Tickets €26- €38, plus booking at tht.ie or 091-569777.