Comedy Carnival play explores highs and lows of Singlehood
Una McKevitt describes herself as “a bit of a lone wolf” when it comes to making theatre, so it seems only natural that the Dubliner has created the drama Singlehood, which will play Galway’s Town Hall Theatre on next Friday and Saturday, October 24 and 25 as part of the Vodafone Comedy Carnival.
As the title suggests, it’s a piece that delves into the lives of singletons to reveal personal stories that are funny, raw and poignant.
“I’d had a lot of relationships over 10 years and hadn’t been single in that time. Coming out of the last one, I started thinking about that,” explains Una of the background to the piece.
That last relationship hadn’t been great for a while, she says, and the notion of singlehood became an increasing preoccupation. Una has a history of creating plays based on real-life stories, so with the help of a friend, she put out a Facebook appeal, asking people to tell their stories about being single.
Initially she cast a friend, a divorcee, to play various roles and she had thought the piece would evolve into a drama of stories from singletons she knew who would perform in it. But there wasn’t enough variety in that, so she teamed up with David Coffey (Dan & Becs, Fade Street) and they interviewed over 50 single men and women aged between 16-60. These were from different backgrounds with different experiences. Singlehood ran at Project Arts Centre as part of the 2012 Dublin Theatre Festival.
Then she started getting actors to perform the stories, and the piece became even livelier, she says.
And it grew still further after she attended the Sugar Club in Leeson Street one night where she saw comedian and singer Aidan Strangeman, who had won the 2014 So You Think You’re Funny Award in Edinburgh. His songs, some of them about online dating, struck a chord and she decided to ask him to become involved.
“They are on the right side of cheeky but they have poignancy to them too,” she says.
Now Singlehood consists of three strands, Una explains.
“There are stories from people we don’t know, there are stories from the cast and there are the songs.”
Direction and use of stage lighting allows the audience to differentiate between the different stories.
The show has a cast of seven actors, including comedians Eric Lalor and PJ Gallagher, as well as one musician.
It’s presented by UMCK productions, the name under which Una operates, although she stresses that she doesn’t have her own theatre company – she can’t afford to. She is a small operation and that works best for her.
“I got into theatre pretty late in 2008 as a mature student, and I didn’t have a big peer group. It was a funny time to be getting into theatre,” she says, referring to the start of the recession.
Her documentary plays have received a great reaction and this current production of Singlehood has been funded by an Arts Council touring grant.
For more, read this week’s Galway City Tribune.