Katie makes mark with department store drama
Seeing a photo of her grandmother on strike in 1983 outside the renowned Dublin department store, Clerys, was the spark that inspired the first play from writer and actor Katie O’Kelly.
Counter Culture, developed by the 2013 Dublin Fringe Festival as part of its Play in a Bag Scheme, will come to Galway next week, having already enjoyed success at the Fringe and at venues countrywide.
Set on the shop floor of a major Irish department store, the action spans one day as it depicts the highs and lows of life on both sides of the counter.
There are 20 characters in this one-woman show, all of them played by Katie.
Writing and performing in a one-woman play with a strong social bent, is a fair achievement but perhaps it’s not totally surprising, given that Katie has been immersed in theatre and social issues since childhood. Her father is the writer, actor and director, Donal O’Kelly – whose one-man shows include Bat the Father, Rabbit the Son, and Catalpa the Movie – and her mother is the retired RTÉ producer Betty Purcell (Questions and Answers and The View). Both have a strong track record on social issues and so too, she learned, did her maternal grandmother.
Katie has had her own experience of working in a chain store and says that as an employee, “there was a whole system of hierarchies and relationships. It was a microcosm of society”.